The yoyo momentum of the rope with its two dangling victims finally ceased. Brian tried to orient himself. Below was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard, machinery creaking and groaning, voices shouting ever closer.
"You did it man. We're getting down from here. Look, they're comin' for us," Brian rasped.
There was no response.
"Dude? Um, your friends are nearly here. Hey man, don't quit talkin' to me now…"
Brian could barely lift his arms after holding on for dear life for so long. He managed to reach up and tilt John's face toward him. He cried out at the grey blue tinge to the lips on the thin face before him.
Brain started talking to himself, his memory of basic life guarding techniques almost failing him when he needed them the most. His hand snaked out to find respirations but there were none. His abused fingers could barely form a seal of John's nose as he tried artificial respiration in the near impossible position. As for a pulse, who knew? Brian's hands were shredded beyond fine dexterity.
With each breath Brian gave to his rescuer, he grew dizzier but it wasn't like blowing up balloons for a party. He knew if he stopped, Gage would die. Blood pooled in his hand cupped behind John's head making it near impossible to keep him from swinging away. The dark hair became slick with Brian's blood. Brian took a second to swipe some blood from his hand before reapplying it to John's nose. He mumbled a dazed apology for the bright red streaks now emblazoned across John's blue shirt.
"Come on, man. I held on for you like you told me to once you took some of the weight. You gotta hold on for me now." Brian gave a few more puffs, finding it harder with each breath to get any air into Gage's lungs. Someone touched his back startling him. He'd wanted to cry for himself earlier. Now he wanted to cry for both of them.
XXXX
"It's okay, you can let him go now. Give 'im to me," a soft voice coaxed. "Everything's gonna be fine. You're okay."
"No. It's … not. Not … he's not breathing," Brian gasped, shaking worse than ever.
Roy continued trying to sooth the young man. It was clear he was going into shock from blood loss, adrenaline the only factor in his conscious state as he clung to his rescuer's limp body. Roy reached out, calling up to Mike and Marco.
"Give me some slack! Just a bit." Chet reached up and grabbed hold of Brian while Roy cut the ropes and the two victims were separated.
Roy gulped as he cut a loose coil of rope from his partner's upper torso just under his armpit.
"He's not … breathing," Brian said again.
"It's okay, we got him," the older paramedic told him dropping the wet noose like it was a poisonous snake. "It's okay now." He sounded so sure, his voice never wavering in the lie it was telling. "You just let us look after you now. You're both gonna be fine."
It was all the permission Brian needed to let go as he felt himself fall into hands, how many, he couldn't tell. He didn't care. He was getting down, thanks to some crazy firemen. He blinked a few times as he and his rescuer were strapped to backboards and closed his eyes as they sunk toward the ground.
Roy forced his stomach contents back down. The blue tinged, cold wet skin beneath his fingers pulsed weakly over the carotid but there were no breath sounds. Roy tilted John's head back, his fingers slipping on blood as he pinched the nostrils closed. Roy formed a complete seal but only some of the air he blew so strongly into his partner made it down to his starved lungs. John's cheeks puffed out on the next attempt.
Roy ripped the turnout coat open further trying to keep calm as the bruising on his partner's neck revealed the reason for the poor forced air intake.
"John? Johnny, don't do this, you have to breathe for me now," Roy scolded. It was all he could do not to shake his partner in a blind bystander-like panic. He forced himself to calm down and ignore the bloodied handprints on the blue shirt under the turnout. Seconds counted.
The basket scarcely touched the ground before Mike and Marco were down from the platform and Cap handed Roy the O2 and equipment. There was no time to call Rampart.
"He's got a pulse but he's not breathing."
Roy tried artificial respiration again watching for a rise of John's chest that was barely perceptible. He stopped, all the while holding his own breath, one hand on John's abdomen and the other behind his head. A feeble attempt to draw air was perceptible below his hand. John's body shuddered, his eyes opening fixed on Roy's face. Shredded hands found his own neck before Roy could stop him. John clawed at his throat, pitifully shallow wheezes whistling in and out.
"Need an airway, Cap, quick. Mike tilt his head back and hold him for me."
It was a hard compromise for Roy. Staying calm, being a paramedic first but acknowledging that the eyes boring into him, pleading with him belonged to his friend. John continued to shudder and fight Mike's hold.
