AN- I am so sorry about the long time between chapters. My laptop died and I lost everything on it and had to save up for a new one. I am busy working on the next chapter but wanted to post something to let everyone know that this story had not been abandoned. Again I am so sorry for the long wait.
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Looking up towards door as Dr Brackett, Dr Early and Dixie entered the room, Sally jotted down the last round of observations that she had just taken before she squeezed Johnny's hand lightly and whispered to the unconscious paramedic, "Looks like you've got a couple of visitors, Johnny." Straightening up, she turned and walked to the end of the bed to where Dix, Brackett and Early were waiting. Handing the chart to Brackett who began to study the latest nurse's observations as she quietly began her report, "We've just got him settled and have done the first round of obs. He's still hypotensive, BP is seventy over fifty."
"Damn!" Brackett muttered as Dixie hurried around the side of the bed and reached for Johnny's hand., "I was hoping that his pressure would have started to come up with the metaraminol by now."
"What's his pulse?" Dr Early asked.
"Fifty." Sally answered softly as Dr Early nodded and lifted the blanket covering Johnny's legs and carefully ran the tip of his capped pen over the soles of John's feet before gently testing Johnny's knee reflexes. Unsurprised when there was no reaction. Covering up Johnny's legs again, Dr Early looked across at Brackett and shook his head.
"What do you think we're dealing with Joe?" Brackett frowned.
"It's just too early to tell, Kel. We know he's fractured the 5th and 6th thoracic vertebrae. The bradycardia and hypotension are symptoms of both neurogenic and spinal shock." Joe shrugged, rubbing his chin as he watched Dixie whisper something softly to Johnny. "But with all the edema surrounding the breaks, it's just too early to tell if the cord has been damaged and if it has just how seriously or permanent the damage is."
Kel's lip twitched as he turned and watched the small green blip slowly dance a little too erratically for Kel's liking across the heart monitor before he stared at his gravely injured friend in the round framed Skylar bed. "The heart monitor is showing some arrhythmias."
Joe nodded as he studied the heart monitor before he looked back at Kel and suggested, "The arrythmias could be the result of the smoke inhalation and his burned airway rather than the spinal injury."
"Or it could be an indication that we're dealing with neurological shock and his cord is damaged, possibly totally crushed or severed when he was crushed by that beam." Kel sighed before he looked back at Joe, "How long before we will know anything definite?"
Joe shrugged again, "If it's spinal shock, we should start seeing some improvement in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours as the swelling starts to settle down and then we will be able to start to assess just how serious the injury is and if I will need to take him back into surgery to stabilize the fractures."
Kel nodded and sighed as he turned back and watched Dixie continue to softly talk to the heavily sedated paramedic as she gently brushed back a lock of Johnny's dark hair from his forehead as the conversation they had just had with Mike Morton echoed in his head.
"I just ran into Allen Hodges down in the break room down in Emergency, I guess he was waiting for Roy, He's wanting to talk to you or Dix, Kel, he's asking if it's possible if for him to work with another partner and if it's not, just how he would go about dropping out of the paramedic program altogether, so he can go back to just being a hose jockey."
"He asked about swapping partners? Did Allen tell you why?"
"No, just said that he didn't want to be partnered with Roy anymore, but he refused to tell me why. Just said the partnership wasn't working, but-"
"But what?"
"It wasn't anything that he actually said, it was more the anxious, defeated look on his face and the way that DeSoto snapped at him when DeSoto came in and told him it was time to go." The young intern had shrugged as the elevator door began to slide open before he added softly. "I guess the look on Hodge's face just reminded me of the look on Gage's face each time I saw him in the weeks before he transferred out of Station 51. It was the look of someone who has totally lost all his passion and love for the job."
He swallowed hard as he remembered the same look on Johnny's face in the weeks before Johnny had asked to drop out of the program that Mike had described he was now seeing on Allen Hodges's face. Staring at Johnny, he knew he had failed the young paramedic down by not sitting Johnny down and finding out just what was wrong. It was a mistake that may have cost John not only his career but may yet condemn Johnny to spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. It was a mistake that he wasn't going to make again. Looking back at Joe, he asked, "Can you cover for me for an hour or so? I think I need to have that little chat with Roy now and find out just what the Hell is going on with him before any more good men get injured or quits the program because of him."
Joe nodded, "Of course, are you going to be in your office?"
Turning back to look at Johnny, Kel shook his head, "No, I think it would be better if I will go down to Station 51 and talk to both Roy and his captain there."