Life Saver J3T x DM
AU Danny p.o.v"Let's see what happens tonight then," I tell George, my partner as part of the California Ambulance service. I have been working with George for the last four years now and I couldn't imagine myself being with anyone else. I went to a little café downtown to get dinner before I left because I knew that it was going to be a long twelve-hour shift. Especially as it gets closer to weekends or paydays, that's when we get the busiest and especially when the bars close very early in the morning. We get a lot of calls about people drinking too much and starting fights with each other. "Yeah, let the craziness begin," he tells me. We walk into the control room to get the keys for the ambulance we will drive tonight. We also need to get out bags which have the medication we might need to give patients since we never store them on the ambulance for safety reasons.
"At least it is only Thursday night going into Friday. I bet tomorrow will be worse for us. It is going to be a lot worse when the weekend starts," George says, and I smile at him. It would be a few elderly people falling over and stuff like that. We get out bags sorted in the ambulance and then hop into the front seat so that we can get our first job of the night. George is going to be spending the night driving for me. I am going to be in the passenger seat, so I could go to the patients and then stay in the back with them as we take them to the hospital if necessary. Not every case we will go to tonight will end in a trip to the nearest emergency room. I know we may get a few regulars who don't really need us, but they repeatedly try calling us anyway.
"First job of the night is here, let's get ready to roll," George says as he watches that we are being asked to go out to a call. I pressed the button and gave our code so that we could take a job. "Got Lindsey on the phone again, she says she needs us because she claims she had a fall and hit her head," the phone operator tells us, and we look to each other before rolling our eyes. It is always something along those lines with her. She will always make up some ailment so that we could go and visit her even though she doesn't need it. "Okay, we'll head over there and see if it is genuine or not. We could never be too certain with her," I tell the dispatcher. We always have to attend even if they are prolific liars because you never know when they might be telling the truth. We have our suspicions, but we can't live our lives based on assumptions.
"Blues and twos or nah?" I ask George and he smiles at me. "Let's go all out, I'll get a kick out of it. I like watching all the cars try and get out of our way and yelling at them when they don't," he tells me, and I just look at him while I am shaking my head. He's the only person that I know that enjoys road rage. I didn't really feel like giving Lindsey another lecture on wasting our time so if that does happen I am going to leave it up to George. She always kicks off and goes to attack you whenever you mention the words "wasting our time". That's why we can't attend the calls from her anymore without at least two policemen present. We are dealing with more and more people with mental health issues that we really don't have the resources for.
"I'm still mentally scarred from the last time we went," I tell George as I turn the sirens on and make sure the lights are flashing. I was also physically scarred from that night, but I don't like to talk about it often because it is weird to say that a little old lady pulled a knife out on me and got me quite deep in the wrist that I needed to get medical attention myself. "Yeah, I don't think anyone is going to forget the time when she stripped and then attacked you. I hope the cops know what they are in for tonight," George says, then we get a call through the radio where the dispatcher just reminds us to stay in the vehicle until we know the police have arrived if we get there before they do. I wonder what the neighbours think, she gets at least 3 ambulances a day now because of our duty of care and she plays the system well.
If we decide not to attend her call, then she will threaten to kill herself and I have been there when she almost succeeded one time because we ignored her. It's not right I know but we really don't have the resources to handle people like her. "Yeah, that wrist still hurts from time to time," I tell him, rubbing the affected wrist as thinking about what happened made the pain flair up a bit. We got there after the police who were waiting for us. "I'm surprised they let us come to this one, especially blondie over there," Kyle, my brother and one of the policemen assigned to this job. He was there when we last visited Lindsey. "Yeah well someone's gotta do it and it might as well be us. She doesn't really scare me," I tell him as I grab one of the kits from the back of the ambulance, we were going to do all the basic observations and most likely tell her to go to bed.
