Virgil was transferred to the gurney and rushed to the elevator that would
take him to the emergency room. Doc Amos went with the ER team leaving
Jeff and Scott to either take the stairs or wait for the elevator to come
back up. They took the stairs.
In the elevator Dr Chloe Smythe, the head of the ER physicians was going to look after Virgil herself. Not because he was International Rescue, although just by the work he does he has earned the best care, but because he was very seriously injured and that alone warranted her taking on his case. She greeted Amos then went right to the point, "Amos, what can you tell me of this young man?"
Amos got right down to the facts, "Starting from the top down, probable fracture of the left zygomatic bone. Possible broken clavicle. Fractured vertebro-sternal ribs number 4 though 7 with subsequent lateral pneumothorax. Internal hemorrhaging due to either lacerated liver or spleen. Possible fractured ilium pelvis with inherited lacerated external iliac artery. The iliac artery and lacerated spleen/liver have me most worried. Once the suit comes off, we don't have much time to find and repair it before he bleeds out. I did not get to exam the lower extremities."
Chloe said, " I think autotransfusing may work here. We will set it up when we get to the ER and see if he is a candidate." Then turning to a technician who just drew four different test tubes of blood she said, "Get the type and crossmatch first. Then the clotting factors. Hematology and Chemistry can receive their samples last. Make sure you mark it STAT and wait for the blood from Blood Bank. Start with 4 units if they have it and reserve all units of his type they have. Also reserve 5 units of O-. I would prefer to transfuse with his own type, but if we run out we will use O-.
The elevator doors opened up and the technician bolted to the labs with her cargo of blood. The rest of the team wheeled Virgil into the nearest ER room.
Scott and Jeff appeared at the ER waiting room shortly after Virgil was wheeled into one of the rooms. The ER was made of several closed rooms and an open area with about 5 curtained enclosures. They looked around expecting to see Gordon or Brains, but didn't see them. The nurse behind the counter noticed the two men looking a bit lost and also noticed Scott's uniform. She volunteered, "If you are looking for the others in your party, they are waiting in the surgical waiting room up on the third floor. Your other operative that came in earlier is already in surgery." Jeff said, "thanks". He turned to Scott and said, "I think I will wait here to see what they say about Virgil first before going up to see the others." Scott agreed. Then he looked at his watch com and signaled Gordon. "Hi Gordo, I just wanted to let you know we are downstairs. We are going to wait for word on Virgil before we come up. Any more news on John?
Gordon answered, "No nothing on John, yet. Keep me updated on Virgil."
They sat down in the chairs of the ER waiting room.
And waited.
And waited.
At one point they saw a technician race into one of the rooms with a cart. Jeff had seen them before. They are called crash carts and are used when the heart is starting to fail. Unfortunately, one was needed when Gordon had his hydrofoil crash. But contrary to Hollywood theatrics, there was no booming CODE BLUE, CODE BLUE screeching out of the loud speaker. No hyperventilating nurse running around screaming that we need a doctor in room 1. Just that one person and cart going into one of the rooms. He didn't know which room Virgil was taken to, so he hoped that the crash cart wasn't for him. Scott saw his father looking towards the room that received the cart and said, "I am sure that is not Virgil's room. He'll be fine. He'll come out of this ok"
About 45 minutes later, Dr. Smythe left Virgil's room and went over to the two men that she saw on the roof when her patient was brought in. "Are you here for Virgil?" She asked. Jeff and Scott both stood up. "Yes."
"He is in very serious condition, but we have stabilized him. We brought his blood pressure back up and infused him with several units of blood. Luckily he is A+, a common type, and we have plenty of it on hand. Dr. Benson is our vascular specialist and is waiting for him upstairs to repair a bleeder in his abdomen. Dr. Sayak is the general surgeon on hand. She will be going in to repair the spleen and liver. He may lose his spleen and one lobe of his liver. But he can live a full life without those organs. We need to repair those emergency items first. Since we are going into his abdomen to do repairs we do not want to do a thoracotomy too. We hope to alleviate his collapsed lung by continuing to remove air from the chest cavity. Although that is a severe injury, it is not presently life threatening as the bleeding is. He will need to go back into surgery most probably tomorrow to repair the pneumothorax and broken ribs if he stabilizes overnight. At that time, the plastic surgeon will look at his face."
