Jeff was standing at the opening to the pod, frozen in his steps. He
didn't see the others jumping on up. Walt and Jerry, already at the
opening, looked inside, looked at each other and then back inside of the
pod. It was trashed. Tools, equipment, larger machines, especially the
big one with the auger sticking through the floor and debris were scattered
all over. As they were looking over the scene, something fell with a bang
towards the back. Scott came up beside his dad, put his hand on his dad's
back and the two of them started for the Mole. Gordon and Brains were
right behind them
Unlike the view John had for the past several hours, the floor slanted and the Mole horizontal, the Mole was sitting nose down into the floor of the pod. The back end was sitting against the wall at an angle. The IR men headed directly towards the Mole knowing that Virgil had been pinned by it. They didn't see anyone at first, as they were on the side opposite the brothers. Gordon was the first one to slide under the Mole on the left and Jeff and Scott easily walked around the auger on the right. Gordon was closer to his brothers than the other two and was already on his knees bending over two very still bodies in torn blue uniforms. Jeff and Scott were upon them in another stride or two. There was a broken box lying across John's back. His left arm was underneath him, his right arm over his head resting on the floor. Checking the area carefully, Jeff stated that it looked safe to lift the box, which had LASER written on it, off of John. With the box removed, they saw that John was on top of Virgil. They did not move John just yet, as they did not know the extent of his injuries. And Virgil was not in immediate danger of suffocation from John being on him. In fact, Virgil could already be dead, and they knew John was still alive. They needed to be very careful with him until they knew the extent of his injuries.
At that moment, an older gentleman knelt down between Jeff and Gordon. All he said was, "May I?"
The Tracys looked at this person, but before any of them could ask who he was, he said, "I'm Doc Amos. I been doctoring the folks around here for ages. And let me assure you, the majority of my work is with crushing injuries such as these. Farming is a dangerous occupation."
Looking past the IR men he said, "Chief, could you go get a backboard?"
Walt yelled, "Sure thing, Doc" as he turned and ran out the pod door. Before he was out of earshot, Doc yelled "and the compression suit, too!"
With the skill befitting someone who has worked on patients like this all his life, Old Doc Amos, as most of the townsfolk called him, worked his hands all over the limp body of John. He started with the back of his head, gently tracing his neck, and probing on down his spine. He stopped halfway down the spine to check something to the right of it, then he continued on to his pelvis and legs. He felt underneath him as much as he could without moving him. The Tracys just sat and let him do his work.
He looked up at Jeff and said, "He has a series of broken ribs in the back here, a straight line down, about 4 inches to the right of his spine. Can you see it?" They all nodded, "yes". "It was probably caused by this box", he nodded towards the smashed LASER box off to the side. "His left humorous is also broken here," pointing to his left arm, "just below the shoulder. He seems to have had enough sense to mobilize it in his . whatever you call this thing." He said as he fingered the sash. "So I am guessing it happened during the initial crash. I think it is safe to roll him over, we will just wait for Walt to come back with the stretcher." Just at that moment, they could hear the crunching of tires outside as a vehicle pulled up and came to a stop. Walt hopped up at the pod entrance carrying a stiff board with strategically placed holes around the parameter. He also carried with him a large old fashion doctor's black bag.
"Thanks, Walt", said the Doc. "C'mon over here and help me roll this young man onto this backboard and strap him in." As Walt stepped over to help the Doc, Jeff said, "We are perfectly able to assist you, Doctor." The Doc looked at Jeff and said, "I am most convinced that you gentlemen are highly trained and fully capable of helping me. But these two young men are obvious a part of your very tight knit group. Almost like family, am I right?" Jeff nodded. "As a doctor I would not work on my own family members. And since the Chief right here," nodding to Walt, "has worked with me many, many a times doing just this I feel it would be better if you would allow us to work on these two fine young men. I would not hesitate to ask for your help if I should need it." Although hesitant, Jeff agreed.
Scott's watch com sounded an incoming call. Jeff turned around to look at his son who was standing directly behind him. Scott answered, "Go ahead, Alan"
"Scott, I have some news for you about the originating rescue call."
As much as Jeff and Scott wanted that information, the task before them was much more important. Jeff shook his head. Scott told Alan, "Can it wait? We are with John and Virgil now. The Doc is working on them. John looks like he is banged up, but may survive. We don't know about Virgil yet. As soon as he assess their injuries completely I will call you right back."
"Ok, Scott, I will be waiting for your call." Alan answered solemnly.