When we walked in, one of her carers was standing near to her and she looked fed up if I was being totally honest. "What's happened Lindsey?" George asks as we walk towards her, the policemen on standby in case she turns aggressive. "I fell, and I hit my head on the table," she replies, and she probably spoke the clearest that I have ever heard her which makes me doubt that she has actually hurt herself. I looked to the carer as George started by checking her blood pressure and her pulse ox. "She's been saying this all day, she hasn't actually fallen as far as I am aware, but she just keeps calling," the carer says, and it confirmed our suspicions. I knew she was lying and wasting our time but there isn't a lot we can really do with her as paramedics, it is up to the cops really.
"If she keeps on calling then it will become a matter for the police to deal with. For now, we will see how she is and then help her either into a chair or her bed. I don't see how this is really a matter for the emergency department when she is speaking fine, and all her observations are fine," George says after I made Lindsey follow my finger with her eyes to make sure she was okay and didn't show any signs of a head injury. She just looking like she had staged a fall, something we were expecting a silly little teenager to do for attention, but I suppose she is just doing it for attention to. I know she is in her sixties, but she never used to be like this. "Lindsey, we aren't going to take you into hospital tonight darling, you don't need to go. You need to stop calling us darling, this is just going to cause you trouble and someone else who needs us won't be able to have help they need," I tell her, speaking a bit slower and clearer than I normally do in the hopes that she hears every word.
"This is why I fucking attacked you last time, I need to go to hospital," she says, I could hear the aggression in her tone and I naturally went and took a step back before she could get the chance to swipe at me. "Lindsey, attacking Danny isn't going to help you. Hurting someone is going to make you go in the back of a police car again and you will spend the night in a jail cell," George says, and she pushes him to the floor. The police are right there restraining her. She hates it when things don't go her way and her behaviour does make me wonder if she actually has any mental capacity left. "I know this might be out of your area, but do you think you could help me make a referral to a home?" the carer asks me, and I nodded.
"I certainly can, I can leave my number with you as well so if they need to contact a medical profession to provide proof she lacks capacity I will," I tell her, she took me out of the room to reduce the risk of Lindsey trying to attack me again. It's time that she goes to a home where she has full time care and people who aren't likely to be ringing the ambulance 5 or 6 times a day at least because they want attention. We've even tried to get her room to look like a hospital ward room because she needed a few items of medical equipment and a bed which would help her going from lying down to sitting up. This obviously hasn't achieved the desired effects. I walk back in to see Lindsey on her chair and George packing up the equipment. We have spent over half an hour battling with Lindsey and now it is time to go.
"Please don't call for an ambulance again tonight Lindsey, we have checked you over and you are fine," I tell her, and she growled at me. I saw out of the corner of my eye that her phone has now be rendered useless and there was no other method of her being able to contact us. I looked to the carer who had a slight smile on her face. "Call us if Lindsey becomes aggressive to the point where she might attack you and we'll deal with her," Kyle tells the carer, it is unlikely that he will be needed because she doesn't like going to the police station and being in a cell all night as much as she likes all the fuss she gets in hospital. We leave her house hoping and praying that she behaves for the rest of the night and she doesn't attack her carer or call us back unnecessarily.
I sighed as I got back into my seat and gave a quick glance to George, making sure he was okay before the grin appeared on my face. "What was that look you and the nurse had just before we left?" George asks as we head towards the control station, waiting for our next call because we were not going to be lurking outside of her house now that we are clear and gave our update to one of the dispatchers. "She unplugged the landline telephone and stashed the cables away. Anyone who needs to contact them will contact her on her mobile which Lindsey can't access and doesn't really have the capacity to figure out how to call nine one one on a smartphone," I tell him, and I watched the grin appear on his face. We should have done this months ago really, but we also don't want her to attack Karen because she can't phone 911.
Then we got our first overdose job of the night. A male who was aged around 25 years old was found and said he had smoked too much weed. That sounded familiar to us, but a lot of people smoke weed not just people that we know. "If this is Dylan I swear to god I am gonna throttle him," George says as we got an update that the patient was unconscious. I stuck the lights and the sirens on as George speeds towards where the sat nav told us to go. Someone was flagging us down as we approached the destination on the high street. We often travel around California for these cases but only the ones which we are closest to. It was actually Sunset Boulevard that we had been called to. "I think you might want to keep that promise in mind," I tell George as he hops out of the back with his bag. I had seen the patient already.
