Thursday, November 25:
Station 127
Thanksgiving Day dawned in a soft whiteness. A low-pressure system had caused a heavy fog to blanket the area.
After roll call, the men dispersed to their various assignments. Because of the holiday, four men had been assigned to KP. Usually the men ate before reporting to their shift, but Thanksgiving represented a day of feasting. Johnny and Ioane started making breakfast while Steve and Manuel began the turkey preparations.
Ioane took charge of the morning menu: spam, eggs, and rice. Johnny had never considered eating that particular combination of foods together and he remarked on it to Ioane. "We eat a lot of rice. That's from my Chinese side. We also eat a lot of spam. Sometimes fresh meat is hard to get, but you can always get spam. It's even better with breadfruit, but you can't get that here."
Although the spam smelled pretty good as it fried, the thought of eating something that so resembled dog food when it came out of the can was vaguely repulsive. Meanwhile, Johnny scrambled the eggs and started making toast as an alternative for those who did not particularly care for rice. Soon the food was cooked and the table was set. Juice, milk and coffee rounded out the meal.
Attracted by the smell of breakfast, the rest of the crew had wandered into the kitchen. The others were already accustomed to Ioane's version of breakfast and dug in hungrily. Johnny was careful not to sit within Barnes' line of sight.
Breakfast passed without incident, save a few rude remarks from Barnes about the cuisine. These were quickly quashed by the others. Johnny was chagrined at first to find that privately he was inclined to agree with Barnes' assessment of the food. However, he was surprised to find that he enjoyed the unusual combination of scrambled eggs and rice. And the spam was better than he expected as well, especially the crispy pieces that had been cooked to death.
They were just finishing cleaning up after breakfast when the tones sounded. "Battalion 7; Battalion 11; Battalion 14; Station 51; Station 86; Station 116, Station 127. Multi-vehicle collision with injuries. Northbound 405 near the 110 interchange. Time out 9:05.
The men looked at each other before racing to the engines. This was going to be very, very bad.
Station 127 arrived on the scene along with scores of city and county rescue apparatus and personnel. The scene that greeted them looked like something out of an apocalypse movie. Burned and crumpled cars and trucks were facing every which way. They were all smashed together, some stacked as high as three cars deep. It was as if a giant hand had scooped the vehicles up and then flung them down again. The beginning of the chain reaction was far ahead in the fog. Moans, screams and cries for help drifted disembodied through the mist. A heavy odor of gasoline, smoke and burnt flesh permeated the air.
The first priority was to put out any auto fires. Once those were under control, the rescue operations for the firefighters became a blur of prying apart unrecognizable pieces of metal in order to extricate victims, of comforting frightened people and those in pain, and of transporting victims over to the triage area. Paramedics moved through the wreckage, tending some victims immediately, leaving others for later. Sometime during the morning the fog began to lift, although few of the rescue workers could have identified the moment when working in fog became working in sunlight.
Firefighters, paramedics, police officers and ambulance drivers worked for more than seven hours to rescue the victims and clear the wreckage. One thing they could all be grateful for was that out of the eighty-six injuries, there were only three fatalities.
As Johnny returned to the engine, he was haunted by one particularly difficult rescue. The car had apparently flipped several times before landing with its hood straight up in the air. The driver had been trapped, hanging in the car, legs and hips pinned by the engine. It had taken a considerable amount of time to extricate the man. Johnny immediately recognized the symptoms of feeble pulse, clammy skin and too rapid breathing as those of hypovolemic shock. He knew the man would need Lactated Ringers to help restore blood volume. Judging from the feel of the lower extremities, he was also certain that the man's lower legs had been crushed. The victim was still conscious, and several times he had begged Johnny to give him something for pain. It was all he could do to keep from crying in sympathy as he offered the meager comfort of verbal assurances and applied pressure to some of the bleeding until the paramedics arrived. They seemed to have taken forever to get there.
