Part 3: Unexpected Tragedies and All


One of the most terrifying and exhilarating moments of an EMTs life was when the lights started flashing and the trauma ward loudspeakers came to life broadcasting a request for a team of first responders. An even more terrifying moment was when the broadcast started to add details of the incident for the first responders semi-privately through personal communication sets as they piled into their ambulances, switch-shift nurses lugging hypothermia kits as they dove in through the closing doors.

The horrifying part set in when the emergency details expanded to describe children as the victims, delivered by a flat impersonal voice of the hospital dispatcher, streamed throughout the rear cabin of the screaming vans as the medics clung to their seats with white-knuckled fingers, bracing their feet against the gurney as the ambulances took sharp turns and nearly sent them sliding.

In more solemn moments, Michio would wonder how the parents of some of the children he'd attended had felt to see those red and white vans tearing down the street with sirens wailing like mourners; always wondered who they'd blamed for things gone wrong. He was always grateful that he worked at Konoha University Hospital which had a large adjunct trauma call center and that they never had to call around to see if any hospital would take their emergency.

Eri, having helped Nanori expand the pediatric and trauma networks within their hospital system, only liked to think of the parents' and relatives' relief as their child or loved one was wheeled through the emergency bay doors with a bevy of doctors in immediate attendance. Too many people died from delayed treatment because of denied entrance.

Neither one could know how far their estimation of a parents' true feelings had been from the truth until the moment their ambulance pulled up on their street, screeching to a halt in their own driveway where the gates were flung wide open like a surprised mouth. A picture of quiet drama was painted in the milieu of the front steps, the front door to the house bashed open and swinging back and forth on ghostly breezes.

A white-faced Kakashi was garishly illuminated by the ambulance's flashing lights, damp hair glistening red and gray as he shook in his blanket, crouched over a bundle on the ground and pressing a red-stained towel to something in it. Next to him, a blue-tinged Izumo slumped against the side of the house, loosely wrapped in a blanket and clutching a towel to his face as dark red sluggishly bled out around the corners, a bedraggled fox pup cradled in his arms. Kushina, shivering badly and extremely pale, was gently cradling his head at an angle and whispering in his ear, shaking his arm every time he started to go limp.

Minato, clutching a cell phone to his ear and speaking lowly to the dispatcher, was sitting on the lower steps clutching a limp bundle with yet another blood-soaked towel pressed to it, a wet tuft of brown trailing over his arm. He was also wet and shaking.

"What's the situation!" Michio barked, roughly pushing down his gut-wrenching panic as Eri stumbled from the ambulance with a bitten-back gasp. He was the team leader and cool heads were a must among first responders. He had to treat this like he would complete strangers.

Minato's head jerked up, eyes heavy-lidded and glassy. A bad sign of hypothermia.

The boy clumsily tried to stand, looking surprised when his limbs failed him and the cellphone fell from his limp fingers to clatter on the ground. A worse sign.

As the medics swarmed the children, Michio mentally rewrote his list of "worst case scenarios for an EMT" and placed "being the first responder for your own loved one" at the top. When he saw the condition of the boys' faces and hands as they were strapped to gurneys, he would add "seeing the raw wounds" to that statement.

Separating the children was surprisingly difficult. A shivering Kushina left first, still clutching Izumo and applying pressure to his face as an EMT helped lift the boy's lower half onto the gurney locked into the ambulance. Kotetsu was barely conscious and whimpered as his gurney bumped its way onto the second ambulance bed, flailing in delirious panic and calling for Iruka before a nurse secured his arm and hushed him. Kakashi suddenly grew clingy and morosely held onto Minato's shirt tail as the teen kept him from climbing aboard Iruka's ambulance, watching with despair as the doors closed on him.

"I'll leave some team members to attend you both," Michio offered gruffly as the twin wails of the first two ambulances started up. "There won't be room for everyone right now."

Minato nodded dumbly, startling as a small cold hand slid into his. He looked down at the gray-headed boy clinging to him.

"My father will be home soon," Kakashi said quietly. "He can take us."

Michio nodded abruptly and climbed into the ambulance holding his son's body, casting his wife a brief glance. She was pale and carefully wetting the towel on Iruka's face so she could lift it and replace it with a clotting cloth. She was tapping a foot in a nervous staccato but her hands were steady; frail looking but firm.

He rocked back as the ambulance backed down the driveway, threw itself into a fast K-turn and shot down the street with a wail. He had never been so glad for the deafening cacophony of beeps and sirens and radio chatter as he was at that moment. He couldn't hear himself think, didn't want to think.

The sound was so loud he almost didn't hear his son coming to as Eri tucked the insulating blanket around his shoulders. He thought he was hearing things until he crouched next to the gurney and almost had his face smashed into the steel sidebar as the van swerved.

"'tou-chan?" Iruka whispered, woozy from the sedative dripping into the IV now attached to his arm.

"It's okay, Iruka-kun. We're going to the hospital," Michio said quietly, aching as he touched his son's hair.

A sudden shout from the drivers of "BRACE!" made him tense as one of the ambulance wheels, already spinning uselessly from the slippery road, hit a patch of ice and the ambulance skidded sharply to one side... And kept skidding. Right into oncoming traffic.

When the truck plowed into the side of the van, Eri threw herself over the gurney as a pile of emergency kits broke free and rained upon her. Michio struck his head against the diamond-plated steel grille that divided the drivers from the cargo bay and slumped, watching the world turn over itself from far away.

His last thought before unconsciousness took him was that lists were a pretty poor way of classification. Any trip to the hospital was going to be a terrible way to end anyone's day.


NOTES

EMT – Emergency Medical Technician (also nurses and paramedics). Basically nurses or trauma care specialists who are the first responders (i.e. first people on the scene after someone calls emergency, 119 in Japan). They may also be regular shift doctors and nurses and may not always be constrained to ambulance duty. In a university hospital, they may also be active professors and students.

Japan and Korean are known for turning away ambulances due to lack of space and ambulances must try every hospital along the way until one accepts them or until the patient expires. The record for denials on a single emergency trip for a single person is 48. They will, however, accept their own ambulance or an ambulance of an affiliated hospital regardless of space allowance unless under extreme duress.