It didn't make it any easier that we were having to deal with one of our best friends, but this is the life he chose to lead outside of his band and this is the risk he takes every time he buys weed from his dealer. "So what happened exactly?" I ask, as I turned our friend onto his side. We are really relying on the guy who called us to let us know what happened to Dylan. "I saw him smoking at the bench and then he said he had to get home, but he wasn't steady on his feet and I felt like something was wrong then he just suddenly collapsed here and didn't get up again," one of his friends who called us says. This happens a lot especially since there is a slightly dodgy batch of weed circulating around this area.
"Alright, we are going to get him to hospital and he is going to be fine," I tell his friend, it wasn't really up to me if the friend came with us or not, but we do need to get Dylan into the ambulance as soon as we can. His heart rate wasn't right, it was too high and there were other symptoms like the loss of consciousness which worried me. He's going on a detox from this now I am sure of it. We got him onto the stretcher a few minutes later and wheeled him into the ambulance. "You can't come with us I'm afraid, with him in the state that he is the last thing we need while Danny focuses on making sure he is stable on the way to hospital is someone panicking," George says, as I get set-up in the back. Dylan had an oxygen mask on and I was giving him fluids and trying to get his heart rate to come down a little bit.
So much could go wrong, he could deteriorate to the point where resuscitation is needed and the last thing I needed was someone panicking while I try and focus on CPR. The guy looked like he needed to go home and sober up some. "You okay to go Danny?" George asks me, and I nodded. I was sitting down in the chair with my seatbelt on and I was filling out the information on the little tablet we have been provided for this. He closed the doors on the back of the ambulance and soon we were rushing to the nearest emergency room. I was now focusing on monitoring Dylan's vital signs closely so that I was aware straight away of any changes. I did have some luck as it seemed his heart rate was starting to come down.
It's a small blessing as he is not out of the woods yet. He still has to survive long enough to make it to the emergency room. He does seem to be doing alright with the medication that we have given him so far. He was even starting to wake up while we were on our way. I just hope for his sake there isn't a really long wait at the Emergency room, it still gets busy on a Thursday night. "Ugh, where am I?" I hear Dylan ask, well he said something along those lines he has very slurred speech and he was just coming round. "You're with me in the ambulance Dylan, you'll be okay," I tell him, and he reacted to my voice. I decided to be a nice friend and hold his hand, to help him recognise it was me with him. He knows George is a paramedic, but he had no clue until now that I am one too.
"Danny, is that you?" he asks me, and he opens his eyes to look at me. I smile at him and I felt him squeeze my hand back. "Yeah, it's me Dylan, how are you feeling now? I ask him, and he has a quick look around the back of the ambulance. "I feel terrible," he says, I realised the oxygen mask was also gonna have an impact on me hearing him speak but he needs it on, so I just have to deal with that for now. "Yeah, you will do buddy. You had an overdose on weed," I tell him, being honest with him. He looked shocked at first, and then ashamed. I tried to show in my tone how worried I was about him. "I need to quit this stuff before I end up in the morgue," he tells me, and I nodded at him. At least the words came from him and not me.
"Maybe if you express the desire to quit then they could put you on one of their detox programmes or something, so you can beat this addiction safely. We will support you every step of the way Dylan," I tell him, and I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. He squeezed mine back and it wasn't long before we arrived at the emergency room for the nearest hospital and we were able to take him in straight away. We couldn't really stay with him once we handed his care over to the doctors and nurses at the hospital, but I told him sometime tomorrow if he let me know what was going on then I would go and see him and make sure that he was okay. It was weird dealing with a friend but eventually you know it is going to happen.