"Do you have any questions?"
Scott was first, "What is a pneumothorax and thoracotomy?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, pneumothorax is doctorese for collapsed lung. A thoracotomy is the type of surgery we perform to get into the chest cavity. It requires breaking the sternum and cracking open the ribs." Said Chloe. "We will need to do that to repair the lung and broken ribs."
Jeff had the next question, "Why don't you fix everything while he is under anesthesia now?"
She again answered, "His overall condition is very unstable. We need to get him into surgery to repair the bleeding but we have stabilized him enough to get him up to surgery. But to open the abdominal cavity as well as the chest cavity is too traumatic for his body. We want to get the bleeding stopped, get him into Recovery and fill him full of blood. His heart rate and blood pressure should even out and reached a more normal rate overnight. Depending on how fast his signs return to normal will dictate if we go back in tomorrow morning, afternoon or the next day."
Dr. Smythe turned around when at that moment the room doors banged open and Virgil was wheeled to the elevators. "I have to go right now," she said. "He is headed to surgery which is on the third floor. You may want to wait up there."
She turned and left.
Scott and Jeff went to the elevators and entered the next car. As they exited the elevator onto the third floor, they saw Gordon and Brains right away. Jerry was also with them but off to the side.
"Gordon, any word yet on John?" asked Jeff. He answered, "Not yet, what about Virgil".
Jeff answered, "I spoke with the ER doctor. Virgil is in bad shape. It looks like he is going to need several operations to fix him up. He needs this first one just to stay alive. His ribs and face will be worked on in the next day or so. I don't know how many surgeries he is going to need totally though. I think it is going to be a very long night."
They just sat down when a doctor entered the waiting room, "Mr. Ir? Is there a Mr. Jeff Ir here? Or a Mr. Gordon Ir?"
The Tracy clan looked at each other in puzzlement, "Ir?" Then suddenly Jerry suddenly spoke up, "Jeff, that's you! I will explain later."
Seeing the gray haired man that was being address, the doctor came over and asked, "Are you Jeff?".
Jeff answered, "Yes, are you here about John or Virgil?"
The doctor replied, "I worked on John."
"And..." Jeff said anxiously.
"John is going to be fine. We needed a vascular surgeon to go in and do some repair to John's brachial artery. It was damaged along with the bone. But the break was fairly clean, so we pinned the bone and Dr. Benson repaired the artery. I was able to repair his collapsed lung and the broken posterior ribs. Whatever landed on him hit him pretty hard, but again the break was very clean. The bones weren't shattered. I was able to pin each of the ribs. Depending on the type of break, we can't always do anything to broken ribs, but he was lucky, his were repairable. He should get full function in his arm and have no diminished breathing whatsoever once he has healed. He has just been moved to Recover. Once he wakes up, we will move him to a regular room. You can visit him as soon as he moves up there. Do you have any questions?"
The doctor looked at the crowd, all shaking their heads no. Jeff reached out his hand and said, "Thank you Doctor."
"You're welcome. If you have any questions later, you can contact me through the nurses. I'm Doctor Hood."
The doctor was startled at the reaction he received when he said his name, "Is there something wrong?"
"Uh, uh, no" stammered Jeff. "We just happen to know of a Hood, and just wasn't expecting to hear the name."
Dr. Hood hesitantly said, "Ok., I'm sorry if my name shook you up. But again, please don't hesitate to contact me if you need to."
"Thanks doctor, we will," said Jeff. When Dr Hood left, they all looked at each other, worried. Scott turned to Jerry, "Have you ever met that doctor before?"
Jerry said, "Hell, yes, he's been at this hospital for years. He's worked on me, and.. Um, Walt. I think maybe Walt's wife too. Don't worry, if he worked on John, then John had the best man around. Why? Is there something wrong?"
"No, I guess not, not if you vouch for him." Said Scott. "By the way, what's with this Mr. Ir? Who is Mr. Ir?