"I know. I know, Johnny. We're going to make it easier to breathe. I promise. It's gonna be okay," Mike soothed, looking stricken. The struggling of his young friend became weaker and he adjusted his hold accordingly, certain that he'd added bruises to the already abused body. The whistling grew quieter, slower, John's stomach dipping further with each failed attempt to draw air.
Cap ripped open various packages; shiny strips of cellophane flying in the chilly breeze catching the sun that dared bare its nosy gaze as he passed the tubing to Roy. John found Roy's face again before his eyes drifted lazily toward the shiny flying plastic in exhausted fascination, fixated on it for a minute and rolled back into his head.
Roy held John's chin, his right hand guiding the plastic tubing into his mouth. He met resistance in the throat.
Please please please, Roy chanted in his head. "Mike, keep his head back," Roy instructed the very pale engineer. The tube slowly and stubbornly passed the resistance and Roy guided it into place and taped it down attaching the ambu bag to it. He placed his palm on Gage's stomach praying he'd managed to get it right as Cap took over bagging again. John's chest rose and fell with each squeeze. Roy's shoulders sagged in relief. He'd never performed a field tracheotomy and he didn't want to start today. Roy checked his watch. Two minutes with no air. But how long before that? He shook that thought from his mind.
"Cap, where's the other squad?"
"They won't get here for another ten minutes. It's us."
"How's Brian doing?" Roy inquired about Brian over his shoulder, awaiting a response from Rampart and holding onto his professionalism as best he could.
"He's breathing, we're putting pressure on his hands," Chet called back as he and Marco each took one of the kid's hands while one of the guys from sixteen started oxygen per Roy's instructions.
"He's getting shocky though, Roy," Marco said, turning his attention back to Brian and keeping the young man engaged in conversation and conscious.
"Rampart we have two victims of a waterslide collapse and rescue. Victim one is male, Code I, twenty-five years old," Mike repeated from Roy and gave the vitals and injury details to Dr. Brackett as Roy called them out. Mike absently still held tight to one of John's bloodied hands. "Be advised, Rampart the Code I is John Gage," he said as an afterthought in case a type and cross match was needed.
"Ten four fifty-one, can you send us a strip?"
Buttons popped and zinged onto the concrete as Roy tore John's shirt open to attach the leads. The readings were far from perfect but served to confirm John was still fighting with all he had. Based on the readings, IV's were ordered piggybacked with other meds.
Roy took a deep breath, grimacing at the pool of water and blood behind his partner's head on the yellow blanket. His fingers probed the wet, dark hair for a wound, a puzzled expression crossing his features. Glancing across at Brian he remembered the teen's bloodied hands holding onto John's head. The blood wasn't John's.
Roy hated to leave Johnny's side but time was too short for both victims. He started the ordered IV on Brian and drew blood for a type and cross match. Noting the odd angle of Brian's right shoulder Roy probed the muscle groups there causing Brian's eyes to fly open with pain.
"Ou-ouch!" Brian screamed, his back arching.
Roy kept his hand on Brian's abdomen while relaying his findings to Rampart.
"Okay, Brian, we're gonna give you something for the pain, just hold tight. Try to be still, okay?"
Brian could only nod, eyes squeezed shut. Within a few seconds the shot of morphine started doing its job.
"How's he doing?" Brian asked in a slow drawl as his body posture changed to that of a limp noodle. "'Cause I'm fi-ine."
Roy couldn't find his voice. He'd been asked this question a lot from victim's families or friends and the diplomatic and safe answer at times like this was always a vague, we're doing everything we can, or we'll have him to the hospital real soon.
"He's gonna be okay," Chet spoke up from his stooped position before leaning over to inform Roy of the new vitals on Brian which were far from the young man's declaration of fi-ine.
Chet took over John's respirator as he and Roy climbed into the ambulance. Mike and Marco loaded Brian into the same cramped ambulance and with a double slap from Mike they sped off.
Roy checked his partner's cervical collar again, peering through the emergency procedure hole in it at the Adams apple. The bruising and swelling was worse but the airway was secure and so far, working. The dark blue line around John's lips was fading but his skin remained grey.
"Is he gonna … you know …" Brian asked groggily turning his head toward John.
"He's holding steady. You were really somethin' up there," Roy praised the scared teen, securing his head better to the board since he wasn't supposed to be able to move it in the first place.