But once the paramedics appeared on the scene, events sped up with alarming rapidity. In the course of extricating the victim prior to the arrival of the paramedics, the automobile's center of gravity had shifted. Fate decreed that moment to let the automobile slip just as Alan Cooke, a well-liked paramedic from 116's, had knelt next to the patient. Cooke suffered a concussion and several broken bones, becoming the only rescue personnel to be seriously injured during the course of the entire operation.
When Johnny reached the truck, Barnes and Mark Smith were standing along the side, watching a news team give a report on the pile-up. Barnes was grumbling about the press. "Will you look at that? We have over sixty cars piled up, almost one hundred victims, and hundreds of rescue personnel working their butts off, and all they can film is one damned, stupid paramedic who let a car fall on him!"
Loathing burned in Johnny's eyes. He was trying hard to keep his mouth shut around Barnes, but his anger with the man's callousness toward a fellow firefighter found its way out through an obscene gesture. Unfortunately, Barnes happened to turn around just as Johnny made that gesture.
"Why, you little sonofabitch!" Eyes narrowing as rage swept through him, Barnes lunged for Johnny and caught a handful of his turnout coat with his left hand, his right fist swinging. Johnny managed to lean back a bit, but Barnes' fist still made contact with the corner of his left eye, the momentum slamming the right side of his head against the engine.
Sparkles danced before his eyes as pain made a starburst in his head. One set of hands pulled him away from Barnes while another set pulled Barnes in the opposite direction.
"You're bleeding, man." Keith lowered Johnny to the ground and glanced around for something to stanch the flow of blood. Finding nothing immediately available, he held his fingers against the skin around the eye as best he could. By this time Captain Walker and the others had rounded the back of the engine to see what the commotion was. They found Mark hauling back on Barnes' arm and Johnny lying on the ground, blood running down the side of his face, with Keith doing his best to stop it.
"Get a paramedic!" Walker barked at Manuel. The firefighter took off running for the nearest squad. He soon came back with a bespectacled paramedic in tow.
"What happened?" Brice squatted down, opened the trauma box and reached in for some gauze to press against the wound.
"I'd like to know that myself," growled Captain Walker.
When no answers were immediately forthcoming, Brice directed Johnny to continue pressing the pad against the cut. He pulled out his penlight and shined it into his patient's eyes.
"Get that thing out of my eyes! Just put a butterfly on it and leave me alone!" Johnny swatted Brice's hands away and tried to get up.
Brice pushed Johnny back down by the shoulders. "Lie down, Gage! I'm the paramedic here."
'And you're not.' The unspoken implication of the words stung more than the cut. Johnny allowed himself to be pushed back down and closed his eyes.
Although interpersonal relations were not Brice's forte, he apparently realized the unintended meaning his words carried the moment they left his mouth. "The correct protocol is to be treated by another paramedic, not to treat yourself. You're the victim this time." Brice tried to lessen the accidental insult. While many important things could indeed be learned from the manuals, bedside manner unfortunately was not one of them.
Continuing his examination, he asked, "Are you dizzy? Nauseated?" The response was negative to both questions. "You probably are going to need a couple of stitches. And a doctor needs to look at the bruise on the other side of your head." Brice finished taking the vitals. "Your blood pressure is a little high, Gage," he informed matter-of-factly.
By the time Brice had finished checking Johnny over, the bleeding had pretty much stopped. Since the ambulances were full and the squad needed to make a trip to Rampart for supplies, it was decided to transport Johnny that way.
"Well, hi there, Johnny. I thought you said you weren't planning to be a patient any time soon!" Dixie teased with a smile. Like many other off-shift nurses and doctors, she had been called in to help with the accident victims. She had barely changed back into her street clothes when she heard that Johnny was in the department as a patient.
"Well, stuff happens. Can you get me something for this headache, Dix?"
"I'm sorry, Johnny. You'll have to wait until Dr. Brackett examines you."
Johnny couldn't stop the panicked look that flew across his face. He closed his eyes.
Dixie patted Johnny's shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute," she smiled her best reassuring nurse smile, even though her patient wouldn't see it.
Just outside the door, she stopped Dr. Brackett with her hand. "Kel, I don't think he's ready to see you."
