"An Equitable Trade"
Chapter Two
Six minutes later, Mike Stoker brought Big Red to an abrupt stop, directly across from 1126 East Berkley Avenue. The engineer shoved the truck's tranny into neutral and gave the bright yellow knob in the center of its dash a sharp tug.
The engine's air brakes engaged with their familiar 'kacheee'.
Hank Stanley leaned forward in his leather seat and let out a low whistle.
It didn't take an architectural engineer to see why their station had been dispatched to assist Battalion 14 with the EVAC. The big, white, stuccoed building's roofline was no longer perpendicular to the horizon. The quake had rocked the four-storied apartment complex clean off of its foundation, causing the entire structure to slope—a good three feet—to the east. Egressing those four slanting floors would prove to be most difficult, indeed!
The Captain and his crew dropped to the pavement and went jogging over to the Battalion Chief's car, to receive their assignments.
Battalion 14's Chief had waved Squad 51 over and directed its occupants to set up a 'Triage Area' out of harm's way.
The paramedic team took note of the rattled-looking, gray-haired people that were being escorted, and outright carried, through the tilted front entrance to 1126 East Berkley and exchanged foreboding frowns.
Stress, and physical duress, could be extremely hazardous to an elderly person's health.
DeSoto obediently drove a bit further down the avenue.
The rescue truck was finally stopped—a safe distance from the scene—and its engine was quickly killed. Roy clipped their HT to his belt, and he and his buddy bailed out.
John jerked several side compartments open.
Roy grabbed the Drug box, the Bio-phone and their cardiac monitoring equipment.
His partner removed some bright yellow drop sheets and began spreading them out on the narrow strip of grass that ran between the sidewalk and the pavement.
Moments later, one of 14's guys came trotting up, carrying their barely established Triage Area's first customer: an elderly woman complaining of…chest pains and acute shortness of breath.
The paramedic team traded another pair of exceedingly grim glances and then promptly began assessing and treating their first cardiac patient.
John started setting up for an IV and an EKG. "What's it like in there?"
Their hunched over, and still a bit breathless, colleague replied with a quick question of his own. "You ever been…in an amusement park…Funhouse?"
"Yeah."
"It's like that," the beat-on-his-feet fireman observed, "only…without the fun," he grimly added. The rescuer finished his break and went jogging back over to where all the 'action' was .
Two more of 14's guys appeared, both of them with elderly victims in their arms.
DeSoto left their cardiac patient in his partner's capable care and began triaging the new arrivals. He noticed that his buddy kept glancing up at the crumbling apartment complex and was immediately reminded of something their Captain had once told Johnny Carson. 'You can take the rescue man out of Rescue, but you can't take the Rescue out of the rescue man.'
Roy had no regrets about recruiting the 'rescue man' for the paramedic program, and Johnny had repeatedly assured him that he had no regrets about being recruited, because the bottom line was always about SAVING LIVES.
Though his partner had never complained about being 'stuck' in Rehab, or Triage, it was blatantly obvious that John Gage preferred assignments that allowed him to utilize both his 'paramedic' and his 'rescue' training.
Since their newest victims' vitals all checked out, and since their injuries were minor, it was Roy's intention to return to their cardiac patient. Before he could make it over there, however, more firefighters showed up and two more of the complex's rescued occupants were deposited onto their bright-yellow drop sheets. 'Wonder if the rest of the crew is being kept this busy?' he thought to himself.
Speaking of the rest of the crew…
The Chief had split Engine 51's crew in two.
Lopez and Kelly were sent inside, to assist 14's truck crews with the evacuation.
The Captain and his Engineer were sent on a reconnaissance mission, around the outside of the apartment complex.
Structural collapse was imminent. Walls simply weren't designed to support a building's weight at such an extreme angle. Whether its demise would be by gravity, or an aftershock, the structure was definitely a goner.
When the thing did come toppling down, McConike's goal was for everybody—both civilians and fire department personnel—to be standing on the outside, looking in.
The Chief was counting on Stanley and Stoker's astute observations to help him accomplish that goal.
Station 51's paramedics loaded their cardiac patient into the back of a waiting ambulance. The cases containing their cardiac monitoring equipment were also shoved on board.
"What's a kerfuffle?" John suddenly inquired.
His 'completely out of the blue' question caused his partner's right eyebrow to arch in confusion.
Gage motioned to the little old lady lying, propped up, on the stretcher. "She said she lost her hearing aid in the kerfuffle."
DeSoto pointed to the frenzied activity that was taking place, just up the avenue from them. "That."
His inquisitive friend, however, remained clueless.