"Did I … hang 'im?" Brian shuddered, voicing what every man on A shift wondered of themselves.
"No … no, you didn't. It was an accident. And it's gonna be okay. We're nearly at the hospital and I need you to calm down and think about yourself right now. You need to save your strength, okay?"
"I tried … to save … him back. I got a little air into 'im but that's it. Honest, I tried so hard…"
"You're sure some air reached him?" Roy asked eagerly both for information and to keep the teen talking.
"Y … yeah, at first. He got a few good breaths from me sometime before you got … there. Didn't think m-my first rescue would be like … that," Brian shuddered until the morphine found him again. "I kinda thought it would be like the movies … pretty girl, you know, carry-carryin' her outta the water and then…"
And it hurt Roy that the young man was so very like his partner; head full of fantasy but fast acting and reliable to the edge of life when needed. Hope flared in Roy. Maybe John wasn't without air as long as he'd feared.
"Okay. That's real good. We're here. Listen, just try to relax and let the docs look out for you. They're the best here. You're in good hands," Roy said, squeezing Brian's good shoulder and letting the orderlies take him for treatment.
Roy handed John's IV to one of the orderlies as Chet continued squeezing the ambu bag and they sped off to treatment room three as Brackett started firing off orders for C-spine X-rays. As soon as John was transferred to the examination table and placed on a ventilator, Dixie cut off the rest of his wet clothing and placed warming blankets on him.
"Doc, there's no head trauma," Roy said. "The blood on his head is from our victim. But uh, he hanged, we don't think by his full weight but …" Roy pointed to the prominent bruising around John's adam's apple and neck.
"The X-rays will tell the tale but so far, I don't think his neck's broken, Roy. His reflexes are good in his lower extremities," Brackett replied, ushering out the reluctant senior paramedic and Chet. Chet stood before the door looking as though he was using x-ray vision to see through to his friend.
The door opened and the X-ray machine was wheeled out.
"I need a rush on those, Malcolm," Brackett ordered pushing the door to the exam room back open for everyone to go back inside.
The quiet waiting was always the worst. Too much time to think.
Roy gently took John's hand, turning the slightly curled, relaxed fingers around. There across the palm of his left hand were the tell tale indentations of John's struggle to survive, his hand shoved against his neck to keep from strangling. The shadowy death scene from Roy's view from the outside of the slide came to full color life and he felt suddenly sick.
"I'm so sorry, John. There wasn't anything we could do. Mike and the guys … we just … the rope … if we cut it, you'd fall, if we pulled it … well …"
Chet's hands flew to his face, rubbing harshly as he fought for control. This was never supposed to happen.
Dixie tried half heartedly to get Roy and Chet to go for coffee. She busied herself gently cleaning the slight scratches on John's face and towelling off as much blood and water as she could from his dark hair.
The X-rays arrived and Brackett snapped them into place just as Dr. Early arrived with Dr. Morton.
"Brian's on his way for surgery on his right hand, some tendon repairs. He's responding well to the blood transfusion, pressure's coming up nicely and he's stable. How's our boy doing?"
That one statement grabbed Roy. Our boy… How many times had they called him that, all of them? Flashes of Dix reminding John that he was family came to him along with at least part of an answer for John's outright animosity over writing what he called the black letters. John had no family … outside of he and the guys and some friends.
"God, Junior, what were you thinking … or not thinking I should say?" Roy smiled past the conflicts of the day. "Anyway it's a good thing you can't talk right now 'cause I'm pissed at you. You think you have no one to write letters to? What about my kids? What about Jo? And all those chances you take out in the field? We're gonna have a long talk about this when you wake up."
Roy turned from the people clustered around the X-rays. He placed his hand on John's chest, feeling the mechanical rise and fall, but underneath that, the heart John wore just under the fancy patch on his sleeve beat all on its own.
"Neck looks good. Trachea's pretty swollen but not crushed. He's got a slight concussion probably from the force of tumbling around in that slide. Over all from the description of the accident I think he was pretty lucky," Brackett said. Once we get him off the vent we'll examine his throat more carefully. There's no tendon damage in his hands, a few stitches ought to close the tears and we'll get him up to ICU for the night as a precaution."
That was Dixie's cue to get John's very protective brothers to go take care of themselves. Placing her hands on her hips she reminded them that they too were wet and threatened to cut their clothing off as she shooed them out each with a fresh set of scrubs in their arms.
