April 25, 2022
At the firehouse, Weiss and a paid captain finished a set of call charts for stuff that had come in throughout the night. It was around 8 AM, and they had gone through five EMS charts and a fire chart. As Weiss typed in a digital signature for her last chart, she heard her pager ring for a call and looked to the telefax printer in the officer's room. "EMS call."
The paid captain, an older man in his 40s, walked over and ripped the paper out, reading it. "Guy in his 100s with a catheter issue. Some minor haemorrhaging. I'll let the other paid guy and your vollies take care of it."
"Yeah," Weiss replied as she closed out the program the VCFD used to complete call charts. "The night crew didn't get any sleep last night."
"As expected," he replied. "I'm done with the charts."
"Same," Weiss replied as she logged out and pulled out a folder of paper records of the volunteer fire company. "Okay... Now..." She then wrote down a bit, flipping through the pages. Once she was done, she closed the folder and stated to the captain, "Okay, as of the 25th, we have a total of 80 active members and 52 social members. Of those 80, 50 are interior-certified, and 66 are active medical providers."
"You've gained a lot of new people," the captain told her, impressed by the numbers. "That's like 20 new people since... Well, you know."
"Everyone wants to be a fireman," Weiss noted to him, commenting on the surge of applications. "Ever since what happened, the number of applications has risen by a lot. I'm processing two more that'll be read out this Wednesday." She then stretched her arms and yawned, clearly tired out as she rubbed her eyes. Then, her yawning was interrupted by the pagers ringing again. As she listened in, the info came in that it was a call for a man who had injured his arm in a warehouse nearby. "I'll hop on board Ambulance 201B with you guys."
"Fine by me," the paid captain replied. "All we got is us and two BFCFR volunteers I think. I'll drive." The two then ran out into the bay, the paid captain grabbing his gear from his locker while Weiss ran out to her captain's car to grab her own gear.
About 35 minutes later, Ambulance 201B left the warehouse and sped off to the closest Level 1 Trauma Center to the Vigilant Fire Company's station in Vale City: The Royal Valeanian Military Hospital, a good 20 minutes away in the dense daytime traffic. As Weiss administered one last small dose of a total of 20mg of morphine through an IV, having already been given permission over the radio to give an extra 10mg than she normally could, she said to the injured man, a blond with a compound fracture to his left arm and a possible fracture in his right leg as well, "Sir, I know it hurts, okay? I'm gonna ask the doctor to see if I can give you more painkillers." She then turned to a newer volunteer who had just completed her BFCFR a month prior with Whitley, "Probie, start going through the PCR sheet with him, got it?" Despite cool temperatures, Weiss was sweating rather profusely from her forehead.
"Yeah," she replied. As she began to ask the patient several questions, it was clear she had some difficulty writing while in the back of a moving ambulance that was essentially stopping and going in heavy traffic, causing the back to rock back and forth many times. Weiss was clearly worried, and she began to tremble slightly.
"Oh my God," the patient moaned in pain as blood continued to fall from his arm onto the floor and stretcher below, the crimson liquid also staining the blood pressure cuff hooked into the cardiac monitor Weiss used. "It fucking hurts!"
"I know, I know," Weiss replied. "Hold on a sec." She then checked the vitals. "Okay, BP is 144 over 90, heart rate is 82, and SpO2 of 98." When she looked over and saw the new firefighter still writing, she said in a raised voice, "Probie, hurry up and write that down!"
"I am," she replied with a slightly raised voice, earning a death glare from Weiss that scared her into writing faster, albeit in a sloppier manner.
Weiss then grabbed the mic of a radio from across the ambulance and punched in the four-digit calling code for their destination hospital. "VCFD Ambulance 201B to RVMH," Weiss radioed out.
"Go ahead," a nurse at the hospital replied.
"Get me the Medical Control doctor," Weiss somewhat frantically replied.
"Received," the nurse replied, which was followed by another four-digit code. "ED to Medical Control, VCFD Ambulance 201B is requesting you."
"Go ahead," replied the voice of a doctor. "This is RVMH Medical Control."
