Set Fire To The Rain: Medical
May. 19th, 2018 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsSeveral Xavier's personnel lend their medical talents (or support of those with them) to help out with the emergency.
Nica and Rahne are distributing supplies and helping out when they wind up drafted by a certain doctor who smells like science and anger.
The temporary medical center that had sprung up in Central Park was taking in a steady stream of people with burns, smoke inhalation issues, and the like. The volume of patients was such that anyone willing to help was welcomed, regardless of their medical experience levels. Even high school students could take personal information, carry messages, and so on.
One of those was Nica, who was coming back to the main tent from one of the park's entrances, where she'd been passing on communications about how many victims they were to expect. In her light form, she streaked above the trees like a comet, frowning slightly at the increasing crowd at the medical center. So much damage... She touched down lightly at the side of the tent, walking though the canvas before becoming solid again to save time.
"Nica?" Rahne's voice called out only seconds after the other girl had solidified. The Scot appeared around from one of the tents, a small stack of blankets in her arms. She sniffed once more and then gave a small smile when she saw that her nose hadn't led her wrong. "Oh, I'm really glad that ye're here. I haven't seen anyone familiar in ages."
She'd thrown herself into trying to help the wounded, though she wasn't really trained. Her senses were clamoring around her - the press of people threw never ending sounds and smells at her but keeping busy had helped keep her mind off things. But she really was glad to see Nica in all this chaos.
"The nose knows," agreed Nica, grinning back when she saw her classmate. "You might not be pleased to see me when you hear the news - we've got another twenty or so wounded on their way in. Have you seen any of the people in charge around?"
Rahne gave Nica a stricken look. Not only was the idea that the camp going to get even more chaotic upsetting, but the fact that there were still wounded coming. She knew she was naive when it came to a lot of the others but even she knew that if there was this many injured, how many hadn't made it. She clutched the blankets to her chest and said, with great feeling, "Oh ... bugger it all!"
Which, for Rahne, was pretty strong language.
"Excuse me ladies coming through," a harried looking older man slid past the two girls dropping to his knees next to one of the younger patients lying nearby and setting his bag to the side as he examined the boy. "Alright lets see what we have here shall we?" Gently he reached out to check on the patient, "Everything still seems to be attached in the right place, so that's a good start although, that cut looks pretty painful. Lets take care of that shall we?" Bruce kept his voice steady and calming as he waved at Nica, "I've got some bandages and solution in my bag, could you pass them to me?"
Nica hefted the heavy med bag from where it was sitting on the ground and handed it to the man, who handled it with the ease of long familiarity. "Sorry to distract you, Doctor...?" she said. "But we've got a bit of a crowd on the way up the path from the East Gate as well. Rahne and I can help, if you need it?"
"Bruce," the man introduced himself off offhandedly, rooting through his bag for the bandages wrapping them efficiently around his patient's wound. Securing the bandage Bruce stood up and turned his gaze on the two girls in front of him, "How much more of a crowd are we talking about?" he queried, "please tell me you're only thinking about 10 more patients."
"Closer to twenty," Nica admitted, pulling a face. "I saw them on my way back from the gate and came on ahead to give you all a head's up."
Bruce groaned quietly as he forced himself to his feet, "Cap, you really need to learn to do this a little more quietly," he muttered to himself as he surveyed the scene before him, "All right," he started towards the door, "lets see what we've got shall we?" he asked gesturing for the girls to follow him, "we can send the worst injuries inside but we'll have to treat the rest where they stand."
It wasn't said quietly enough for Rahne's ears to pick up on the words and her eyebrows rose a little. Bruce smelled strange. Almost like he had two different people worth of scents laid on top of the other. One was normal, if understandably stressed, but the other ... she blinked and then blinked again. Her brain came up with two words, the only way to really describe it: science-y and rage.
She bit her lip and followed, despite her sudden misgivings. Even Maya didn't actually smell angry, even though she was all the time and this man seemed the furthest thing from it...and then another scent flooded her and Rahne's head snapped up.
"Someone's bleeding badly," she said. She tossed the blankets down and started to dart through the crowd, nose leading her past Bruce and Nica. There was no time to feel embarrassed at the way she sniffed at the air, uncaring at what anyone might think.
