A/N: I admit, this chapter is the one that probably takes the most artistic license medically…but that's why I have a medical disclaimer at the beginning! Anyway, I'm not convinced the show was always strictly medically accurate, either… Barbie
Chapter Fourteen: Doctor in the House
Pandemonium broke out instantly. The girl who had been playing opposite the stricken actor began screaming, a single, wordless scream that went on and on with barely a pause for breath. Two young men of the troupe shouted instructions to each other as they jumped forward to lift the heavy chandelier off their fallen comrade.
It was the actor playing the villain of the piece who turned in a swirl of cloak toward the audience, his stentorian voice serving in good stead as he easily made himself heard over the din on stage and the excited, horrified cries of the audience. "Doctor! Is there a doctor in the house!"
Amsha's hand had flown to her mouth as she watched the chandelier fall, her eyes wide with horror. "Jules, help him!" she gasped.
At the utter trust in her voice, Julian understand finally the difference between her perspective and his father's; understood why her use of the old nickname didn't bother him nearly as much.
His father considered Jules to be stupid, and believed anything he had accomplished to be a direct result of his enhancements, and therefore something for which he, Richard, could take credit. But his mother was proud of him simply because he was her son, and if the enhancements enabled him to do more than he could have otherwise, that was simply her gift to him.
Even as the realization flashed across his mind, he was leaping automatically to his feet. Then he tensed, freezing for barely an instant as he remembered that his license was suspended and he currently had no right to practice medicine. But as Shan had pointed out, the suspension had nothing to do with his practice of medicine or any other crimes he had commented — and hanged if it did, he was through risking patients to save his own skin!
The thoughts passed through his mind at warp-speed; no non-enhanced Terran could have noticed his slight hesitation before he vaulted one-handed over the rail. "Don't try to move him!" he shouted as he ran forward. "I'm a doctor; clear some room there!"
The girl remained where she was, the volume of her screams not lessened, and the villain grabbed her arm to pull her back away from the patient. "Felicity! Be still!" he ordered.
She seemed not to hear, and he clamped a hand firmly over her mouth, giving her a sharp shake. "Felicity! Enough!"
She came out of her hysteria with a sharp gasp, clawing at his cloak as she tried to cling to him. "It — nearly hit me!"
He stared at her incredulously. "Is that all you care about, Fella?"
Barely noticing the interplay, except for a sense of relief when at last the screaming stopped, Bashir swept his eyes over his patient, diagnosing even in the moment before he dropped to his knees beside him.
The scratches on the young man's face all appeared minor, but even through his costume Bashir could see an unnatural concavity to his chest, and feared he had been killed instantly. But he had not run down here to pronounce a boy dead; he had to at least try.
With infinite care, he ripped open the boy's costume, then ran a hand down his chest, careful to put no pressure behind his touch. The ribs were shattered, he realized grimly; it would be faster to list the ones that weren't broken than the ones that were.
He knew what he would find when he pressed his fingers to the pulse point at the boy's neck; not even the faintest flicker of a heartbeat to give him hope. With so much damage to the ribs, he didn't dare risk chest compressions, but as he briefly closed his eyes, he saw again that serial number as if it were burned on the back of his eyelids. Six…one…six…three…six.
The battery degraded further each year; by now the chance of an explosion was almost certain. Even if by some miracle it didn't explode, there was a fifty percent chance it would simply do nothing. And even if by the luck of all the stars it worked, there was barely a fifty percent chance the boy could be resuscitated at all; without a tricorder, he had no way of knowing how extensive the damage to the heart might be.
No, he couldn't risk the lives of everyone in the theater against a mere quarter of a percent chance of saving this one boy, but maybe there was another way… He doubted anyone in the room had a medkit; they would have offered it by now if they did. But a phaser set on stun had enough energy to stop a man's heart at extremely close range; used with more precision, that same energy could possibly be used to jolt a man's heart back to life.
His thoughts moved at their usual frenetic pace, and he had not bothered to slow his examination for the sake of observers; mere seconds after dropping to his knees at the boy's side, he was looking up into the horrified audience. "Somebody get me a phaser!" he shouted. Surely, in the Federation capital and home of Starfleet Academy, someone had to be armed.
"Here, Doctor!"
Bashir's gaze swung to the far back corner from which the voice had come, to see a man already on his feet, phaser in hand. Off-duty security, Bashir pegged him instantly; something in his stance and the speed of his draw could be nothing else. There was a practice ease to the motion as he threw the phaser; Bashir had only to reach out and let the handle slap perfectly into his palm.
He took the time for only the barest nod of thanks, already setting the device to low stun and resting the muzzle against his patient's chest before pressing the button to activate it in a short, sharp burst.
The next moment, his fingers were probing against the boy's neck for a pulse. Hang it; still nothing! Using a phaser in this way was completely unorthodox; he had seen no mention of it even in texts about emergency field medicine. But his knowledge of medicine and basic engineering still insisted it should work.
