Trauma Rooms

[Katherine]

Continued from ER Front Desk with Marcus

In stretching around to try and see her bother she apparently irritated one of the nurses moving her down to the trauma room. The woman told her to keep still, again, and with a resigned sigh that was partly relief at seeing that Marcus was indeed right behind her, the detective settled back into the upright rest. She sat passively as they rolled right on into the furthest trauma room from the main desk and brought the gurney up along side the cot that was set at the centre and covered with a blue sheet.

Katherine swatted hands away as she mostly managed to move herself from the transporting bed to the stationary one. There wasn't much more that she could to do assert her independence in here. She had to accept that she wasn't in control and she didn't like that. She didn't like it at all.

[Marcus]

The doors between the two rooms were propped open, so as Marcus was moved from one bed to the other, he glanced to the left to look at Katherine through the partition, distracting himself from the discomfort the movement caused. Now that they were at the hospital, he knew he had to stop trying to push help away, because he was aware of the fact that he did need it; at the scene, he had just been trying to do his job and comfort the sisters. He had been at the church with them, and spoken to Poppy before any other officer; he had had to explain what he wanted them to know while he’d had the chance. Now, though, at St. Benedict’s, he could be more of a patient and less of a cop.

As they assessed all the need-to-know, such as blood pressure and heart-rate and breath sounds, he let them work, stealing occasional glances through the open doors, shutting out the medical chatter around his own bed; it would do him no good. He didn’t understand most of it anyway. He knew they weren’t panicking though, and that was enough for him, even as one of the nurses went about unbuttoning his shirt, and unfastening his tie. The paramedics had carefully removed his leather jacket at the scene, to assess what damage they could initially. He let her work, keeping protests internal and private, as she apologised for any pain she might cause as the shirt was pulled away with professional caution.

Again, he glanced to the left, to reassure himself that his sister was still there, as the doctors poked and prodded experimentally, and he grimaced to show pain where he felt it, keeping the vocal reactions back. He thought he heard them mention x-rays, but in all honesty, he wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have been.

It didn’t even occur to him that the concussion was probably to blame for that.

[Katherine]

They asked her where the pain was and she indicated her head and her legs, but they checked her torso over non-the-less. Katherine's mood probably wasn't helping. It was obvious she wasn't angry at them and now that she had moved herself onto the cot an the gurney had already been wheeled away she was once again sitting passively though with a face like thunder. She was angry at the psycho that had put them here. She was angry at whatever insane asylum had let her escape and she was angry at herself in a generic way because Marcus had been hurt on her 'watch'.

She never fooled herself that he needed her to watch him twenty-four-seven, Kath' would never patronize him that way if she could help it, but she had a certain responsibility and if she hadn't been there when the crash had happened she wouldn't have felt so crappy about it. Looking sideways she caught Marc's eye and smiled slightly. He was in much worse shape than she was, even as she gave a wince and snapped her head back around when one of her boots was taken off. No obviously broken bones, just pain in the limbs that was getting stronger, surpassing the pain of cramp with hot fury.

A Nasal Cannula had been wrapped over her ears and slipped gently into the openings of her nostrils to help with breathing, she knew she had a pretty severe seatbelt bruise running right to left across her chest and it felt tight, she was grateful for the help breathing. She too heard talk of x-rays, for her legs, and didn't like the idea much, she'd had them on her torso when she'd broken her collar bone and the idea of going through the tedium again made her sigh deeply.

[Marcus]

Marcus was breathing too deeply and heavily for the cannula to be of any help, so they kept the mask on him. He was panting more than anything; the effort of sitting up was exhausting, and his vision would swim often, dipping in and out of focus, and his blinking became heavy and delayed; he would keep his eyes closed for seconds at a time, as if it would help to clear them, but when he opened them again, it was only a matter of moments before they would waver once more.

He gripped the side of the bed suddenly when one of the doctors tested the bruising at his ribs, and his breath caught behind the mask, head shifting slightly to the side in an instinctive reaction to the pain. He dimly heard them thinking out loud, commenting on the damage, and how it seemed ‘too much’ even for the accident. And the mask was in the way. Sluggishly, he pulled it off, ignoring the nurse protesting and trying to take it from him so she could reposition it. “I-I broke them.” He paused to breathe, keeping hold of the mask so the nurse couldn’t take it. “About three… years ago.”

“Detective, you really need to keep this on.” The nurse finally managed to take the mask from him, and put it back on, and Marcus almost sighed before he remembered how much that would hurt, even as his vision swam badly again, and he concentrated instead on keeping his balance as the medical staff worked. The nurse who had slipped the mask back on put a hand carefully against his chest to keep him from rocking too far forward, ensuring she avoided the bruises from the belt.

