Author's Notes: Hopefully we'll get somewhere this chapter! I really shouldn't be writing this... its 1AM and I have to be up in six and a half hours for school… ahh well :P
Chapter 2: First Response
The ER was noisy; bleary cries and heart-wrenching screams from the patients and automated, frantic calls from doctors and nurses as they attempted to treat the worst of the injuries the crash victims had sustained; leaving minor lacerations and bruises to be dealt with later. Chase blew his hair from in front of his eyes before moving into the next cubicle; donning a new pair of latex gloves and smiling a little at the man laid in the bed.
"Hey," he greeted, somewhat relieved to be treating someone who was conscious "I'm Doctor Chase,"
"Luke Anthony," the man replied, swallowing "God my leg hurts," he gripped his thigh with his right hand; the material of his chinos crumpling beneath his fingers and Chase's eyes followed further down until they reached the blood soaked area of fabric.
"I'm gonna have to cut these off," he informed Luke, picking up a pair of scissors and moving to the foot of the bed.
Luke looked like he was going to protest but it seemed another jolt of pain hit him and he nodded, biting his bottom lip until it went white "whatever you need," he muttered.
Chase nodded and started cutting up the pant leg, pulling the table closer to him and traded the scissors for gauze and alcohol, the silence wasn't entirely uncomfortable as it allowed him to work methodically through cleaning and suturing the lesion without having to think up idle questions and even idler answers. He looked up sharply when the curtain was flung back and Luke jerked in indignation at the interruption, despite the fact he was more than decent.
"Doctor Chase," the nurse was new, flustered and her flyaway hair looking crazier than normal "there's a woman in the hall – she's just started convulsing!"
Sparing a brief glance for his current patient as he tore off his gloves and tossed them aside, he satisfied himself that Luke Anthony would be okay in the hands of the nursing staff he hurried to the hall, immediately identifying the aforementioned woman; two nurses already trying to hold her steady but she was flailing so much it was a nigh on impossible feat. He lurched to help, pulling a penlight from his pocket and shining it into the woman's eyes "get me five milligrams of diazepam!" he called out, putting his hands on the woman's violently shaking shoulders as one of the nurses relinquished their hold to retrieve the syringe and needle.
Swabbing the inside of the woman's elbow he injected the fluid straight into the vein and a moment later the seizure stopped. The nurses released the woman and Chase stepped back, pulling his penlight out again and checking the patient's pupil dilation before skimming over the rest of her battered body for any obvious causes for the seizure.
Blood seeped steadily through the flimsy material of her powder-blue shirt, staining it scarlet; her pants were covered in dust and small pieces of debris clung to her hair, smoke and dirt smudged her skin and clothes. Unbuttoning the woman's shirt, the source of the blood became clear; a piece of metal was lodged into her side, just between the fifth and sixth rib and judging from the swelling that had already sprung to fruition and the amount of blood, it was likely to be a deep wound.
"Get her prepped for theatre," he instructed.
Cameron took a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding as she took in the ECG reading and watched Judy's systolic and diastolic pressure readings begin climbing again. The beeping that represented the steady beating of their patient's heart was a relief that loosened the iron hands that had gripped her chest at the prospect of losing Judy.
"We got a pulse," Foreman stated, eyes flicking across the monitor as Cameron replaced the panels on the crash cart.
There was a rapping on the door and Cameron glanced over at the large glass panels as Foreman continued to stabilise Judy; the little girl who'd been standing vigil over her mother was pressed right up against the door; the hand that was not clutching the rather bedraggled looking rabbit was stretched wide and flat against the glass. The nurse who was supervising the child was stood behind her, and from what Cameron could gather, she was trying to explain to Amber that she couldn't go and see her mom just yet.
"House knew that was gonna happen," Foreman said, as the door slid open and another nurse came in carrying the IV bags with the new medication.
"But I want to see mommy!" they heard Amber cry and Cameron saw her stamp her foot "why can't I see mommy?"