"I know you said we should hold off on more meds," Weiss replied, with some tremble in her voice, as she pressed the transmit button on the monitor. "But my patient is in severe pain. I'm requesting 100mcg of fentanyl now rather than later. You should be getting his vitals now." Her assistant in the back was continuing to ask the patient questions and write down on the PCR.
"Received," the doctor replied. "Vitals received, permission given. Administer 100mcg of fentanyl."
Weiss sighed and said to herself, "Thank God." She then radioed back, "Received." As she grabbed a vial of fentanyl from her ALS bag, she told her patient, "Okay, the doc said yes, alright? I'm gonna give you fentanyl now." Before she began, she wiped sweat off of her forehead with her forearm.
"Yeah," was all the patient had to say as Weiss pulled out 100mcg of fentanyl from the vial into a syringe and then administered it slowly, taking around a minute and a half to fully administer the entire dose.
Weiss then yelled over to the crew in the front through a window to the front cab, "How far out are we to the hospital?"
The paid captain, driving, replied back, "About 7 minutes. Call it in."
"You got it," Weiss replied. "Probie, hand me the radio and give me that PCR." She silently grabbed it and handed it to Weiss, who essentially ripped it out of her hands. As she looked down at the report, her expression turned into a scowl at the quality of the handwriting, which had decreased as the trip went on. She rather bluntly turned to the new firefighter and told her, "You need to work on your damn handwriting! I can barely read this!" She then rapidly punched in the code for the RVMH. "Ambulance 201B to RVMH."
"Go ahead," the same nurse from before replied.
"We are coming in Priority 1 with a 37 year old, three-seven year old, male who has a compound fracture to his right arm and a possible fracture in his lower right leg," Weiss began her report. "I have administered 20ml of morphine and 100mcg of fentanyl at this time. According to the PCR, his pain is rated at a 7 out of 10. His current vitals are 134 over 86, heart rate of 76, and SpO2 of 99, with a breathing rate of 20. Do you require anything further?"
"Negative," the nurse replied. "Go to Room T-2 upon your arrival."
"Received," Weiss replied. As she looked over the PCR, she asked the patient, "Okay, sir, what's your birthday?"
"May 4, 1985," he replied, which earned another angry look from Weiss towards the new firefighter with her.
"Probie," Weiss told her as she snapped her fingers at her. "You wrote down 8-4-1985? What the hell?!"
"I heard him say that," she replied. "And I confirmed by asking again."
"You need to get your ears checked," Weiss coldly replied to her. "And see me after this at the ambulance." She simply looked down and proceeded to not say a word the rest of the way to the hospital, afraid of her captain's reactions to her.
Around 7 minutes and another verbal lash out from Weiss while she was actively moving the patient, the new firefighter, a girl named Ashley, stood outside the back of Ambulance 201B, awaiting a word from Weiss about what had happened. As she waited, thoughts flooded her young 17-year-old mind as to how Weiss was going to treat her. Then, the woman of the hour herself practically marched through the sliding doors of the Emergency Ambulance entrance towards her, a rage-filled look in her eyes as she raised a hand to point at her, almost as if she was holding back from physically striking her. She raised her own hand as if to want to speak as well, but Weiss cut her off.
"Don't fucking speak to me," Weiss very bluntly and angrily told her. "You have no right to tell me a God damn thing after this horse shit! First you write like complete and utter shit, and then you "mishear" him say his birth date? I heard him loud and fucking clear, and before you say a thing, it's not my job to correct you!" By now, she was red in the face from her anger, and it looked as if Ashley was on the verge of tears. "Did you not learn a thing from BFCFR, or elementary school for that matter? I've seen preschoolers write better than that PCR! Even at your stage, I never did this crap!"
"I... I...," Ashley tried to form a response, but was unable to bring herself to do so.
"Now," Weiss instructed her. "Get in the rig, and stay there!" Ashley nodded, closing her eyes as she turned around and opened the back doors to get on the ambulance. Weiss took a deep breath as she walked back into the hospital, another crew of volunteers from another fire company staring nearby and wondering what had happened. As she walked in and tossed her soiled rubber gloves into a container, she was met by a doctor, an older gentleman wearing a white coat. "Huh? Doctor Margot, what is it?"