Walt and Doc placed the stiff board right next to John carefully positioning it so that when they rolled him over, he would be properly centered on it. Walt was by John's legs, and Doc moved up to his head and shoulders. "Ona count of three. 1. 2. 3" John was smoothly and gently rolled onto the backboard. Walt then opened up Doc's black bag and pulled out straps, gauze and a neck brace. Handing Doc the neck brace, Walt proceeded to strap John's legs to the board. Doc carefully strapped John's neck then used the gauze to secure his head and neck to the board. Two more straps, one over the pelvis and one across the chest with arms inside, and John was secured and ready for transport. Doc, quickly checked for a pulse on Virgil, looked up at Jeff and nodded. He was still alive.
Nodding towards John, Doc said, "Ok. This young man is ready." He then looked up at the mole and down at the more seriously injured young man pinned beneath it. "I have a dilemma here. Do we transport the one that is ready now, or wait until we get the other one out. This one" pointing to John, "really could use attention now. But if we get this other young fella out while the ambulance is still on route waiting that extra time could be his death sentence."
"Don't worry about that, we have the fastest ambulance service around", stated Scott. "We might even beat the ambulance to the hospital using Thunderbird 1." Doc looked up to the strikingly handsome young man and raise one eyebrow Mr. Spock-style. "Really? This I wanna see!"
So looking to Jeff, Doc said, "so it is ok with you to send this young man in our only ambulance to the hospital?" Jeff answered without hesitation, "yes, go ahead.".
"ok, give me a minute to check over this other one here, so that I can take out of the ambulance anything I might need." Doc stated.
The same way that John had previously checked Virgil, Doc laid flat on his stomach and reached under the chassis. He spent a few minutes checking Virgil out. He straightened up a bit and pulled his stethoscope out of his pocket, placed it in his ears, slid back down onto his stomach and pushed his face as far under the chassis as he could so that the stethoscope could reach the patient. What seemed to be an eternity to Jeff, Doc finally got up and looked over to the other side of the chassis. He checked the distance under the chassis from the edge to where Virgil would be and nixed that idea. He instead went to Virgil's head, laid down and pushed his stethoscope down Virgil's other side, going under his outstretched arm. Again what seemed an eternity, the Doc got up and turned to Walt.
"Did you bring the compression suit?" he asked of Walt. Walt answered, "It's in the ambulance, I brought the whole ambulance up here."
"Good man, ok, let's go get what we need out of the ambulance." Turning to two more men and pointing to John, Doc said, "Joe, Angus, would you pick this young man up and bring him to the ambulance? Be very careful with him, he's already had a real rough ride."
"Sure thing, Doc"
As Joe and Angus picked up John and carried him out the pod door, Jeff turned to Gordon. "Gordon, would you mind going with them to the hospital? We will keep you informed about Virgil." Gordon looked down at his older brother pinned under all that weight, sighed a deep sigh, and said, "ok". Brains, looking at Gordon, then chimed in, "I'll go t-t-to." Jeff looked at Brains and realized he was going to help support Gordon. "Thanks Brains".
At the ambulance, Walt and Doc were rummaging around inside. Periodically Walt came out with an orange box here, a red box there, and lots of very interesting medically looking items. They were brought out and set on the pod ramp. When Doc emerged, he gave the ok for John to be loaded in. "I think we have everything we need, did you check to make sure the suit is in the box, Walt?"
"Yeah, it's in there."
They watched Gordon and Brains enter the back of the ambulance to be with John and sit down. Jerry got into the front with the driver. Jeff climbed inside to tell John that everything is going to be ok and say goodbye. He wasn't sure if he could hear him or not, but he still had to say it. Jeff held his good hand for a moment, let go and got out. Scott then entered also said his good-byes and good luck and exited. Gordon looked out at his dad just before they closed the door and said, "Everything will be ok". The doors closed and the ambulance took off. Jeff looked after it with trepidation in his heart.
Gordon was apprehensive about the ride. There were no roads out here and the ride was bumpy. He was watching John bouncing around the cot. The ambulance driver was coaxing as much speed as he could without jarring the bones of all his passengers, especially the injured one. He looked at Brains who mirrored the same thought.
Suddenly there was a thud and a lurch and the ride smoothed out tremendously. The driver called back "we're on paved roads now, so we can really boogey to the hospital. Is our patient ok back there?"
Brains took a look at John, felt his pulse and answered, "He's d-d-doing fine."
Although the road was only a two-lane road, it was smooth and void of traffic. The ambulance screamed at about 90 MPH. Within ½ hour, they were pulling up in front of a fairly large and modern looking hospital.