We had a few nice little jobs where we were going to some elderly people who had fallen over and there were some toddlers to deal with, but I used my best bedside manner to make sure that all the patients we dealt with where happy as they could be in their situations and that they were going to be calm on the way to hospital when they needed to go. The old lady we dealt with thought I was adorable and I heard George quietly agree with her. I have a crush on George, but he isn't aware of it. The old lady knew straight away and was making all kinds of jokes about me and him getting together as a couple. I was blushing when she was talking about how cute we would be together. I told her that I wasn't sure if it was going to happen. Then she nearly made me cry.
She told me that I was young and there was never a better time to find my true love than now. She told me that I would regret not finding someone that I could be with for life and I would die lonely like she was going to. I felt tears well up in my eyes and I had to take a minute to compose myself before holding her hand and promising her that I would find my true love and when I did I would be sure to let her know. I know she doesn't have long left to live because she is getting old, but I think it would be nice if I see her and I am in a relationship that she can have some happiness in her life. I felt sorry for her, but there is not a lot I can do. I have to move on to the next job which was a fight on Hollywood Boulevard and the police had called because they needed medical assistance as someone was injured.
When we got there, it was a messy sight if I was being honest. There were several police cars and I looked to George. This was one of the most violent scenes I have ever been to in my medical career to date and they were still fighting around us. The police were trying to contain it, but it was clear that even they were struggling against the ten or fifteen angry people. It wasn't really safe for us to leave the ambulance, but I volunteered to go and get out patient and bring them to the ambulance, so we could treat them safely. George was clearly not happy with my decision, but at the end of the day the patient needed us. I had to do whatever it takes to make sure that life is safe. It was a bit of an adrenaline filled blur and we did get attacked but we made it safely onto the ambulance and there were no more injuries and I was okay as far as I was aware.
George and I made sure that the patient was alright enough to go to the hospital to get his knife wounds looked at. I didn't think they were life threatening at this point because the bleeding was under control. I think he also might be one of the last patients we have to deal with on this shift. We came on shift at seven o'clock in the evening and we don't finish until seven o'clock in the morning which isn't that long from now. It is only four in the morning currently. It seems like it has been longer because we have been really busy tonight. The guy kept looking at me with worry on his face and I kept reassuring him that he was going to be fine because he had symptoms of being in shock. "Yeah, but are you going to be okay?" he asks me, and I wasn't sure with what he meant by that.
"What do you mean am I going to be okay? I feel fine," I tell him, and then he points to my body. I was still unsure by what he meant by any of this and I was wondering if he was seeing things. "Are you two okay back there?" George shouts through the little window between the seats and the main part of the ambulance. I had a quick glance at my own body and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "Yeah we are okay here George." I shout back, and the guy just looked at me in disbelief. Was he seeing something on me that I couldn't? I guess only time can really tell on that one. "Honestly dude I feel fine," I tell him, and he sighs. I don't really care much for his opinion though, if I said I felt fine then I was fine. If I wasn't fine, then I would say so.
We took him into the emergency room and people were looking at me in a similar way to the patient that is on our stretcher. I had some blood on my shirt, but that was from dealing with the patient and his various stab wounds. I don't think there are any on me. I gave the details of the incident and what we knew of the patient before they transferred him to their bed. One of the nurses suggests that I sit down in the next bay and have someone take a look at me. When I asked why she said that I looked very pale and there was a lot of blood on my shirt and they wanted to know if I had been hurt in the crossfire when I was getting this guy to the ambulance. I told her the same thing that I told the guy and then I went to get a drink from the vending machine while George loaded the stretcher back on the ambulance now it had clean sheets on it.
I was starting to get really warm, but I brushed it off to being inside. I was getting a little bit annoyed with all these stares, but I wasn't about to take up a bed unnecessarily. I felt perfectly fine and I was going to head back to the control room to get my spare uniform and change into that. It would ease everyone's concerns about me for sure. George even looked worried as I joined him on the back of the ambulance, he was having a cigarette break. "Danny, are you sure that you are okay? I am being serious when I say that you don't look too well," he tells me, and he puts his hand on my back which sends shocks rippling down my spine. "Yeah, I honestly feel fine. I got a bit warm when I was getting my drink, but I seem to be okay now," I tell him.