[Katherine]

Katherine was not too happy with her view. The side of Marcus' head that she could see, in between the forms of the doctors and nurses moving this way and that, was bloody and sticky looking. She grimaced as her legs were prodded and the reactions of her pupils tested simultaneously "Detective look this way..." turning her head when requested she wetted her lips in concentration. Everyone was doing one thing or another all at once around her and she was just sitting letting them go about their business whilst she cast dark looks over into the other room.

"Detective you really need to look forwards for me," a doctor was saying, holding up his maglite to her face and reluctantly Kath' turned to look at him again, "Okay, just follow the end for me."

This was officially taking too long, but even as she thought about how she was fed up with the routines the medical staff were obliged to go through she obeyed the doctor's orders and her green eyes followed the white end of the light as it passed her face from side to side and then up and down. He seemed satisfied with her reactions and Katherine adjusted the nasal cannula with one hand as she watched him momentarily, "So I can still see?"

"You can still see." He smiled slightly, seriously, but smiled nonetheless and spoke to her in level tones as she obviously expected an update on her own condition, "No visible head trauma. You're nose has stopped bleeding, obviously, and that's a good sign." He hovered around her bare feet, "We're going to need to get some x-rays..."

"Great..." Kath's breathed, the prospect of waiting around for X-rays draining any sarcastic comeback she'd had in mind before she could voice it.

[Marcus]

When the dizziness and nausea eased again, he turned his head cautiously, his eyes fixing as firmly as they could on the form of his sister. His head had really started pounding, no longer a dull, constant throb and now like literal thunderclaps on the inside of his skull, and it was taking a lot of his strength to keep from giving in to it, or to voice the pain it made him feel. Concentrating on watching Katherine to make sure she was okay wasn’t doing him any favours, and he only realised one of the doctors was talking to him as fingers actually clicked beside his ear. He blinked groggily, and turned his head, trying to make the ‘doctors’ blend back into one man. That was hardly reassuring…

It felt like he was trying to hear through pillows, or a wall of some kind. The other man’s words were muffled, and all Marcus could hear clearly was his own blood pumping; distracting and irritating at best. He was dimly aware of his own exaggerated breathing, and he blinked a few times to try and bring the doctor into focus. Dammit…

“Detective?” It came from the other side; the nurse, whose hand was still braced gently against an uninjured part of his chest, her head tilting to try and see his face. He obviously didn’t know the colour had drained from it, leaving him looking much paler than he should have, a vicious contrast to the blood coating one side of his face. If the nurse kept talking, he didn’t hear her… his eyes closed, tightly at first as he tried to clarify everything; sounds and beyond… he became peculiarly unaware of contact against him.

And then, as suddenly as he tensed, he slumped, the hand dropping from the oxygen mask at his face. The nurse at his side gave a startled gasp of a yelp, and the doctor cursed as he rocked dangerously forward under his own leaned weight; they both managed to catch the detective, who had been awkwardly sitting upright from when they had checked his breath sounds, laying him back as the doctor tried to prompt a response from the younger man, testing his pupils for reactions to ensure they weren’t dealing with anything more serious than a loss of consciousness.

Marcus was unresponsive; for all intents and purposes, he was out cold and completely unaware.

[Katherine]

She hadn't been aware anything was wrong, well any more wrong than things already were, until she heard the nurse cry out from the adjoining room. Katherine's body snapped to attention sorely and she looked sideways just in time to see her brother go slack and the doctor and nurse catch his weight. She braced her hands against the cot as if she were about to get up, calling Marcus' name and shifting her weight with the initial motion of wanting to go to him, instinct overriding pain. The doctor had moved from her feet and caught her shoulders, and he spoke to her in words that she didn't really hear at first, she was too focussed on what was going beyond the open doors between the two rooms.

"He's my brother, damnit." she 'stated', practically on the verge of shouting as she was forced to keep her sitting position against her will.

The doctor nodded, he'd evidentially put two and two together and come up with four; the Detectives Rivera were siblings. "And you can't help him if you can't walk straight." He told her firmly.

Kath' opened her mouth to reply, her eyes switching to the form of her brother now settled back against the bed in the trauma room adjoining hers. She sighed and nodded. There wasn't much point making more of a fuss, not now that she could see that the doctors and nurses attending to Marcus didn't seem to be panicking and the monitors were beeping away regularly. Honestly she didn't know anything about medicine beyond what she was trained to know for the field, but she could tell from the scene that confronted her that her brother was okay.