John was pulled from the ambulance and wheeled into the emergency room. Jerry motioned them to stay with John and that he would take care of the paperwork for now. The emergency crew started to cut away the uniform and they seemed oblivious to the fact that he was an International Rescue person. They were concentrating at the task at hand. A sphygmomanometer was placed on his right arm, heart monitor probes were placed on his chest, an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and a pulsox monitor placed on his finger. Gordon and Brains just stood aside as they worked on John. An intern came over to them and asked them for the injury history, what they knew about the accident. Gordon gave him the quick and dirty version indicating that one of their vehicles crashed and that his broken left arm was most probably a result of the initial crash. The broken ribs in the back that Doc had pointed out to him, occurred just before he was brought in. It was caused by a heavy object falling on him. That was all he knew about the injuries. The intern went back to the other medical personnel and gave them the update. They rolled John gently onto his side for a moment and examined his back. The doctor who looked like the head honcho ordered a CT scan of the head, neck and back near the broken ribs. He also ordered the standard blood test. He spoke to the intern who came back to Gordon and Brains. "Do you know if he has any allergies?"
"He d-d-doesn't", answered Brains.
"Do you know if he has ever had major surgery before?" The intern asked.
Both Brains and Gordon looked at each other and for the first time in hours, each cracked a smile. "Yes, he has had major surgery, do you need a list?" Gordon said.
"No, the interned answer, at least not yet. We just needed to know if he has been under general anesthesia before"
Gordon and Brain chuckled to themselves as all of the Tracy boys have had multiple surgeries, thanks to the dangerous job they do. Most of the time however they were in the hospital as a Tracy, not International Rescue.
One of the nurses working on John came over to them and said that they were prepping to send him up to the CT lab, then straight to surgery to pin his arm and repair the damage to his lungs and ribs. The blow on the back, which broke his ribs, gave him a pneumothorax. She said, "At this point there is nothing more you can do but wait. We have a waiting room down here in Emergency or upstairs outside of surgery."
"We'll both go upstairs" Gordon answered.
They watched the emergency crew wheel John into the elevator and take him up to the third floor. They took the second one up because with the gurney and several medical personnel, there was no room left on the first car.
Once upstairs, they sat down to a plethora of magazines to choose from, and gallons of machine coffee. Brains asked Gordon, "Should we c-c-call your dad, y-y-yet?" He answered, "I want to, but it could be bad timing. They said they would call with any news for us. We can then tell him about John."
Walt and Doc were already back with Virgil. They were in deep discussion and looked up when Scott and Jeff came back. Doc said, "Ok, Mr. uh, Mr."
"Just call me Jeff"
"Ok, Jeff, this is where you get back to work. How do we go about getting this behemoth off this young feller?" ask Doc.
Unlike the view John had for the past several hours, the floor slanted and the Mole horizontal, the Mole was sitting nose down into the floor of the pod. The back end was sitting against the wall at an angle. The IR men headed directly towards the Mole knowing that Virgil had been pinned by it. They didn't see anyone at first, as they were on the side opposite the brothers. Gordon was the first one to slide under the Mole on the left and Jeff and Scott easily walked around the auger on the right. Gordon was closer to his brothers than the other two and was already on his knees bending over two very still bodies in torn blue uniforms. Jeff and Scott were upon them in another stride or two. There was a broken box lying across John's back. His left arm was underneath him, his right arm over his head resting on the floor. Checking the area carefully, Jeff stated that it looked safe to lift the box, which had LASER written on it, off of John. With the box removed, they saw that John was on top of Virgil. They did not move John just yet, as they did not know the extent of his injuries. And Virgil was not in immediate danger of suffocation from John being on him. In fact, Virgil could already be dead, and they knew John was still alive. They needed to be very careful with him until they knew the extent of his injuries.
At that moment, an older gentleman knelt down between Jeff and Gordon. All he said was, "May I?"
The Tracys looked at this person, but before any of them could ask who he was, he said, "I'm Doc Amos. I been doctoring the folks around here for ages. And let me assure you, the majority of my work is with crushing injuries such as these. Farming is a dangerous occupation."
Looking past the IR men he said, "Chief, could you go get a backboard?"
Walt yelled, "Sure thing, Doc" as he turned and ran out the pod door. Before he was out of earshot, Doc yelled "and the compression suit, too!"
With the skill befitting someone who has worked on patients like this all his life, Old Doc Amos, as most of the townsfolk called him, worked his hands all over the limp body of John. He started with the back of his head, gently tracing his neck, and probing on down his spine. He stopped halfway down the spine to check something to the right of it, then he continued on to his pelvis and legs. He felt underneath him as much as he could without moving him. The Tracys just sat and let him do his work.