"A kerfuffle is a big commotion," Roy bemusedly informed his partner. "14's squad finally cleared their last call. They're about two minutes out. I'll try to get a ride back on the next rig that's headed this way," he announced as he climbed aboard and then added back over his shoulder, "Try not to cause any kerfuffles while I'm gone."
John helped an elderly gentleman, with a badly sprained wrist, up into the ambulance. He glanced in the direction of their Triage Area's four remaining occupants, who were all just peacefully sitting there on their drop sheets, awaiting transportation to the nearest Red Cross shelter. "I can't make any guarantees," he teased right back, and flashed his friend a mischievous grin.
Roy's own broad smile vanished behind the vehicle's closing doors.
John rapped an 'all clear' and the ambulance pulled away.
The remaining paramedic gave the slanting building a lingering glance. Then he exhaled a resigned sigh and resumed his triage duties.
Blockades had been set up at both entrances to the 1100 block of East Berkley.
One of the barricades was moved aside, to allow an ambulance to exit the avenue.
Before the barricade could be replaced, a forest green Lincoln Continental blew through the opening and continued toward the incident scene at a rather high rate of speed.
The unauthorized vehicle screeched to halt behind one of the big red firetrucks that were parked in front of the apartment complex. Its driver exited and began heading for the building's front entrance.
"Let me go!" the elderly gentleman demanded, of the two policemen who immediately intercepted him. "I live here! Apartment 417!"
The officers were sympathetic, but did not release his arms.
"I'm sorry, sir," one of them sincerely said, "but civilians are not allowed to enter the building."
"I don't want to 'enter the building'!" the man assured them. "The woman who lives across the hall from me has a broken ankle! I just want to find her—to make sure that she's made it out of there! I need to know that's she's safe!"
The cops could tell, by the tears in the elderly gentleman's eyes, and the desperation in his voice, that he and 'the woman who lived across the hall' were more than just neighbors.
One of them unclipped the radio from his belt, raised it to his lips and keyed its mic', "Fire, Battalion 14, from Police, Tact' II…"
"McConike here, go ahead Tact' II…"
"Chief, we have a gentleman here who wants—er, needs to know if your crews have finished evacuating the fourth floor, yet…"
McConike turned to one of his aides. "Do we have any crews on the fourth floor?"
The fireman shook his head. "We're just finishing up on three."
McConike keyed his radio's mic', "Tact' II, this is Battalion 14…Our crews haven't reached the fourth floor, yet. Why?"
"Tact' II here. According to this gentleman, the woman in apartment—?"
"—418!" somebody in the background quickly supplied.
"418," Tact' II continued, "has a broken ankle…and he is concerned about her safety…"
At the moment, McConike was 'concerned about everybody's safety'. The Fire Chief gasped in frustration and then keyed his mic' for a final time. "All right. We'll see what we can do. Battalion 14 out."
Speaking of keying mic's…
John heard their radio squawk to life and went trotting over to their truck.
"Rescue 51…What is your status?"
" LA," Roy responded, "Squad 51 is not available at this time. One half is at the hospital, on follow-up…"
John smiled and keyed his mic', "And the other half is still on scene."
"10-4, Rescue 51…Rescue 36, in place of Rescue 51…"
The half of Squad 51 that was 'still on scene' replaced their truck's dash-mounted radio's mic' and then just sat there for a few moments, surveying that 'scene'.
Squad 14's paramedics had finally put in an appearance.
The new arrivals were more than a little relieved to find all but two of the building's rescued occupants sitting in the Triage Area's 'walking wounded' section, and that the vast majority of them had signed MICU 'Release from Liability' forms, waving medical treatment, entirely.
The two that had been deemed 'serious but non life threatening' were resting comfortably and their vitals remained stable.
That didn't mean that the other earthquake victims weren't hurting, though.
While their physical injuries may have been minor, the emotional trauma that had been inflicted upon them was severe.
It broke the paramedic's heart to see the tears in their eyes, and the fear and uncertainty in their faces. 'Oh well,' the melancholy medicine man silently reminded himself, 'CCR is a whole lot better than CPR.' John was about to go back to calming, comforting and reassuring their Triage Area's traumatized guests, when he heard somebody call his name. His head promptly swung in that somebody's direction.
"The Chief wants to see you!" one of 14's firefighters informed him.
Squad 14's guys had spread some more drop sheets out on the grass.
The messenger gently placed another of the building's rescued occupants upon one of them and then attempted to get a kink out of his back. "Oh, and, he said to bring a lifebelt."
Gage re-donned his dropped coat and helmet. Then he grabbed their Trauma box—and a lifebelt—and went racing off, in the direction of McConike's parked car.
"You wanted to see me, Chief?"