That was all that mattered. He was okay.

She settled back and the doctor gave her shoulder a sympathetic pat before relinquishing his hold on her totally and allowing the elder sibling to settle back against her own cot, the back of which had been propped up for her with no head or torso trauma. She settled where she could watch him for now, just keeping an eye on him as much for her own reassurance as anything else. She'd be around when he woke up and hopefully by then all the tests and x-rays that needed to be done would be over with. Then of course they'd have their parents to deal with... but that could wait until morning.

[Fee]

Continued from: Rayne's Territory; Parks, etc; The Grind

St. Joseph's would have been closer, but St. Joseph's didn't allow for the kind of 'service' that Benedict's provided. Ian's doing, really; for all his shady business dealings, he sure had friends in high places. Fiona was grateful, really, but nonetheless, getting one's shoulder popped back into place was never a fun experience.

"OW -- Fuck!"

They'd probably heard her exclamation all the way up at the helicopter dock, but that wasn't her fault. At the very least, the bastard doctor could have knocked her out, but they had gone full-out mediaeval: after handing her a sturdy piece of rubber, the doc had simply instructed her to 'bite down' before giving her arm a tug and push. Needless to say, Fee was not a happy camper, and it didn't help that she was now having a flashlight shone into her eyes.

"Mild concussion," Dr. Graydon stated, finally putting the damned flashlight away. "At least you were wearing a helmet this time, Fiona."

"Yeah, whatever," she bit out, pained and cranky. "How long am I stuck here for?"

"I want to observe you for awhile, just to be safe. Want me to call Ian?"

"Whatever. See if he'll bring me some decent grub; the food in your cafeteria blows."

[Deleted]

Continued from: Restaurants etc; Lorraine's

Ian was an awesome person. Why? Because he actually did heed Fee's request for decent grub, smuggling the fast food bag under his jacket when he came into the trama wing of the hospital. The combined scents of antiseptic and blood nearly made him sneeze, but he could pick out Fiona's scent easily. He found her with 'their' doctor, scowling as she had the cut in her brow sewn shut.

"Damn, Fee," he cajoled. "Did you eat concrete or what?"

"Bite me."

The temptation to let his eyes tease at his wolf was tempting, but the trama wing was a bit crowded for that. Instead, he offered the young human a wink before he smiled at Graydon. "What's the deal, Doc?"

"Hey, Ian," Graydon responded. "Mild concussion, as I told you, and she'll have to be careful of that shoulder for a few weeks. I'll move her to the general ward when I'm done here; I want to keep an eye on her for awhile."

Ian gave a chuckling sigh; if it wasn't Fiona, it was Bo. Granted, the blonde wolf was pretty much able to handle most injuries on his own, thanks to his 'condition'. Fee was the one they worried over the most, despite the fact that it made her cranky. Case in point, the young girl growled out a few less-than polite phrases, to which the older wolf responded with a quiet growl of his own. The injuries could have been much, much worse, and Fiona would be irritable for awhile, but at least she would heal.

[Fee]

'Irritable' didn't quite cut it. The young human was approximately three points away from outright sulking as Graydon tied off her stitches and covered the would with a sterile bandage. "All set, kiddo," he said, to which she responded with a scowl. A scowl that had no effect, unfortunately. "Let's get you bumped over to general, eh?"

Fiona didn't reply, just muttered under her breath as a they prepared her gurney to be transfered. Beside her, Ian retrieved his cellphone and dialed a familiar number. There was silence on his part, then a somewhat irritated sigh before he spoke; voicemail, obviously.

"Bo, it's Skid. Fee took a tumble on her skateboard -- "

"Actually it was Bobby's. Mine's at Bo's."

"...Well, there you go. Anyway, she's at St. Ben's -- girl dislocated her shoulder and she knocked her head pretty good, but otherwise she's fine. Doubt she's gonna be here too long, but I still wanted to let you know."

Fee made a few frantic gestures to Ian, who must've understood because he added: "Oh, and she wants her shit back. Talk to ya later, buddy."

Continued in: General Ward with Ian

[Nell]

POST TIMESKIP

Mellow though she was, Ornella was more than capable of dealing with high-stress situations. Otherwise, she wouldn't have bothered becoming a nurse, and especially not an ER nurse. The place was a madhouse on the best of days, chock full of all kinds of interesting patients or downright nutjobs; tonight, it was the latter.

"Get off of me!"

The young woman had been dragged in not fifteen minutes ago by a 'friend', clearly strung out on some noxious substance or another. At first, their main goal had been to get the poor girl to pull out of her drug-induced state, but then she'd gone from conked out to cracked-out in no time, flat.