"Hmm," Bruce regarded the girl as she sniffed the air and lead them towards one of the entrances, "So does she do this often? the whole human bloodhound thing?" he asked Nica, curiously indicating Rahne. Bruce wasn't particularly worried, if there was someone really coming who was injured then he'd be in the right place, and if there wasn't, well there were always new people being set down wherever they could find a spot. It would almost be sad if not for the bright spot offered by girls like this throwing in to help out when all the chips were down.
"Er, she's Scottish. You know how they are," Nica replied inanely. She had no clue what the doctor's reaction would be if he realised they were mutants, and she really didn't want a scene with so many people already in a state of panic. "Come on, let's go." She grabbed Bruce by his sleeve, tugging him along through the crowd to where Nica could just see her schoolmate's red head.
"Ahh right...Scottish," an amused Bruce allowed as he let Nica pull him through the crowd after Rahne, if the very obviously mutant girls wanted to hide their identities then he was the last person who was going to out them. "Just a tip for you girls, if you want to just be ... Scottish, then it helps if you keeps things a little on the down low. Girls who appear when walking through walls could set off a few alarm bells."
"I'm Scottish because I am bloody well Scottish!" came the snippy response. For once, Rahne wasn't scandalized that she'd cursed, she was too busy trying to find the source of the smell that was occupying her thoughts. Finally, she turned around a tent and found a young man on a stretcher. He was alone, covered in blankets but it was clear he'd been triaged already.
Grimly but gingerly, Rahne pulled the blankets back to show what was hidden. The bandages surrounding his mid-section were soaked with blood, too much of it. Something had gone wrong after someone had patched him up. She looked up at Nica and Bruce. "This ... this is bad," she said, eyes filling with tears. "I ..." She'd already blown her own cover and from what Bruce had said, she figured he didn't care. "I could smell it all the way from where we were standing. Can ye fix this? Yer, like, a doctor, aye?"
"Something like that," Bruce agreed wryly as he settled down next to the man peeling back the bandages to examine the wound on his side. "This doesn't look good, the man needs surgery but he won't last till we get him to an area hospital. It looks like they missed something when they treated him, an artifact, chunk of wood or metal probably, is still lodged inside him and that's making the wound go bad," he explained to the girls giving them a level look. "I'm not going to mess you around, I'll need both of you to help if we're going to save him. You," he gestured at Nica, when you do your thing do you become sterile? You're going to have to either locate or pull the shard out of him if you can. Meanwhile, Miss Rahne and I are going to have to clean out his wound. I can do that but I need you to tell me when it stops smelling bad so that I don't exorcise too much flesh while I'm at it."
"I turn into light, so yeah? I guess it's sterile?" Nica was torn between grabbing Rahne and fleeing the imminent anti-mutant panic using their powers in a crowd would cause, and her own sense of duty and compassion. Her need to help won out. "I guess I could try?"
Rahne's coloring definitely was looking more and more white by the second but she took a deep breath, immediately regretted taking that breath, and nodded. "There's nay time for anything else," she agreed weakly. "If I vomit, I'll try to avoid yer shoes, sir." She wasn't really joking.
Bruce looked at her uncertainly, "I...appreciate that," he assured her as he stared down at the man before them, "Alright, if you two are ready then?" The man turned to his bag setting the instruments he'd need on the ground next to them. "First off you, umm lights Miss...?" The man looked down slightly ashamed, "I don't think I even asked for your names, or what you wanted me to call you."
"You can call me Spectrum," Nica replied decidedly, giving Rahne a Look. On no account was she giving him her real name. "And this is Wolfsbane." She moved to the best vantage point and, after a hesitant glance around her, allowed her body to light up as brightly as any hospital surgery.
Bruce screwed up his eyes against the sudden light, glancing down at their patient giving him his whole focus. "Alright then Spectrum, the first thing I'm going to need you to do is reach in there and grab the shard of the bullet that's still inside him. We don't know where it is," he looked up, giving her an almost apologetic look, "so you're gonna have to root around in there, but it should be near the centre of the affected area." The doctor glanced over at Rahne next, "When we're done then you and I are up."
Nica screwed up her nose, but nodded. If she'd been able to grit her teeth, she would have. She pushed her hand inside the man's abdomen, closing her eyes as she focussed. She seemed to be able to feel something, strange considering she didn't usually feel anything when she was ghosting. She opened her eyes, and to her surprise she could see into the patient, like some kind of Harry Potter moving picture version of an x-ray. "Can you see that?" she asked the other two.