"Okay, we'll be heading back to the control room to get your spare outfit in a minute, but please don't pass out on me Danny," he tells me as he flicks the cigarette butt to the floor and stomps it out with his boot. He pats me on the shoulder and goes to put the butt in the trash can while I took another swig of my drink and took a minute to think about how I really feel right now. Something was slowly clicking in my brain and as I come down from the adrenaline rush it is more of a feeling that something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it at this particular moment in time. I wasn't feeling any pain anywhere and George was concerned by how slow I was. I didn't want to get up from where I was.
Eventually I decide to move, and I walk towards the passenger side of the ambulance, but I couldn't quite make it to the door before I nearly fell flat on my face and George rushed forwards to support me. "You're fine you say," he mumbles under his breath and I offered him an apologetic smile. He got me into the passenger side and made me sit down so that my legs were in the doorway and he took my jacket off me. "Your shirt is bloodier than it was before," he tells me, and I didn't bother looking down. I trusted him enough to know that he was most likely telling the truth. "I don't feel so good now," I admit to George, who chuckles at me. "Now you tell me Danny, maybe you did get hurt before, but the adrenaline blocked it out," he tells me, and I nod at him.
"Sorry George," I tell him, he just hugs me before he goes to get the medical kit to treat me. Today is a weird shift and now I can safely say that no two shifts are EVER the same. "It's okay Danny, I am not mad at you. I am probably mad at the person who did this to you," he tells me and then he carefully takes my bloody shirt off me and a few tears are revealed which were hidden by the amount of my blood and blood from the patient we have only just really treated. "Ooo ouch, no wonder why they wanted you to sit down twenty minutes ago and get checked out. There are some nasty stab wounds you have there," he tells me. He lets the dispatcher know we were going to be a bit longer and to let the police know there was a second victim in the stabbing.
I was alright to walk shirtless back into the emergency room and I was seen straight away to get my wounds cleaned, stitched up and dressed so I could go back out on duty for the last chunk of our shift. "Wait, I did hear that right? Little bear was stabbed?" I heard the dispatcher call through our radios. I had to reply to her. "It's just a scratch, well a few scratches over," I tell her, and I heard her chuckle. I don't deny or dislike them calling me little bear anymore. That nickname has grown on me and almost everyone who I work with knows that is my nickname and calls me by it now. "He's gonna be fine to finish tonight's shift and go on later today," George says, while a nurse is cleaning my wounds and I tried not to show how much it hurt me.
George put his hand on my shoulder and I looked at him. He was providing a good distraction for me at the moment. I wasn't aware of the nurse stitching my wounds because she put numbing cream around them before she started. The police showed up, they had been to the control room first because they had my spare uniform. Well the shirts will become my main uniform now I guess. They took the shirt I was wearing away with them for evidence and wrote down my account of what happened. Soon we were back on the road again and ready for our final call of the night since it is now half past five in the morning and we only have an hour and a half of our shift remaining and I think we only had time to fit one more patient in because it would take a while to check them over while we are there and then there is starting to be a bit of a queue in the emergency room which will mean it takes longer to transfer a patient.
"So technically, you're a patient yourself tonight," George tells me as we head to the next house where an elderly woman had fallen and couldn't get up. Those were the nicest cases because they are more often than not so sweet and so grateful for the help that you give. "Yeah, I guess I am," I tell him, I felt a lot better now that was dealt with and I know I am on the mend now. Once this numbing cream wears off and I wake up later on in the day I am definitely going to feel the pain of this injuries. George took a moment to pat my shoulder and it kept sending shivers down my body. Maybe there is something more to us then just friendship. It's a long shot but maybe it is a risk I am willing to take.
