"A Measure of Luck"
Chapter Six
By the time Mike Stoker finished adjusting Engine 51's spotlights, the whole surrounding area was illuminated bright as day. He beamed a smile of satisfaction at his little light display, and then climbed down from Big Red's hose bed, to help Chet irrigate Johnny's eyes.
"Michael, charge the pump!" their Captain ordered, as he came trotting back up. "And then, grab a reel line!"
"Aye, aye, Cap!" Michael acknowledged. The engineer placed the nearly empty plastic bottle in his hands down on the pavement and scrambled to his feet.
Stanley dropped to one knee beside his horizontal crewmember. "How yah feelin'?"
"Like a canary…in a coal mine," the paramedic wryly replied.
Hank couldn't help but grin. "At least your sense of humor is still intact. Think you kin stand?"
"Sure!" John readily replied. "Probably…with a little assistance."
Again, the fire officer was forced to smile. He gave the game young fireman's un-IV'ed arm an appreciative pat and then turned to DeSoto and Kelly. "Pick 'im up and follow me."
Roy's bottom jaw dropped open. Brackett had just ordered IVs. The firefighter/paramedic was contemplating which of his two bosses' instructions he should follow first, when he suddenly realized that his colleagues had returned from their reconnaissance mission—alone. DeSoto dropped what he was doing, and promptly obeyed his Captain's cryptic order.
Chet set his nearly drained bottle of sterile water aside and rendered his assistance.
"Don't try to walk, or anything," Roy advised, as he removed the O2 mask from their patient's face. "Just let us carry you. Okay?"
"Okay," Gage agreed. Once again, he felt two sets of hands under his arms, and he was hoisted up off his bright yellow drop sheet. "Whoa-oah," he exclaimed, as a tsunami of dizziness suddenly washed over him.
Once more, his supporters nearly went down, as their burden's knees suddenly buckled. The two men caught their collapsing colleague, regained their balance, and headed off in the direction their Captain had disappeared in.
Hank Stanley grabbed a bottle of dish soap from one of the Engine's side compartments. The Captain stepped over to the edge of the freeway and had his men line up alongside of him, just off the pavement. Then he snugged his turnout coat's collar up about his neck and turned to his Engineer. "All right, Mike. Hose us down!"
Stoker appeared somewhat astonished by the order, but eagerly obeyed. Perhaps a little too eagerly. He had to shut down his line and back the pump's pressure off a bit.
"Okay. Everybody, turn around!" the Captain requested, following a rather lengthy—and extremely wet—frontal assault from their engineer's open reel line.
The group obediently did an about face.
"I get high…with a little help from my friends," Gage, who was still strung out on pure oxygen sang, whilst they were being thoroughly doused. "I get by…with a little help from my—Whew!" the singer suddenly declared, right in mid-verse. "That…That's co-old!"
"And it's about to get even colder," his Captain solemnly predicted. Stanley stepped up to where DeSoto and Kelly stood, still supporting their chilled chum, and started to strip the dark-haired paramedic's clothes off. "Marco, give me a hand, here. We gotta suds these three down."
Lopez accepted the bottle of soap his Captain passed to him and began squirting its contents all over his three buddies' dripping bodies.
"Cap, Gage is the one that got gassed," Kelly was quick to remind the man who was now removing his clothing.
Their Captain paused, to pose a couple of quick questions. "Were you guys wearing your gloves?"
Gage's supporters glanced thoughtfully at one another, and then, reluctantly, shook their heads.
"Did you put your equipment down to pick him up?"
This time, the unhappy pair was forced to nod.
"There yah go!" their Captain exclaimed and continued to relieve John's rescuers of their clothing. "Exposure by skin contact. That stuff was all over him and—when you went down to his level—it got all over you, and the handles of those cases."
Hank's three 'exposed' men wordlessly endured the rest of their human car wash.
Stanley and Lopez suds the unhappy trio up—twice.
And Stoker readily ran them through their rinse cycles.
While it was clear that the two supporters were not finding the whole 'hose down' experience a pleasant one, the person they were supporting appeared to be even more miserable.
"How yah doin', John?" Hank finally inquired, following a full five minutes of silent sudsing and rinsing.
"We-ell, Cap…my throat feels like I been snackin' on razor blades. My eyes feel like somebody's been usin' 'em for ashtrays. And my chest feels like someone lit two charcoal grills inside of it. Other than tha-at…I'm doin' 'just dandy'."
Stanley found his 'gassed' crewmember's sarcastic comeback both alarming and amusing…but mostly, alarming.
Apparently, the chilly shower was having a sobering effect on their young friend.
"There! That oughtta do it," Hank determined, once the last of the soapsuds had disappeared from the three shivering men's bodies.
Marco had garnered some nice, dry blankets from the first string of recently arrived ambulances, and he draped one over each of his stripped shiftmates' shivering shoulders.
Speaking of arriving ambulances…
Two attendants came trotting up to the soggy group, with a stretcher in tow.
Roy and Chet lowered their cleaned up patient onto the gurney, strapped him down, and then followed along, as he was immediately rolled away.
"Chet!" the Captain called after them.
Kelly stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.
"I want you to ride in with Roy and John, and get yourself checked out!"
"Right, Cap! I gotta finish irrigating Gage's eyes, anyway."
Mike placed the stiff, red, rubber hose in his hands on the pavement and started heading for Engine 51, to shut the pump down.
Stanley snatched the discarded reel line up and used it to spray his engineer's backside.
Mike emitted a 'shriek' of surprise and spun rapidly around—only to be sprayed in the face.
"You were lookin' a little 'left out'," Hank innocently explained.
Stoker stared down at his completely drenched self for a few moments, suppressing a smile all the while. "Yah mean, I was lookin' a little 'too dry'," he quickly corrected.
"Yeah," his Captain agreed, with a wry, sly grin. "That, too."
Mike released the smile he'd been suppressing and then turned back toward his truck.
Hank glanced off down the dark freeway, in the direction of the pile-up, and his grin vanished. "Da-amn!"
Marco heard his Captain's quiet curse and gazed glumly off in the same direction. Da-amn! was damn right!
Instead of pulling trapped motorists from their wrecked cars, and helping Roy and John treat and transport the injured, Hank and his engine crew had had to settle for trying to save one of their own.
The Haz-Mat teams were arriving on the scene, already sporting their protective neoprene suits. They would be spending the rest of the night containing the leak, and retrieving dead bodies…lots and lots of dead bodies.
The Captain had counted at least twenty-two casualties. Hank turned around in time to watch Gage's gurney being loaded into the back of one of the dozen or so waiting ambulances.
Hopefully…there wouldn't be a twenty-third.
TBC
Author's notes:
Sorry, but it looks like this is a gonna be a Seven, and not a Six Chapter story. My bad. But it's taking more time—and pages—than originally anticipated, to tell this particular little E! tale. :D Funny…It didn't seem to take up nearly as much room in my mind. lol
Tripping Johnny's latest song is "With A Little Help From My Friends", from The Beatles 1967 album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.