The nurse who had delivered the IV fluids, left again, sliding the door shut once more and the one keeping Amber occupied preventing the child from slipping through.
"He's… House," Cameron explained "he just knows things like that,"
Foreman raised an eyebrow at his colleague as he began transferring Judy onto the ACE inhibitors and antibiotics "how?"
Cameron shrugged, deflecting the question "I paged Chase,"
"So did I," he answered simply.
Anything else Cameron wanted to say was interrupted by the door once more sliding open, however this time at a much slower pace as the person opening it was shorter than the handle and therefore having to stand on the tips of her toes and throw her weight against it to even get it to move in the slightest.
"Mommy!" Amber cried, rushing for the bed.
"Hey," Cameron intercepted the girl and crouched in front of her "your mom…" she glanced up at Foreman whose expression remained entirely neutral and therefore unhelpful, looking back at the child she gave her an encouraging smile "she's very sick and…" she could not tell a five-year-old girl that her mother's heart had just stopped "you need to be really gentle with her for a little while okay?"
Amber nodded "can I touch her?" she asked as if she thought her mother would crack like china should anything come into contact with her.
"You can hold her hand," Cameron stood up and took Amber's hand, leading her around the bed to the side and hauling a chair over so Amber could sit down, once seated the red-headed little girl reached out and tentatively touched her mother's hand.
"You've gotta sit quietly though Amber," Foreman said calmly, plucking his pager from his pocket as Cameron looked at hers, their boss' name flashing on screen.
Amber nodded "I know,"
"Will you be okay here?" the Cameron asked.
"Uh-huh," the child replied.
"I'll keep an eye on her," the nurse assured the immunologist as the two doctors left the room.
His pager beeped and he unhooked it from his belt, glancing at the screen and seeing it was from Foreman he sighed and replaced it; he didn't have time to call the neurologist, chances are the only reason for the page was to get him back up to diagnostics so House could chew him out for not being there.
"Doctor!" a teenage boy said, there was a nasty looking gash on his forehead, blood caked the side of his face as the eyebrow had deflected its path straight into the eye, for the most part it looked dry but whether the wound was still bleeding or whether sweat was simply making it look wet Chase didn't know "have you see my girlfriend?"
"We need to get you looked at," Chase said, taking the boy's elbow and guiding him into a cubicle.
The boy wrenched out of his grasp "have you seen my girlfriend?" he demanded again.
Pushing the boy to sit back on the bed, Chase put on yet another pair of gloves and went to examine the laceration on the teenager's head "let's get this sorted out and then-"
The kid jerked back "have you seen her?" he repeated.
"Hey, easy," the Australian rebuked him softly and the teenager sat back down again, obviously feeling suitably foolish but the doctor did not fail to notice how tense the boy was as he somewhat reluctantly allowed his injuries to be addressed "what does your girlfriend look like?" Chase asked after a moment.
"Short… well not really, like, same height as me, almost… five-four maybe? Light brown hair with purple highlights in it… long, sort of down here," he gestured on his arm "she's…" he hesitated, as if unsure how to word the next part "well plump… have you seen her?"
"Was she on the bus?" he ignored the flinch the teenager gave when antiseptic was pressed against his head, particularly when the boy tried to shrug it off.
"We both were, fourth row from the back,"
"I need you to hold still for me," Chase said kindly, attempting to apply butterfly-strips to the injury but missing when the boy moved his head.
"Sorry," he mumbled "I just need to find Casey,"
"That your girlfriend's name?"
The boy nodded and looked suitably abashed when Chase gave him a pointed look and the teen stilled and allowed the doctor to finish applying the strips. Pulling his penlight out again he shone it into the teenager's eyes "pupils are slightly dilated. Are you feeling dizzy at all? Light headed?"
"A little,"
"What about nausea? Any discomfort?"
He shook his head then winced as it sent a throbbing pain behind his eyes.
"You've got a bit of a concussion. I'll send a nurse in with some painkillers; you just need to take it easy for a few hours-"
"I need to find Casey!" he leapt to his feet.