Jerry chuckled. "I did the paperwork for you guys as you seemed so concerned about your buddies I wanted you to stay with them. But I didn't know your last name and figured I wasn't going to know it," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I had to give them something so I just thought I. R. for International Rescue. Ir!" I set it up for both the guys we rescued even though Virgil wasn't here yet. This way, you needed worry about red tape."
"C-c-clever, quick thinking," said Brains.
At that moment, Walt walked into the waiting room. "Hey, what's the news on our two boys?"
Jeff filled him in on both John and Virgil. ". and so, when John awakes, we will go visit for a while then come back here. He won't be awake for long periods of time, but I would like for him to see us at least for a moment or two. But I think we will have a very long wait with Virgil. Coffee?"
Walt sat down, now looking very exhausted, "Uh, yes, thanks. Cream, no sugar"
After retrieving a cup from the machine for Walt, one for himself and one for Scott, everyone had declined, Jeff sat down.
About 30 minutes later, a nurse came in and said that John was waking up and would anyone like to see him. Scott looked to his dad and said, "Why don't you and Gordon go. Brains and I can go when you get back."
Jeff and Gordon were led down the hall and to the left into room 328. John was there and looked asleep. His complexion was sallow. He looked like he had been through the ringer. Jeff thought he looked terrible but was thrilled that he was going to be ok.
"Son?" Jeff said. "John?" John opened his eyes. He was having trouble keeping them open, a side effect of anesthesia. "Hi dad," he whispered. He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. "Where am I?"
"You're in a hospital. Do you remember what happened?" Said Jeff.
John closed his eyes again. He laid there like that so long that Jeff and Gordon thought he had fallen asleep. "Yeah, I do," he said opening his eyes. Virgil?"
This time it was Gordon who answered. "He's in surgery now. You were great in what you did for him. He won't have made it this far if it weren't for you."
John smiled weakly. "Ok. Let me know when he gets out. I'm going to sleep, now." And with that John was asleep. The nurse came in and said that between the anesthesia and medication, he would probably sleep the rest of the night. Jeff and Gordon left John's room to return to the others.
Scott and Brains took a turn to visit John when the other two got back. They were there only a short time. John did not wake up for them. When they got back, Scott got another cup of coffee and sat down.
It was going to be a long night.
Gordon cracked his eyes a smidge to squint at the clock. Only two hours had passed since they wheeled Virgil into surgery.
Scott crumbled the paper cup in his hand from his 5th cup of coffee and glanced up at the clock. "Hmmm," he thought to himself, "it's only been three hours."
Brains took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. He had read every magazine in the room. He put his glasses on and turned to look up at the clock. Five and a half hours have passed. He was sure it was going to be a lot longer.
Jeff looked at both Walt and Jerry snoring away head to head. Walt had left for a short while to relieve Allen for a couple of hours and had returned several hours later. Jeff wondered why those two were still here at... he glanced up at the clock,. the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM. They should be at home in bed.
Scott's watch com beeped. Scott jumped slightly as he was drifting through that state halfway between awake and asleep. He thought to himself, "Oh God, we forgot all about Alan!" And glancing over at Jeff, his face confirmed it.
"Go ahead Alan"
"Hi Scott, any news?"
"Virgil is still in surgery. We spoke to the ER doctor..." Scott filled him in on the details of Virgil's injuries.
"by the way, you said you had news about the original call?" Scott asked.
"Yeah, you're not going to believe this." Alan started excitedly. "It was a real call but the guy gave us the wrong coordinates. He got two of the numbers backwards. The collapsed mine is about 500 miles south of you." Then continuing in a more somber note, "they lost 7 miners. Miners we could have saved if we went there instead.." And he trailed off.
Jeff turned on his watch and made it a three-way conversation. "Alan, we would never have been able to save those men, even if Thunderbird 2 did not crash. Not until we had the correct coordinates. Don't go blaming yourself because you couldn't tell that he gave you the wrong location. We may have fantastic rescue machines, but we are still human, and we do not have ESP, contrary to some popular belief!"
Alan knew he was right. "I know. It is just so hard to hear the cries for help and not be able to do anything about it. By the time he corrected the coordinates, Thunderbird 2 was already down."