"Who's not ready to see me?"
"Johnny. He's in treatment 3."
"Oh." Dr. Brackett stroked his chin. Indicating a second-year resident who had just begun emergency rotation, he said, "We could send Dr. Malcolm in. What's Johnny got?"
"It looks like a cut next to his eye that will need a couple of stitches and a nasty bump on the side of his head."
"Okay. Let's send Malcolm in."
Johnny cast an apprehensive glance at the door to the treatment room when it opened. His face registered surprise as he saw Dixie returning with a doctor he didn't know.
"Johnny, this is Dr. Malcolm," Dixie said by way of introduction.
Dr. Malcolm nodded his hello and asked the nurse for the vital signs.
"Pulse 95, respirations 20, BP 150 over 115."
"Hmm." The doctor began with the usual head trauma questions about pain, loss of consciousness, nausea, blurred vision, and dizziness. Satisfied with both the answers and the results of his examination, he said, "I think we'll just need to put a couple of stitches in." And then to the nurse, "Get a fresh set of vitals and set up a suture tray." Catching "the look" from Dixie, he belatedly added, "Please."
"Pulse 68, respirations 16, BP 110 over 70."
Pausing in arranging the instruments to suit his suturing style, Dr. Malcolm looked at Johnny and said, "Well that's better. Something really had you going, didn't it?"
"Yeah." He closed his eyes again tiredly. Exhaustion had set in, now that the adrenaline rush was over.
Dixie moved to the head of the gurney. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time on a date," she teased. "It looks like you're in good hands, Johnny. I've got to get home." She gave him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.
"Okay. Have a nice Thanksgiving. And thanks, Dix. For everything." He was too tired to open his eyes.
"You, too. What's left of it. Take care!" she chuckled as she left the room.
Soon Johnny was bandaged up, dosed with Tylenol plus codeine, and given the standard instructions about complications. After another thirty minutes of observation, he was released.
By the time Johnny returned from Rampart, Captain Walker had already interviewed Toby Barnes, Mark Smith, and Keith Roberts regarding the incident. Barnes claimed that Johnny had provoked it. Smith hadn't heard Johnny say anything. Roberts hadn't seen anything until after it happened.
Captain Walker called Johnny into his office as soon as he saw him. "Are you able to finish the shift?"
"Yes, sir. I just have a headache."
"I've already spoken with the others. I need to hear your side of the story, Gage."
"Umm," Johnny flushed a little in embarrassment. "I, uh, came around the corner of the engine and overheard something Barnes was saying to Smith. It made me mad, so I flipped him the bird behind his back, but he turned around and saw me." Seeing the peculiar expression on the captain's face, he added, "I know it was pretty juvenile. Sir."
After hearing this version of the story, Captain Walker sat in stunned silence for a moment. This account more closely matched those of Smith and Roberts. To the captain, Barnes' reaction was way out of proportion to Johnny's action. "And did you also say something like 'your mother wears combat boots?'"
A bemused expression on his face, he simply answered, "No, sir. I didn't talk to him."
"Dismissed, Gage."
"Thank you, sir."
Captain Walker pondered the situation. Based on all accounts save one, Barnes' behavior was unreasonable. Furthermore, Barnes was always trying to shift responsibility for events onto someone else, while Gage appeared willing to accept responsibility for his own actions, however stupid, without blaming or disparaging another. Smith had told him about the remark Barnes made regarding the paramedic who had been injured. While Johnny's response was perhaps a tad childish, it was insignificant in comparison with the outright viciousness of Barnes' remark and subsequent behavior. While Toby Barnes was an able firefighter, Captain Walker believed he now had no recourse other than to suspend the man and recommend a psychological evaluation before he would be permitted to return to work.
Johnny was coming back down the hall from the latrine as Barnes exited the locker room, duffel bag in hand.
Barnes' eyes narrowed upon seeing the man he imagined responsible for his misfortune. He thrust his finger towards Johnny and silently mouthed, "You're mine, Gage!"