Thumbing the power setting a notch higher, he tried again, pushing to the back of his mind the knowledge that he had already estimated the chances of resuscitation at only fifty percent even if he had been able to use a fully-functioning defibrillator designed for the purpose.
And this time, his efforts were rewarded by a weak, thready beat under his fingers. The boy's pulse was slow and erratic, but it was there.
But Bashir had no time to exult in his success; if he couldn't get the boy breathing, his heart wouldn't keep beating for long. Shoving the phaser into his belt, his swiftly opened the young man's mouth and cleared his airway with a finger before bending to force his breath into his lungs — Or lung, he thought grimly, nearly certain that the right lung was too damaged to function at all without far more intervention than he had the ability to provide here. But the boy's chest rose with his effort, encouraging him that at least the left lung was still capable of holding and exchanging air.
He gently pushed the boy's belly to help him exhale, careful to avoid any shifting of the broken ribs, then checked to be sure he still had a pulse before repeating the process.
He had more than half expected to have to keep breathing for the boy until the medteam arrived — and why weren't they here by now, anyway? — but after a mere three breaths the boy inhaled raspily on his own, exhaling in a harsh cough that left blood at the corner of his mouth.
A hand on the boy's pulse, Bashir watched sharply for a moment to make sure he would continue breathing without aid. Then, wishing desperately for his tricorder or at least an old-fashioned stethoscope, he bent to listen at the boy's chest, careful to keep his ear a millimeter away from actual contact so as to put no pressure at all on the shattered ribs.
As he had suspected, the right lung was completely collapsed, with no breath sounds whatsoever. He could hear fluid in the left lung, most likely blood; it, too, had been punctured by the sharp end of one of the ribs, but the rib itself was sealing the hole enough to prevent complete collapse.
"Get me a cushion, somebody!" he demanded, straightening without taking his eyes off his patient.
One of the actors who had helped move the chandelier instantly handed him a pillow from the scenery couch.
Bashir slipped a hand under the boy's head to raise it, at the same time letting his fingers feel expertly over the back of his skull. There was a large knot where the boy's head had struck the floor, but if he had a fractured skull it was only a hairline crack, undetectable even to Bashir's sensitive fingers.
He eased the cushion under the boy's head, then paused to lift each eyelid in turn. His pupils were dilated, but seemed about equal; he definitely had a concussion, but it was only moderately severe and certainly the least of his injuries.
Listening once more at the boy's chest, Bashir found the change in positon had eased his breathing only slightly. But he didn't dare try to raise him further; shifting those broken ribs even slightly would in all likelihood kill him.
"Here, Doctor," the villain offered, unclasping his flowing cloak.
"Why isn't a medteam here yet?" Bashir demanded half angrily, accepting the cloak and tenderly tucking its heavy silken folds over the boy. Surely, they hadn't been fools enough to believe having a doctor in the house meant the boy was receiving all the care he required! He needed massive doses of trioxe to compensate for his se-verely decreased lung function; he needed the right lung reinflated and the left suctioned before he drowned in his own blood; he needed iv fluids and cardiostimulators to combat his low blood pressure — and all that was just to stabilize him for the massive surgery that was the only chance of saving his life, if he didn't die on the operating table.
"It's on the way, sir," the villain assured him, taking no offense at his brusque tone and lack of thanks. "They should be here in a few minutes."
"A few minutes?" Bashir hissed. It sounded like such a short time — but measured in faltering heartbeats and increasingly labored breaths, he knew it could be far too long. "Why in the name of all suns can't they just beam in?"
"I — really don't know, sir," the villain answered helplessly.
No…of course he didn't, Bashir realized. He was only an actor, not even an employee of the dinner theater — all of whom seemed conspicuously absent. The lack of beam-in against emergency regulations was probably part and parcel with the recalled medical equipment and lack of proper inspections… If this boy died because of that failure to follow regulations, the theater itself was unlikely to survive the resulting investigation.
But Bashir set his teeth grimly. He had clawed his patient out of the grasp of death with his bare hands, and he wasn't about to let him go now.
Next chapter coming next week…if I get enough reviews! ("Great chapter" or a request to post the next chapter don't count — I want at least one sentence telling me what you thought of this chapter :-D ) And even if you're reading this after the next chapter is up, I'd appreciate a review before you go on to read it. Thanks!
A/N: No, I have no idea if a phaser could really be used that way…but it's a fictional piece of equipment, so who's to say it couldn't? I actually had the idea to have Bashir use the phaser from the beginning, and only later realized the restaurant should at least have some basic first aid equipment. So then I had to work backward and figure out why Bashir couldn't just use that! Barbie
I proofread all my stories at least once before posting, but if you see any mistakes I might have missed, please let me know!
Please note that I have only minimal internet access, and may not have time to respond to all reviews/messages. (But they are much appreciated, even if you're reading this story long after I originally post it!) If you have questions regarding my Deep Space Nine alternate history, check my profile first to see if they're answered there. Thanks for your understanding! Barbie