Scott looked up, and towards Brains, but addressed everyone. "If the rescue call was real, what caused the crash?"
In the elevator Dr Chloe Smythe, the head of the ER physicians was going to look after Virgil herself. Not because he was International Rescue, although just by the work he does he has earned the best care, but because he was very seriously injured and that alone warranted her taking on his case. She greeted Amos then went right to the point, "Amos, what can you tell me of this young man?"
Amos got right down to the facts, "Starting from the top down, probable fracture of the left zygomatic bone. Possible broken clavicle. Fractured vertebro-sternal ribs number 4 though 7 with subsequent lateral pneumothorax. Internal hemorrhaging due to either lacerated liver or spleen. Possible fractured ilium pelvis with inherited lacerated external iliac artery. The iliac artery and lacerated spleen/liver have me most worried. Once the suit comes off, we don't have much time to find and repair it before he bleeds out. I did not get to exam the lower extremities."
Chloe said, " I think autotransfusing may work here. We will set it up when we get to the ER and see if he is a candidate." Then turning to a technician who just drew four different test tubes of blood she said, "Get the type and crossmatch first. Then the clotting factors. Hematology and Chemistry can receive their samples last. Make sure you mark it STAT and wait for the blood from Blood Bank. Start with 4 units if they have it and reserve all units of his type they have. Also reserve 5 units of O-. I would prefer to transfuse with his own type, but if we run out we will use O-.
The elevator doors opened up and the technician bolted to the labs with her cargo of blood. The rest of the team wheeled Virgil into the nearest ER room.
Scott and Jeff appeared at the ER waiting room shortly after Virgil was wheeled into one of the rooms. The ER was made of several closed rooms and an open area with about 5 curtained enclosures. They looked around expecting to see Gordon or Brains, but didn't see them. The nurse behind the counter noticed the two men looking a bit lost and also noticed Scott's uniform. She volunteered, "If you are looking for the others in your party, they are waiting in the surgical waiting room up on the third floor. Your other operative that came in earlier is already in surgery." Jeff said, "thanks". He turned to Scott and said, "I think I will wait here to see what they say about Virgil first before going up to see the others." Scott agreed. Then he looked at his watch com and signaled Gordon. "Hi Gordo, I just wanted to let you know we are downstairs. We are going to wait for word on Virgil before we come up. Any more news on John?
Gordon answered, "No nothing on John, yet. Keep me updated on Virgil."
They sat down in the chairs of the ER waiting room.
And waited.
And waited.
At one point they saw a technician race into one of the rooms with a cart. Jeff had seen them before. They are called crash carts and are used when the heart is starting to fail. Unfortunately, one was needed when Gordon had his hydrofoil crash. But contrary to Hollywood theatrics, there was no booming CODE BLUE, CODE BLUE screeching out of the loud speaker. No hyperventilating nurse running around screaming that we need a doctor in room 1. Just that one person and cart going into one of the rooms. He didn't know which room Virgil was taken to, so he hoped that the crash cart wasn't for him. Scott saw his father looking towards the room that received the cart and said, "I am sure that is not Virgil's room. He'll be fine. He'll come out of this ok"
About 45 minutes later, Dr. Smythe left Virgil's room and went over to the two men that she saw on the roof when her patient was brought in. "Are you here for Virgil?" She asked. Jeff and Scott both stood up. "Yes."
"He is in very serious condition, but we have stabilized him. We brought his blood pressure back up and infused him with several units of blood. Luckily he is A+, a common type, and we have plenty of it on hand. Dr. Benson is our vascular specialist and is waiting for him upstairs to repair a bleeder in his abdomen. Dr. Sayak is the general surgeon on hand. She will be going in to repair the spleen and liver. He may lose his spleen and one lobe of his liver. But he can live a full life without those organs. We need to repair those emergency items first. Since we are going into his abdomen to do repairs we do not want to do a thoracotomy too. We hope to alleviate his collapsed lung by continuing to remove air from the chest cavity. Although that is a severe injury, it is not presently life threatening as the bleeding is. He will need to go back into surgery most probably tomorrow to repair the pneumothorax and broken ribs if he stabilizes overnight. At that time, the plastic surgeon will look at his face."