He looked up at Jeff and said, "He has a series of broken ribs in the back here, a straight line down, about 4 inches to the right of his spine. Can you see it?" They all nodded, "yes". "It was probably caused by this box", he nodded towards the smashed LASER box off to the side. "His left humorous is also broken here," pointing to his left arm, "just below the shoulder. He seems to have had enough sense to mobilize it in his . whatever you call this thing." He said as he fingered the sash. "So I am guessing it happened during the initial crash. I think it is safe to roll him over, we will just wait for Walt to come back with the stretcher." Just at that moment, they could hear the crunching of tires outside as a vehicle pulled up and came to a stop. Walt hopped up at the pod entrance carrying a stiff board with strategically placed holes around the parameter. He also carried with him a large old fashion doctor's black bag.
"Thanks, Walt", said the Doc. "C'mon over here and help me roll this young man onto this backboard and strap him in." As Walt stepped over to help the Doc, Jeff said, "We are perfectly able to assist you, Doctor." The Doc looked at Jeff and said, "I am most convinced that you gentlemen are highly trained and fully capable of helping me. But these two young men are obvious a part of your very tight knit group. Almost like family, am I right?" Jeff nodded. "As a doctor I would not work on my own family members. And since the Chief right here," nodding to Walt, "has worked with me many, many a times doing just this I feel it would be better if you would allow us to work on these two fine young men. I would not hesitate to ask for your help if I should need it." Although hesitant, Jeff agreed.
Scott's watch com sounded an incoming call. Jeff turned around to look at his son who was standing directly behind him. Scott answered, "Go ahead, Alan"
"Scott, I have some news for you about the originating rescue call."
As much as Jeff and Scott wanted that information, the task before them was much more important. Jeff shook his head. Scott told Alan, "Can it wait? We are with John and Virgil now. The Doc is working on them. John looks like he is banged up, but may survive. We don't know about Virgil yet. As soon as he assess their injuries completely I will call you right back."
"Ok, Scott, I will be waiting for your call." Alan answered solemnly.
Walt and Doc placed the stiff board right next to John carefully positioning it so that when they rolled him over, he would be properly centered on it. Walt was by John's legs, and Doc moved up to his head and shoulders. "Ona count of three. 1. 2. 3" John was smoothly and gently rolled onto the backboard. Walt then opened up Doc's black bag and pulled out straps, gauze and a neck brace. Handing Doc the neck brace, Walt proceeded to strap John's legs to the board. Doc carefully strapped John's neck then used the gauze to secure his head and neck to the board. Two more straps, one over the pelvis and one across the chest with arms inside, and John was secured and ready for transport. Doc, quickly checked for a pulse on Virgil, looked up at Jeff and nodded. He was still alive.
Nodding towards John, Doc said, "Ok. This young man is ready." He then looked up at the mole and down at the more seriously injured young man pinned beneath it. "I have a dilemma here. Do we transport the one that is ready now, or wait until we get the other one out. This one" pointing to John, "really could use attention now. But if we get this other young fella out while the ambulance is still on route waiting that extra time could be his death sentence."
"Don't worry about that, we have the fastest ambulance service around", stated Scott. "We might even beat the ambulance to the hospital using Thunderbird 1." Doc looked up to the strikingly handsome young man and raise one eyebrow Mr. Spock-style. "Really? This I wanna see!"
So looking to Jeff, Doc said, "so it is ok with you to send this young man in our only ambulance to the hospital?" Jeff answered without hesitation, "yes, go ahead.".
"ok, give me a minute to check over this other one here, so that I can take out of the ambulance anything I might need." Doc stated.
The same way that John had previously checked Virgil, Doc laid flat on his stomach and reached under the chassis. He spent a few minutes checking Virgil out. He straightened up a bit and pulled his stethoscope out of his pocket, placed it in his ears, slid back down onto his stomach and pushed his face as far under the chassis as he could so that the stethoscope could reach the patient. What seemed to be an eternity to Jeff, Doc finally got up and looked over to the other side of the chassis. He checked the distance under the chassis from the edge to where Virgil would be and nixed that idea. He instead went to Virgil's head, laid down and pushed his stethoscope down Virgil's other side, going under his outstretched arm. Again what seemed an eternity, the Doc got up and turned to Walt.
"Did you bring the compression suit?" he asked of Walt. Walt answered, "It's in the ambulance, I brought the whole ambulance up here."
"Good man, ok, let's go get what we need out of the ambulance." Turning to two more men and pointing to John, Doc said, "Joe, Angus, would you pick this young man up and bring him to the ambulance? Be very careful with him, he's already had a real rough ride."