"Can I speak to you?" The doctor seemed concerned with the look on his face, and Weiss assumed that it had something to do with the patient or the new firefighter.
"Look," Weiss explained to the doctor as they walked into a storage room and she closed the door. "I already talked to her. I told her straight-out that her work was completely inadequate and detrimental to the care of my patient."
"It's not about her," the doctor replied with a sigh. "It's about you. Weiss, I'm very concerned."
"Why me?" Weiss was confused, wondering what she had done wrong. "I'm fine, doc."
"You didn't sound fine on the radio," he replied, confirming that he was the Medical Control doctor she had talked to. "You sounded very stressed and somewhat jumpy. I also overheard your conversations with one of your firemen, and it sounded unprofessional. Also, the paid captain said you seemed very stressed out and on the verge of a panic attack. This isn't like you at all."
Weiss sighed, rubbed her forehead, and shook her head, telling him, "I got frustrated. Her handwriting sucked, and she didn't listen to me."
"I could read it just fine," Doctor Margot replied. "And the nurses could, too. That's what matters. As for that patient moving incident, your interruption almost caused her to drop him, and all for something you thought you saw wrong, but wasn't actually wrong." By now, he was pleading with her through his eyes. "Please, Weiss, this isn't like you. I've known you ever since your dad first took you up here while you rode the ambulance as a teenager, and I know what you're usually like on medical calls. Is something bothering you?"
"I'm fine," Weiss insisted as she began to walk away towards the door, pushing a cart of medical supplies out of her way. "I have a report I have to do for the call. Perhaps I was wrong to surprise her while lifting the patient, but my other reactions were just. Doctor, please, let me do my calling."
As she walked out, Doctor Margot shook his head in disappointment. "Damn it, she's too headstrong to admit something's up."
At the Schnee Mansion of Vale, around noon, Weiss decided to place herself out of service while Jaune was away, teaching at Signal Academy. She opened up an expensive bottle of Atlesian whiskey in a private bar in the cellar and proceeded to pour a full glass of it for herself. "Eight fingers... Eight fingers..." She then put the cap back on the bottle and drank a third of the glass, a rush hitting her as she put it down. "Aaaah, that's it." She then sighed and looked over at the wall of the cellar, adorned with pictures of her immediate family, all gone since the August 23rd attacks of last year.
"You know," she then heard an all-too-familiar voice from the other end of the bar. "You really did treat that probie like shit."
Weiss sneered back at the ghost of her older sister, "What the hell do you want, Winter?"
"In the short time span I was a 2nd Captain," Winter explained to her. "I never lashed out that bad. Weiss, you can't let yourself do that. That girl is only 17."
Weiss took a deep breath and sighed before downing another third of her drink. "Look, I'm tired as hell, I have barely gotten any sleep in the last several days, and that call was stressful, okay?"
"You know you've been on worse calls," Winter noted to her with a grin. "Who can forget that 8-year-old boy that you pumped into for 34 minutes before we called him as dead back when you were 15? You didn't lash out or panic at all, and you weren't even twice that little boy's age." She was bringing up particular past calls that had stuck with Weiss due to their circumstances, both of which were gory or saddening in nature. "Or that girl who died in your arms while you did an ambulance ride-along at the airport when she got her skin shredded off by an aircraft engine and walked over to you as just muscle and bone? It was right after you graduated Beacon, wasn't it? You didn't flip out or anything. Weiss, what the fuck gives?" Winter's tone was rather condescending in nature.
Weiss replied to her examples by grabbing an empty glass and shouting at her own sister, "Get out of my fucking house!" She then tossed the glass at her, which passed through her and smashed into the wall behind her, shattering into many shards. As she looked up, Winter was gone. "I'll lead how I want to lead, and maybe I need to change how I do." She then downed the last of her whiskey. "But for now, I'm gonna drink." She continued by placing her glass under a beer tap and opening it up, filling it with an equally-expensive Atlesian beer. "Drink, drink, drink."