The lady we went to help was called Doris and she was a close friend to the little old lady that nearly made me cry earlier. "Hello Doris, my name is George, and this here is Danny. What happened my darling?" George says, and Doris smiles at us. We are two well-built men here to rescue her from the cold floor. "I was getting up to see if I could go back to bed and then I just fell," she says, and I crouch next to her, so she didn't struggle so much with seeing us. "Alright then Doris, we are going to get you sitting up here in a moment and then we will see if you have hurt yourself and we can take you back to your bed if you would like," I tell her, and she smiled. We have to be so nice to people like her, it's cruel not to.
"Thank you, my darlings, if I don't need to go to hospital I would like to go to bed if that's alright," she says, and I held back the awe. Some old people are really cute. "That's perfectly fine with us my dear," I tell her, then we carefully help her, so she is sitting up and she won't fall down on us. I checked her over and apart from a couple of new bruises to her skin, she was perfectly fine. "Right then, time for bed madam, but be careful with this one. He is a little broken," George says, and I playfully tapped his arm. We helped her to her feet and waited until she felt steady. We weren't going to let go unless she asked, or she was in her bed all safe and warm.
"What do you mean he's broken? He looks fine to me," Doris asks as we walk towards her bedroom which is on the same floor that we are on. "I got a little roughed up on another job we did tonight, but I am alright," I tell her, and she smiled. "Well you have this other lovely young gentleman to take care of you once you two are finished with me," she says, and I swear she must have talked to that other lady we helped before. It is either that or the love between us is just that obvious to some people around us. "I will take very good care of Danny my darling," George says, sending a wink my way. We got Doris into her bed in no time and she hugged us both before she laid down and we made sure she would be comfortable.
"Thank you, sweethearts for helping me," she says, and we smile at her. I love it when people are so nice to our help. I don't like all the aggressive people and all the unappreciative people who just don't seem to understand how hard we have to work per night just to make sure that people live. It makes George mad with the amount of time wasters and hoax callers we have. "You're welcome my lovely. Have a good night's rest now even though there isn't much night time left," I tell her, and she tells us goodnight and we quietly leave her property, making sure the lights are off and everything is secure. Then we walk back to the ambulance to put our stuff away before we head off to call the end of our shift. It is getting quite close to seven o'clock now. "She was so cute, I like people like her," George tells me, and I smile
"Yeah, they are always so kind to you no matter what time of the morning that we come to help them," I reply, and George pulls me into a hug. I hugged him back, I wasn't sure what was going on and why he decided now that he needed to hug me, but I was not about to turn the hug down. "You know, those two lovely old ladies made me realise something," he tells me, and I was tempted to tease him and say that one day he was going to be old and grey, but I kept my mouth shut. I was very interested in what he had to say. "What did they make you realise?" I ask him, and he now had his hands around my waist. Thank god, the doors on this ambulance are shut right now. I'd never hear the end of the teasing if my friends saw it.
"It made me realise how much I love you, like the love that Kathy was talking about before," he tells me, and I hugged him back. I guess this isn't how I really pictured the two of us getting together but I am not wasting this opportunity if it is one. "Like the way that I have loved you for a while? I would like to find someone like Kathy was talking about," I tell him, being fully aware that most of that sentence didn't make sense but I was becoming very tired at this point. "Yes, if that love you feel for me is romantic. I could be that someone," he says, and I nearly died from love overload. He was basically asking me out here and now. Oh, how I wish Kathy was here to see this, we'd have to let her know later.
"I would love for you to be that someone," I tell him, he had the biggest smile on his face as he carefully lifted me up for a hug. I think it might be a little too soon for our first kiss and George seemed to agree with me although no words were spoken. He took my hand in his as we left the back of the ambulance and then he walked with me to my side and watched me get in before going to his side, he opened the door for me like a true gentleman. We got ready to go and he just looked at me with the straightest face possible. "Let's go partner," he says, and it had a whole different meaning to before.
And that is the end of another one shot. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. I have had this idea for a little while now and I am really happy with the way it turned out. Leave any comments or requests below and on with the next one!
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