"Do you have any questions?"
Scott was first, "What is a pneumothorax and thoracotomy?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, pneumothorax is doctorese for collapsed lung. A thoracotomy is the type of surgery we perform to get into the chest cavity. It requires breaking the sternum and cracking open the ribs." Said Chloe. "We will need to do that to repair the lung and broken ribs."
Jeff had the next question, "Why don't you fix everything while he is under anesthesia now?"
She again answered, "His overall condition is very unstable. We need to get him into surgery to repair the bleeding but we have stabilized him enough to get him up to surgery. But to open the abdominal cavity as well as the chest cavity is too traumatic for his body. We want to get the bleeding stopped, get him into Recovery and fill him full of blood. His heart rate and blood pressure should even out and reached a more normal rate overnight. Depending on how fast his signs return to normal will dictate if we go back in tomorrow morning, afternoon or the next day."
Dr. Smythe turned around when at that moment the room doors banged open and Virgil was wheeled to the elevators. "I have to go right now," she said. "He is headed to surgery which is on the third floor. You may want to wait up there."
She turned and left.
Scott and Jeff went to the elevators and entered the next car. As they exited the elevator onto the third floor, they saw Gordon and Brains right away. Jerry was also with them but off to the side.
"Gordon, any word yet on John?" asked Jeff. He answered, "Not yet, what about Virgil".
Jeff answered, "I spoke with the ER doctor. Virgil is in bad shape. It looks like he is going to need several operations to fix him up. He needs this first one just to stay alive. His ribs and face will be worked on in the next day or so. I don't know how many surgeries he is going to need totally though. I think it is going to be a very long night."
They just sat down when a doctor entered the waiting room, "Mr. Ir? Is there a Mr. Jeff Ir here? Or a Mr. Gordon Ir?"
The Tracy clan looked at each other in puzzlement, "Ir?" Then suddenly Jerry suddenly spoke up, "Jeff, that's you! I will explain later."
Seeing the gray haired man that was being address, the doctor came over and asked, "Are you Jeff?".
Jeff answered, "Yes, are you here about John or Virgil?"
The doctor replied, "I worked on John."
"And..." Jeff said anxiously.
"John is going to be fine. We needed a vascular surgeon to go in and do some repair to John's brachial artery. It was damaged along with the bone. But the break was fairly clean, so we pinned the bone and Dr. Benson repaired the artery. I was able to repair his collapsed lung and the broken posterior ribs. Whatever landed on him hit him pretty hard, but again the break was very clean. The bones weren't shattered. I was able to pin each of the ribs. Depending on the type of break, we can't always do anything to broken ribs, but he was lucky, his were repairable. He should get full function in his arm and have no diminished breathing whatsoever once he has healed. He has just been moved to Recover. Once he wakes up, we will move him to a regular room. You can visit him as soon as he moves up there. Do you have any questions?"
The doctor looked at the crowd, all shaking their heads no. Jeff reached out his hand and said, "Thank you Doctor."
"You're welcome. If you have any questions later, you can contact me through the nurses. I'm Doctor Hood."
The doctor was startled at the reaction he received when he said his name, "Is there something wrong?"
"Uh, uh, no" stammered Jeff. "We just happen to know of a Hood, and just wasn't expecting to hear the name."
Dr. Hood hesitantly said, "Ok., I'm sorry if my name shook you up. But again, please don't hesitate to contact me if you need to."
"Thanks doctor, we will," said Jeff. When Dr Hood left, they all looked at each other, worried. Scott turned to Jerry, "Have you ever met that doctor before?"
Jerry said, "Hell, yes, he's been at this hospital for years. He's worked on me, and.. Um, Walt. I think maybe Walt's wife too. Don't worry, if he worked on John, then John had the best man around. Why? Is there something wrong?"
"No, I guess not, not if you vouch for him." Said Scott. "By the way, what's with this Mr. Ir? Who is Mr. Ir?