"Look…" he trailed off, realising he didn't know the teenager's name.
"Danny," he supplied shortly.
"Danny, you need to stay here,"
Danny glared at him.
"I'll see if I can find Casey," the blonde man conceded "but you need to stay here and keep calm,"
Seeing no other feasible option Danny nodded, and rolled his eyes when Chase refused to leave until the teen was sat back on the bed.
"Chase is in the ER," House stated, walking into Cuddy's office without even bothering to knock, as usual.
The administrator glowered at him and then spoke into her phone "I'm going to have to call you back," she apologised to the recipient of the call before replacing the handset "House…" she started but he cut her off.
"He didn't tell me he was going to be working there today,"
Cuddy got to her feet, her heels clipping on the floor as she moved around her desk "that's because he didn't know until he got in this morning," she walked passed him and pushed open her office door, walking straight out into the clinic and over to the nurse's station.
"You assigned him there," he accused.
"Yes," she answered shortly, skimming through the file she picked up "because there was an accident and they're short staffed,"
"He's on my team,"
Walking away, file in hand she threw back over her shoulder; "grow up House," before disappearing behind the door of an examination room.
The doors of the ER smashed open yet again; the gurney came hurtling through, wheels rattling as two paramedics brought it to a halt near another free bed.
"Severe lacerations on the chest, arms and torso, suspected broken ribs four through seven on the left, nine and ten on the right. Oxygen administered en route due to respiratory arrest in the ambulance," the paramedic reported as Chase approached, another doctor moving over to the second crash-victim who had just arrived; for victims to be arriving this long after the accident it meant that it had been far worse than most had imagined.
"Let's move her across,"
The two paramedics and a nurse helped Chase lift the girl in the sheet over to the bed; the paramedics departing soon after.
The girl looked about sixteen, and it only took a moment for him to pick out the most distinguishing feature about the teenager as a heart monitor was rigged up and the steady beeping floated from the machine. Her purple-streaked hair was matted with blood, her head held steady by the neck brace the paramedics had secured her in. Not a moment later the ECG emitted a shrill tone.
"She's in de-fib!" Chase called out, plunging the epi-needle into a vein and injecting it; he picked up the panels from the cart that was rushed over "charging one-eighty… clear!"
The girl's body jerked with the electrical surge that shot through her chest.
"That's Casey!" Danny's voice rang out above the rest as he ran over to the bed holding his girlfriend.
Shaking his head when he saw that the line was still flat Chase flicked the defibrillator up "charging two-fifty… Danny get out of the way," when Danny didn't move Chase added "get him back!" the panels once more made contact with Casey's chest.
Danny allowed the nurse to tug him out of the way after a moment's struggle, watching in numb horror as Casey's body jumped again but the line on the ECG remained determinately flat.
"Again," Chase stated, giving the panels a second to recharge before pressing them back against Casey's chest, the rhythmic beeping of the machine once more demonstrated the beating of the teenage girls' heart; he heard Danny let loose a breath somewhere behind him.
Casey's blood pressure slowly rose to more satisfactory levels over the course of the following few minutes, Danny watching from the sidelines despite his previous attempts to all but climb over the nurse holding him back. The paramedics had already gone back outside, the patient the regular ER doctor was tending too was conscious, and in subsequently better condition, at least aesthetically, than Casey; there was no telling what internal injuries the other crash-victim had sustained.
The doors crashed open again and heads whipped around to find out the source of the noise because even when gurneys came hurtling through at breakneck speed the doors didn't bounce off the walls like that.
"Nobody moves!"
"Excuse me," another attending ER doctor said, emerging from a cubicle "what's-"
"I said," and the figure raised his arm, the light glinting in a horrifyingly clichéd manner off the barrel of the 9mm in his hand "nobody, move,"
Author's Notes: That is such a huge cliché I'm cringing as I write it… anyway same as last time; review if you liked it, don't if you didn't.
