Ron's Worst Nightmares
Unlucky Number Seven
By Pat Squared
Captain John Redding, United States Army Medical Corps grew to hate this part of the day.
Everyday, the medical evacuation flights from the Middle Eastbrought in maimed and dying service personnel to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Once there was talk about closing down the place, but with the ongoing insurgency in Iraq and the new war in Sudan, there was a parade of wounded entering the facility on a daily basis.
Despite an influx of new nurses and military doctors from the states in the past several months, the facility was still severely short staffed for the demand placed upon it by the influx of wounded.
Today, there were forty-seven new patients including seven in critical condition.
Most of the injured were given some pain killers and antibiotics then sent off to Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment back in the states within a couple days on the next stateside medical evacuation flight. However, there were cases that could not wait for needed treatment.
It was Captain Redding job as the new butcher in the emergency room to determine who would see the scalpel first and whose talents would be working on which patient.
Not even a couple years working as a paramedic on the rough streets of New York City during his time in medical school could prepare Captain for the horrific effect of supersonic projectiles on human flesh.
Pistols, the favorite firearms of New York's criminal underground,did not simply have the same level of destructive kinetic energy that a supersonic rifle round or mortar fragment packed. Mainly the injuries, thatthe staff sawcame from roadside improvised explosive devices throwing fragments around.
Today it was the Sudan's turn to bring in the flesh.
The last case looked the most hopeless of the lot. Boiarskii, Vasilii Alexovich, private, USMC, blood type O positive, and a serial number was hand-written on the wristband on his right wrist. Redding immediately dubbed Private Boiarskii Unlucky Bastard Seven. Number Seven was so injured that it was a miracle that he was not already sporting a toe tag and a box. Odds for his survival one hundred to one against.
The rules of triage were simple – Save the maximum number of lives. Those that are going to die anyways just took precious time from the ones who were going to live. The ones who were really bad off were just put aside and zapped will a lot of pain killers while the docs work on the others who had a shot at life.
Thus Unlucky Bastard Seven, the Urgent was reclassifies as an Expected – Expected to Die.
Sorry private, you are going to have to wait for your turn. Corporal Taylor has to say goodbye to his leg first.
Dr. Redding took a grease pencil and wrote the number seven on Vasilii's wristband as he read the report from the hospital ship. This one was going to require just about everyone to patch him up. If you manage to pull through, there will be no amputations in your future, this time.
Sometimes, Redding would see what the staff called repeat customers. These were folks that made it through the first time, went home, got called back to war to only be nailed again. There was a rumor about a club of three-peats among the staff. Probably true.
Now it was time to stop prioritizing and start the cutting. Redding motioned for a nurse to come over to him.
"Nurse, prep numbers one through three for immediate surgery. Have Sergeant Diego redo the X-rays. The ones from the front are not good enough for reconstruction work. Patient One – amputation of right leg above knee. Patient Two – fragment and debris removal about the right ocular cavity. Patient Three is another amputation, left arm at the shoulder. Numbers four through seven will have to wait. Have Doctors Reinhold, and Miller report to one, Barbados and Schiller report to two, and Hander and I will work on three."
Doctor Redding went to operation theater number three to perform his forty-seven amputation in thirty-six days.
As he scrubbed his hands with the antibacterial soap, Redding wondered why he ever went to medical school. He spent eight years in college and several hundred thousand dollar to simply master what his grandfather, father, and uncles taught him during his summer job at the family butcher shop - Cut meat.
The unnamed nurse summoned two unnamed orderlies to wheel the unlucky ones to a nearby room. It would be a couple hour before someone could operate on them.
Unlucky number seven was hooked up to an array of machines and an IV tree full of fluidsto await for his turn.
Unlucky number seven was too injured to live, too stubborn to die. He was like a fish just flipped out of the water, his gills futilely gapping for oxygen, his body still trying to finds its way back to the cool life-giving waters.
Unlucky number seven just had to wait and accept the drugs and blood plasma entering his veins. It will have to be enough for now.