"We received a report of a woman with a broken ankle. Apartment 418. Forget that!" McConike ordered, upon noting the paramedic's equipment case. "Just get her down and out!" He glanced around and spotted another member of 51's crew. "Kelly! Give Gage a hand! Apartment 418!"
"Right, Chief!" the pair simultaneously replied.
Before departing, the paramedic flipped their Trauma box open, snatched up an inflatable splint and stashed it into the right front pocket of his turnout coat.
The two dispatched firemen followed the long, concrete walkway up to the building's main entrance.
The front step remained on the level but, once across the threshold, the floor and walls fell sharply away, to the right. The only things still perpendicular to the horizon were four enormous chandeliers, which hung from the spacious lobby's twenty-four foot high ceiling like ornate plumb bobs.
Two guide ropes had been stretched…from the structure's front doors…across the complex's really large lobby…and then secured to the big wooden banisters at the base of a long, winding, open staircase.
The rope on the left was for traffic entering the building and the rope on the right was for traffic exiting.
Pipes had apparently ruptured, because the floor of the lobby was wet and slick. Heck, even bone dry, the steeply slanting, highly polished terrazzo floor would have been extremely treacherous to traverse.
Kelly, who was carrying a 'forcible-entry' tool, would have to be extra cautious.
Gage clipped his belt to the 'entry' guide rope and followed his companion into the 'not-so-fun' Funhouse.
The two men quickly, but carefully, sidestepped their way over to the staircase.
Firefighters were ascending the high side of the stairs—on hands and knees, and were descending the low side—on their butts, carrying, or simply assisting, the dying building's rescued occupants 'down and out'. Gravity wanted to keep them pressed snugly up against the banister rails, and the firemen were panting from the exertion of having to fight it, every single step of the way.
A fire door had been installed on the second floor landing and it was being held open. The blade of a fire axe had been wedged in beneath it, to keep it from 'self-closing'.
The pair scrambled through the slanting portal—still on all fours—and then started crawling up the high side of the enclosed stairwell to the third floor.
The two-storied, open, winding staircase had been carpeted.
This one was bare concrete, which made it much rougher on the rescuers' hands and knees.
"I'm gonna require your services…when we get out a' here," Kelly breathlessly realized.
"Why?" the paramedic anxiously wondered back.
"Why-y?...I'll tell you why…Because this is my fourth trip…through this…discombobulated building…and because my knees feel like…they're all raw…But mostly because…I got a real bad case…a' rug burn…on my a—behind."
John's face filled with both a grimace and a grin, as the mental image of Chet's rug-burnt rear end was indelibly etched into his brain. "Just shut up…and climb."
His companion's rather pitiful-sounding request caused Kelly's unseen green eyes to sparkle, mischievously, and his mustache to twitch, twice.
Speaking of exposed rears…
Mike Stoker was about to complete his umpteenth pass along the back of the building, when something suddenly caught his eye.
Something seemed to be protruding from the structure's exposed foundation, something that hadn't been there the last time he'd walked by.
The fireman immediately crouched down for a closer look.
It was a half-inch thick hunk of plaster, about the size of a paper plate.
Mike looked down the base of the building and saw that dozens more of these plaster 'plates' were beginning to flake away from the exposed foundation's concrete wall. He tugged on the plate in front of him. What was revealed, when the flaking plaster fell away, caused Stoker's blood to run cold.
McConike's spotters had both been issued radios and had even been designated their own frequency.
The engineer raised his to his lips and keyed its mic', "Cap, you're gonna wanna see this!"
Moments later, his Captain came barreling around the northwest corner of the building.
"Those are old cracks," Mike quickly pointed out, once Hank had skidded to a halt. "Might even be from as far back as the Sylmar quake, in '72."
To keep the apartment complex from being condemned, some unscrupulous person, or persons, had bought off a building inspector and then made 'cosmetic' repairs—simply 'plastering over' the huge cracks in its foundation.
And, while the two of them had been watching and waiting for the appearance of fresh cracks, the old cracks had been widening and spreading…
The Captain and his Engineer exchanged looks of abject horror.
"Battalion 14, Engine 51! We need to get everybody OUT! NO-OW! Also, advise authorities that we have discovered evidence of 'reckless endangerment' and 'criminal negligence'!"
McConike heard the horror in his spotter's voice and keyed his radio's mic', "Copy that, Hank!"
It was time to 'cut their losses'.
The Fire Chief grimaced and then turned to his aide, "We need to close the building! NOW! Brinkman! Sound evacuation!"
The engineer nodded and went racing off in the direction of the closest fire apparatus.
Brinkman climbed up into Engine 51's cab and tugged on the dangling chain of its air horn.
'BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!'
TBC