Jerry chuckled. "I did the paperwork for you guys as you seemed so concerned about your buddies I wanted you to stay with them. But I didn't know your last name and figured I wasn't going to know it," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I had to give them something so I just thought I. R. for International Rescue. Ir!" I set it up for both the guys we rescued even though Virgil wasn't here yet. This way, you needed worry about red tape."
"C-c-clever, quick thinking," said Brains.
At that moment, Walt walked into the waiting room. "Hey, what's the news on our two boys?"
Jeff filled him in on both John and Virgil. ". and so, when John awakes, we will go visit for a while then come back here. He won't be awake for long periods of time, but I would like for him to see us at least for a moment or two. But I think we will have a very long wait with Virgil. Coffee?"
Walt sat down, now looking very exhausted, "Uh, yes, thanks. Cream, no sugar"
After retrieving a cup from the machine for Walt, one for himself and one for Scott, everyone had declined, Jeff sat down.
About 30 minutes later, a nurse came in and said that John was waking up and would anyone like to see him. Scott looked to his dad and said, "Why don't you and Gordon go. Brains and I can go when you get back."
Jeff and Gordon were led down the hall and to the left into room 328. John was there and looked asleep. His complexion was sallow. He looked like he had been through the ringer. Jeff thought he looked terrible but was thrilled that he was going to be ok.
"Son?" Jeff said. "John?" John opened his eyes. He was having trouble keeping them open, a side effect of anesthesia. "Hi dad," he whispered. He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. "Where am I?"
"You're in a hospital. Do you remember what happened?" Said Jeff.
John closed his eyes again. He laid there like that so long that Jeff and Gordon thought he had fallen asleep. "Yeah, I do," he said opening his eyes. Virgil?"
This time it was Gordon who answered. "He's in surgery now. You were great in what you did for him. He won't have made it this far if it weren't for you."
John smiled weakly. "Ok. Let me know when he gets out. I'm going to sleep, now." And with that John was asleep. The nurse came in and said that between the anesthesia and medication, he would probably sleep the rest of the night. Jeff and Gordon left John's room to return to the others.
Scott and Brains took a turn to visit John when the other two got back. They were there only a short time. John did not wake up for them. When they got back, Scott got another cup of coffee and sat down.
It was going to be a long night.
Gordon cracked his eyes a smidge to squint at the clock. Only two hours had passed since they wheeled Virgil into surgery.
Scott crumbled the paper cup in his hand from his 5th cup of coffee and glanced up at the clock. "Hmmm," he thought to himself, "it's only been three hours."
Brains took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. He had read every magazine in the room. He put his glasses on and turned to look up at the clock. Five and a half hours have passed. He was sure it was going to be a lot longer.
Jeff looked at both Walt and Jerry snoring away head to head. Walt had left for a short while to relieve Allen for a couple of hours and had returned several hours later. Jeff wondered why those two were still here at... he glanced up at the clock,. the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM. They should be at home in bed.
Scott's watch com beeped. Scott jumped slightly as he was drifting through that state halfway between awake and asleep. He thought to himself, "Oh God, we forgot all about Alan!" And glancing over at Jeff, his face confirmed it.
"Go ahead Alan"
"Hi Scott, any news?"
"Virgil is still in surgery. We spoke to the ER doctor..." Scott filled him in on the details of Virgil's injuries.
"by the way, you said you had news about the original call?" Scott asked.
"Yeah, you're not going to believe this." Alan started excitedly. "It was a real call but the guy gave us the wrong coordinates. He got two of the numbers backwards. The collapsed mine is about 500 miles south of you." Then continuing in a more somber note, "they lost 7 miners. Miners we could have saved if we went there instead.." And he trailed off.
Jeff turned on his watch and made it a three-way conversation. "Alan, we would never have been able to save those men, even if Thunderbird 2 did not crash. Not until we had the correct coordinates. Don't go blaming yourself because you couldn't tell that he gave you the wrong location. We may have fantastic rescue machines, but we are still human, and we do not have ESP, contrary to some popular belief!"
Alan knew he was right. "I know. It is just so hard to hear the cries for help and not be able to do anything about it. By the time he corrected the coordinates, Thunderbird 2 was already down."
Scott looked up, and towards Brains, but addressed everyone. "If the rescue call was real, what caused the crash?"