"Sure thing, Doc"
As Joe and Angus picked up John and carried him out the pod door, Jeff turned to Gordon. "Gordon, would you mind going with them to the hospital? We will keep you informed about Virgil." Gordon looked down at his older brother pinned under all that weight, sighed a deep sigh, and said, "ok". Brains, looking at Gordon, then chimed in, "I'll go t-t-to." Jeff looked at Brains and realized he was going to help support Gordon. "Thanks Brains".
At the ambulance, Walt and Doc were rummaging around inside. Periodically Walt came out with an orange box here, a red box there, and lots of very interesting medically looking items. They were brought out and set on the pod ramp. When Doc emerged, he gave the ok for John to be loaded in. "I think we have everything we need, did you check to make sure the suit is in the box, Walt?"
"Yeah, it's in there."
They watched Gordon and Brains enter the back of the ambulance to be with John and sit down. Jerry got into the front with the driver. Jeff climbed inside to tell John that everything is going to be ok and say goodbye. He wasn't sure if he could hear him or not, but he still had to say it. Jeff held his good hand for a moment, let go and got out. Scott then entered also said his good-byes and good luck and exited. Gordon looked out at his dad just before they closed the door and said, "Everything will be ok". The doors closed and the ambulance took off. Jeff looked after it with trepidation in his heart.
Gordon was apprehensive about the ride. There were no roads out here and the ride was bumpy. He was watching John bouncing around the cot. The ambulance driver was coaxing as much speed as he could without jarring the bones of all his passengers, especially the injured one. He looked at Brains who mirrored the same thought.
Suddenly there was a thud and a lurch and the ride smoothed out tremendously. The driver called back "we're on paved roads now, so we can really boogey to the hospital. Is our patient ok back there?"
Brains took a look at John, felt his pulse and answered, "He's d-d-doing fine."
Although the road was only a two-lane road, it was smooth and void of traffic. The ambulance screamed at about 90 MPH. Within ½ hour, they were pulling up in front of a fairly large and modern looking hospital.
John was pulled from the ambulance and wheeled into the emergency room. Jerry motioned them to stay with John and that he would take care of the paperwork for now. The emergency crew started to cut away the uniform and they seemed oblivious to the fact that he was an International Rescue person. They were concentrating at the task at hand. A sphygmomanometer was placed on his right arm, heart monitor probes were placed on his chest, an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and a pulsox monitor placed on his finger. Gordon and Brains just stood aside as they worked on John. An intern came over to them and asked them for the injury history, what they knew about the accident. Gordon gave him the quick and dirty version indicating that one of their vehicles crashed and that his broken left arm was most probably a result of the initial crash. The broken ribs in the back that Doc had pointed out to him, occurred just before he was brought in. It was caused by a heavy object falling on him. That was all he knew about the injuries. The intern went back to the other medical personnel and gave them the update. They rolled John gently onto his side for a moment and examined his back. The doctor who looked like the head honcho ordered a CT scan of the head, neck and back near the broken ribs. He also ordered the standard blood test. He spoke to the intern who came back to Gordon and Brains. "Do you know if he has any allergies?"
"He d-d-doesn't", answered Brains.
"Do you know if he has ever had major surgery before?" The intern asked.
Both Brains and Gordon looked at each other and for the first time in hours, each cracked a smile. "Yes, he has had major surgery, do you need a list?" Gordon said.
"No, the interned answer, at least not yet. We just needed to know if he has been under general anesthesia before"
Gordon and Brain chuckled to themselves as all of the Tracy boys have had multiple surgeries, thanks to the dangerous job they do. Most of the time however they were in the hospital as a Tracy, not International Rescue.
One of the nurses working on John came over to them and said that they were prepping to send him up to the CT lab, then straight to surgery to pin his arm and repair the damage to his lungs and ribs. The blow on the back, which broke his ribs, gave him a pneumothorax. She said, "At this point there is nothing more you can do but wait. We have a waiting room down here in Emergency or upstairs outside of surgery."
"We'll both go upstairs" Gordon answered.
They watched the emergency crew wheel John into the elevator and take him up to the third floor. They took the second one up because with the gurney and several medical personnel, there was no room left on the first car.
Once upstairs, they sat down to a plethora of magazines to choose from, and gallons of machine coffee. Brains asked Gordon, "Should we c-c-call your dad, y-y-yet?" He answered, "I want to, but it could be bad timing. They said they would call with any news for us. We can then tell him about John."
Walt and Doc were already back with Virgil. They were in deep discussion and looked up when Scott and Jeff came back. Doc said, "Ok, Mr. uh, Mr."
"Just call me Jeff"
"Ok, Jeff, this is where you get back to work. How do we go about getting this behemoth off this young feller?" ask Doc.