Chet, who would have in other circumstances jumped onto an examination table inviting the pretty, blonde nurse to cut his uniform off, took the scrubs meekly and marched out with everyone else.
"I'll come get you in the lounge once he's settled, deal?" Dixie asked, but really, it wasn't a question and the reminder that they were wet, now that the adrenaline was wearing off caused some shivers. Coffee sounded good about now.
Cap dared the tones to go off as he paced. They didn't. The cold weather made a coffee break and short vigil possible.
XXXX
Roy reluctantly returned to shift until two replacements could be found and later that evening sat quietly beside John's bed in the ICU. The click-whoosh of the ventilator matched the rise and fall of his partner's chest reassuringly but so not right. The beeping of the monitors lulled him into an unintended nap, his book splayed open between the rails of the bed in his slack hand. His hand was squeezed slightly and he smiled, forgetting for a second where he was until the hardness of the plastic chair reminded him he wasn't in his bed and that was not Joanne's hand tangled in sheets, it was John's hand in bandages. He cracked his eyes open slowly, afraid that he'd find out the squeeze was a mere spasm and not his friend waking up.
Brown, sleepy eyes met blue ones and Johnny shook his head at his friend in that I-can't-believe-this sort of way. Roy could only stare for a second before finding his voice and catching his book just before it fell to the floor.
"Don't you ever do this to me again," Roy whispered. It's not what he'd intended to say at all but it spilled.
For his part, John shrugged his shoulders, wincing a bit and accompanying that motion with an eye roll that clearly said; well, what else was I supposed to do? Which did little to wipe that look off his partner's face. This was one of the pluses and minuses of working together for so long. They didn't need words, a head tilt, a certain squint; an eye roll here or there said it all. But this time there was something else on Roy's face. Fear.
And the silent conversation continued.
John scrunched up his forehead and lifted his chin a bit; You okay, Roy?
Roy crossed his arms, his eyes open wide; Why are you asking me that? I'm not the one in the bed who almost died.
And all the while, the nurse ignored their insane silent language, good thing too, 'cause the next thing out of Gage's mouth … er, weird mind speech was, She's pretty hot. I think I'll ask her out.
Roy glanced downward shrugging apologetically as he tapped his ring finger and then glanced at the nurse. Wedding ring, Junior, sorry.
To which John answered with something that made Roy say; "Watch your mouth, someday you will." Only he said that out loud, causing the nurse to turn around and look quizzically at him while John smiled past the ventilator, which in truth was a little disconcerting.
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" the nurse asked.
John innocently gazed at his friend, eyebrow cocked; Yeah, Roy, tell her what you said, go on, explain.
In an act of pure unprecedented communication talent, Roy lied through his teeth out loud; "Oh, uh, yeah, what I said was um, that I think that vent's ready to come of his mouth…" He felt so lame … he was a paramedic after all but he had to have something that would rhyme vaguely with mouth while at the same time convincing the nurse that he hadn't just told her to watch her mouth. Out of the corner of his eye however came; I was right about you, you're the only one who could lie there on a vent and still frustrate the crap out of someone!
John's brown eyes blinked sleepily again; mission accomplished. The fear he'd seen only moments ago on his friend's face was gone, replaced by something that didn't scare him so much. I'm okay, Roy. Honest. Then the eyes closed, the breathing evened out and he triggered the vent strongly.
A/N Yep, this is taking time to get to delving into what we're going to do about Marcus Parkham but it's coming. A story needs to be told. The story is completed, I'm editing but real life chomps on us all at one point or another and it's so much my turn right now it seems. Many of the E writers have been at it for song, I've read A/N's where they've lost people close to them etc and couldn't write for awhile; it's funny but awful how time flies and I guess things change over the years. My parents are older now, mom was just in the hospital for over a week and believe me, the care is nothing like our fine fantasy escape of E! The care was mishandled through miscommunication between doctors etc and we have it all straightened out now but it was very stressful. I hate not posting regularly, it seems sloppy but real life waits for no one. I will be able to post regularly now that we have everything worked out. I dislike sharing what some would see as an excuse but it was a real smack to realize that I've been writing fanfiction for over ten years and in that time, yeah, life and death and sickness and yeah, taxes (LOL!) happens and hobbies have to stand aside while you deal.