"Miss," Nell, along with two of the larger male nurses, tried to wrestle the girl down. "Miss, you're going to have to hold still!"

The inhuman shriek that the girl let out was almost enough to make Ornella's ears ring. "Nooooo!" the girl howled. "If you ruin my high, I'll kill you -- I'll fucking kill you all!"

"Terry! Terry, give me that saline!"

In retrospect, reaching across the manic patient to grab the IV bag probably wasn't the best idea. Nell heard her fellow nurses shout in warning, but she didn't quite move fast enough to avoid the coked-up girl as she lunged forward to bite her. The girl's sharp little teeth sank into the exposed flesh of Ornella's forearm and Nell shouted angrily in response. The was getting ridiculous.

"Doctor!" she shouted as the rest of the team ripped the girl away from her. Nell clasped a hand over her bleeding arm and sprinted to the door, practically kicking it open so she could shout down the hall. "We need a doctor in here, now!"

[Nate]

Continued from: ER Curtain Area.


Thankfully managing to dodge a confused orderly and their wheelchair-bound patient, Nate succeeded in saving his stethoscope from swinging right off his neck by reaching up and grabbing it on reflex as he arrived at the double swinging doors to the trauma room, bodily crashing through them using one shoulder to drive his weight through, and immediately, he registered the chaos. Where the hell were the other doctors? Who had left the nurses here alone, male though some of them might be?

Grabbing a pair of gloves from the nearest box and rushing to put them on — and somehow not managing to rip, break or twist them — he moved towards the gurney in the middle of the room, dodging a sloppily lashed foot as he did, motioning for the male nurses to actually, physically pin her; “Someone get some soft restraints on her before she hurts herself.” He was trying to get a look at the girl’s eyes, but she was thrashing far too much for him to get anywhere near close enough. “Dammit. What’s her name?” No one responded, everyone rushing about to contain the situation. “Her name!” he all but demanded of anyone in the room.

[Nell]

"Claire!"

With a quick bandage job on her arm, Nell tossed over the soft restraints and shouldered one of the male nurses out of the way so she could tie down the thrashing woman's feet. "Claire," she barked again. "Friends were calling her Claire."

'Claire' proceeded to try and kick Nell in the face but, this time, the dark-skinned nursed dodged the assault. She gave an angry sort of growl from the back of her throat and launched in again, eventually managing to get the padded leg restraints secured. Arm throbbing slightly, she stood and bolted to one of the nearby cabinets in search of more gauze.

"Blood tests still haven't come back," she announced. "Ramirez was attending until she got called off for something that was apparently more important, and McCoy was supposed to come in. No idea where the hell he is."

[Nate]

While one of the male nurses restrained Claire’s arms, Nate, carefully but efficiently used one hand against her forehead to keep her from thrashing so he could check her pupils and colouration, noting quickly and with a trained eye that she was pale, her skin clammy and hot to the touch. “She’s dehydrated,” he said, more for his own mental notes than anything else, before he was trying to meet those bloodshot, wide eyes. “Claire, what did you take?”

She screamed unintelligibly at him in response, but he didn’t even flinch; he had dealt with pained, instinctively jumpy werewolves, after all, and a drugged-up young woman was really no comparison. If nothing else, his employment with Cole’s pack had hardened his resolve and bolstered his confidence. At Nell’s statement about McCoy, Nate sighed to himself, shaking his head with dark curls trying to distract him at the edges of his vision as he tried to prompt coherency from their patient again. “Claire, we need to know what you took.”

That was when he registered Claire’s companion, and he looked right at the ‘visitor’, the responsible guardian he could have guessed. “What did she take?” he asked, the usual gentle and friendly Nate Wilder buried now beneath the firm professionalism of the physician he truly was.

[Nell]

The young 'guardian' just about jumped in her skin; in all the panic, she apparently thought that she would be overlooked. But, as usual, Nate was on top of things and Nell watched the skinny teenager as she struggled to speak. Frustrated as she was by the situation, Nell couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl -- looked like she hadn't had a decent meal in days.

"I-I'm pretty sure it was meth," she finally stammered. "It wasn't supposed to tweak her out like this, though -- she didn't do that much. W-we all thought she'd be fine..."

Some of the sympathy was burned away by a brief flash of anger. She could understand the foolishness of youth -- could she ever -- but there were sometimes when the actions of kids like this one completely blew her away. 'Kids', Nell thought as she moved to try and get the IV into the thrashing girl's arm. Christ, I sound old.