"Semi Conscious"
Chapter Five
Roy leaned over the tilting tractor's mangled hood and peered through its shattered windshield.
The driver's side of the cab was buried beneath a mound of debris.
Somewhere under that mess, his best friend lay, either seriously injured—or, perhaps, even dying!
The frantic fireman set his equipment down and started climbing—and calling for his partner.
Roy reached the open passenger's door window within seconds. "Okay. Pass me those two cases!" he ordered down.
The boy set his case down and promptly passed the paramedic his equipment.
DeSoto dropped the cases, and then himself, down into the truck's tilting cab, and immediately began flinging all the papers, books and magazines, and shoes, boots, shirts, pants and blankets back into the empty sleeper compartment, calling his partner's name out, all the while.
Roy got down to the dead guy, and his gut knotted.
The reason his partner had not been responsive quickly became apparent.
In an almost superhuman display of strength, DeSoto picked the 300+lb trucker's body up off of his partner's chest and tossed it aside. Hell, there was so much 'adrenaline' currently coursing through the panic-stricken paramedic's arteries, he could have probably lifted 500+lbs—every bit as easily.
Johnny's chest was not moving—which, no doubt, accounted for both his unconscious state, and cyanotic appearance.
Roy dropped to his knees on the steeply slanting passenger seat and braced himself, to avoid toppling forward onto his friend. Then he reached numbly down and forced himself to feel for a pulse. The rescuer exhaled an audible sigh of relief.
His non-breathing buddy still had a faint corotid!
Roy opened his victim's airway and pinched both nostrils shut. He cocked his head at a near forty-five-degree angle, fitted his open mouth over his partner's—and began to breathe for him.
Johnny's blue-tinged lips pinked up a little, but he did not spontaneously resume respirations.
AR—alone—wasn't working.
Roy glanced anxiously around and silently cursed the fact that there wasn't nearly enough room for him to work on his respiratory arrest victim. His partner needed a cervical collar, an airway and some pure oxygen. The paramedic paused between breaths, and aimed his deeply troubled gaze upward.
His young helper was perched on top of the passenger door, peering anxiously down at him, through its open window.
"Can you pass me…that green case?"
The kid did.
DeSoto took the equipment case and knelt there, marveling at the fact that the youngster had had the presence of mind to carry their O2 up onto the truck cab with him.
51's engine crew saw the oxygen being lowered into the semi's slanting cab.
Apparently, they were not the only ones who were having difficulty breathing.
Tony watched as the blond paramedic worked frantically to save his partner. "Please don't die, Johnny!" he desperately pleaded, tears accompanying his heartfelt words. "I know you were just trying to make me feel better. If I hadn't crashed into you, you could have stopped this truck. If you could have slowed it down—just a little sooner—rolling up the onramp would have stopped it."
Almost as if in response to the boy's plea, the dark-haired paramedic obligingly began to breathe again.
Roy sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward, as his partner suddenly gasped in agony and then resumed spontaneous respirations. "Easy," he gently urged, as his friend's unfocused eyes fluttered open. "EASY!" he repeated, with more emphasis, and promptly pulled the airway from his now gagging victim's throat. "Where are you hurting?"
Gage gazed dazedly up at his upside-down partner. 'What was the question, again?…Oh…Yeah.' "Everywhere…but my fingernails…and my hair."
DeSoto found his patient's reply both amusing and alarming, but mostly alarming.
"Relax, Roy," Johnny urged, as his alarmed partner promptly replaced his O2 mask and then began taking an initial patient survey. He reached up and raised the mask, so he could be heard. "Nothin's busted…My entire body…just feels like…one big…bruise…is all."
DeSoto pressed the oxygen mask back down over his friend's mouth. "If I'd a known you weren't going to jump, I'd a never let you crawl out that window."
Gage lifted the mask—again. "Sorry…But I just had to stop it…I couldn't bear the thought…of having to respond…to another freeway pileup…I positively hate…freeway pileups!"
"Yeah?" Roy's voice ratcheted up an octave, or two and he pressed the O2 mask back in place. "Well I hate having to respond to a semi roll over! Especially when my partner is inside the semi—when it rolls over!"
"Sorry," his partner solemnly repeated, this time, speaking through his oxygen mask.
"No you're not. You'd do it again—in a heartbeat!"
Gage looked guilty as charged.
While his partner was attempting to contact Rampart on their Bio-phone, Johnny swung his long legs back around and then sat stiffly up in his seat.
"Where do you think you're going?" DeSoto demanded, looking more than a little astounded.
His 'victim' unbuckled his seatbelt and then calmly pointed up at the open passenger's window.
His partner appeared downright appalled. "You can't just climb out of here!"
"Why not?"
"Because you were just unconscious! That's why not! You were just in full respiratory arrest, for cryin' out loud!"
"So-o? You would be, too—if you had 300 plus pounds parked on your chest!"
Since he couldn't raise Rampart on their radio, and since his victim's vitals were all perfectly normal—for him, Roy reluctantly permitted his antsy partner to exit the truck's cab—without being completely immobilized on a backboard.
For nearly fifteen—interminably long—minutes, 51's engine crew had remained on the very edges of their seats, and for nearly fifteen—interminably long—minutes, their Captain's eyes had remained closed.
The engineers back at KXLA's studios had managed to turn the helicopter's live footage into videotape, and the TV station had been running an 'instant replay' of the horrifically violent wreck—over…and over…and over.
The firemen saw their dark-haired friend's helmeted head finally pop up through the tilting tractor cab's open passenger window—sans a cervical collar or a backboard.
Another raucous shout reverberated out from Station 51's rec' room, and much 'back-slapping' and 'high-fiving' ensued.
Gage allowed his assistants to help him out of the tilting truck cab and back onto solid ground again, but then balked, when they attempted to drape his arms across their shoulders. "I kin walk, yah know."
Bryce and Bellingham came sliding down the slippery slope just then, carrying a Stokes filled with their medical gear—and a backboard.
"It's either us…or them," DeSoto informed his stubborn buddy.
John mumbled something incoherent, and reluctantly allowed Roy and Tony to drape his arms around their necks and begin assisting him away from the wreckage.
Speaking of the wreckage…
The semi-wrecker got his first good look at all the carnage he'd caused.
The entire hillside seemed to be awash, in a sea of nuts and bolts—and washers.
The 'responsible party' didn't feel all that guilty, though. The paramedic would rather see spilled bolts than spilled blood—anyday!
"There's a Code F inside the cab!" Roy called back to their puzzled counterparts. "Oh…and could you see to it that our gear gets topside?! Thanks!" he tacked on, without bothering to wait for a reply.
That said, the three of them started working their way up the steep, debris-strewn hillside.
Johnny's imaginative mind immediately began to formulate a solution to the 'spilt bolts' problem. "Say, yah know what would work slick? If they were to bring in one a' those giant Electro-magnets. You know? Like the kind they use to move cars around. I'll bet one a' those babies would make short work a' this mess. A' course, then somebody'd hafta sort it all out…and I s'pose the nuts and bolts would all be 'magnetized'…"
Tony studied the scene of mass destruction for a few moments and then glanced up at Gage. "You sure you've never done this before? Because you seem to be very good at it."
Once again, his fireman friend was forced to grin. "Beginner's Luck."
TBC