Rahne glanced at Nica and shook her head. "Nay, at all. There's a change in yer smell but nothing visible. Though, the smell isn't bad, just in case yer worried ye now smell horrible. Ye don't," Rahne added helpfully. She turned back to Bruce as she rubbed her suddenly very sweaty palms against her shirt. "Alright, sir, I'll follow yer lead."
Bruce nodded his attention now only half on the girls as he narrowed his eyes and stared at the wound in front of him, a wound split by the glowing hand of the girl, 'Spectrum'. The doctor could spare a few seconds of thought for her and the obviously fake names they'd provided before he refocused on the groaning man. "I don't think either of us can see whatr you see, but you need to focus now, get the shard out of him."
"No, see, that's the thing, I can't just grab it - if I go solid while I'm inside him to grab the bullet, I'll do a lot more damage than getting shot did," Nica protested, still peering into the man's body. "But I can see it right now, like I'm wearing those corny old x-ray glasses, only it's really working. I can tell you exactly where it is so you can pull it out."
Bruce pursed his lips and then nodded as he reached back into his bag to pull out a fresh pair of white latex gloves, "Ok, we can do that," he agreed handing the bottle of saline to Rahne as he probed the opening of the wound carefully. "Ok, Miss Spectrum, you guide me in, Miss Wolfsbane, you just keep washing out the wound till it doesn't smell wrong anymore."
"There's two pieces," Nica said, sounding a little distant as she focussed on the man's abdomen again. "A big one here, about an inch and a half down..." She pointed at the entry wound. "But there's another smaller piece here, just under the rib. Maybe it hit the bone and broke?" She pointed to another spot at the level of the floating ribs. "The bone's cracked, just a little, but there's no break."
It was taking a great deal of willpower for Rahne not to give in and start gagging. The smell had been strong enough when she'd been trying to find it but now that she was right on top of it it was overwhelming. Breathing through her mouth made it worse because then she could taste it. But she soldiered on, squirting water into the open wounds where Bruce directed.
"His pulse is ..." she tilted her head and listened. "His heartbeat is erratic but it's still there." Under her breath, Rahne began to pray, asking quietly for, if not a miracle, than at least that their efforts weren't in total vain.
Bruce pursed his lips, his eyes following Nica's pointing fingers absently as he rooted around in his bag for a pair of surgical forceps, quickly stripping them out of their coverings. "Alright then girls," the doctor took a deep breath as he leant forward, "keep the information coming cause here we go."
Laurie bears witness to 14 demonstrating an impressive medical skillset. Even if her bedside manner is...lacking.
14 sighed in disgust. Sophie had soot in her hair. Again.
She'd been visiting a few of the higher-end shops a few blocks over when everything had gone straight to hell. Doug had sent her a text asking her to help out with search and rescue going on while the rest of the mansion scrambled to get up and help. Just her luck she'd decided today was the perfect day to check the newest fashion lines. Now, everything was on fire and the multitude of panicky, shrieking multitude of thoughts were echoing though the buildings and bouncing down alleyways.
Honestly she wasn't sure what they were thinking. She could do searching, so long as people weren't dead or comatose. She was good at searching. But nobody had bothered to show up and help with the 'rescuing' part of the plan. She'd already ruined Phoebe's dress and it didn't seem like things were going to get any better in that regard anytime soon.
She turned Celeste back towards the makeshift camp that had been set up in Central Park as the rest worked to carry and track the multitude of victims that were still out there. With any luck, she'd find at least one familiar face.
Laurie had also been summoned into help, albeit from a different place. She'd been working at Bellevue, going through her first year of residency in Emergency Medicine.
There'd been a contingent dispatched from the hospital to help with triage and Laurie had managed to 'convince' one of the people in charge to let her go.
She noticed Celeste enter from her spot in the middle of the chaos and gestured her over.
Celeste glided across the makeshift hospital grounds, pulling out a file to clean her nails. "You got here quick."
She took a minute to casually glance around the room, watching various volunteers rush and shout. "The others on their way?"
"Possibly," Laurie replied, handing off a stack of blankets to a young man who had the air of a well-meaning but mostly useless civilian helper. "Were you looking to help out?"
Three and a half blocks away, a brick sailed through the plate window of a store. A gangly young adult with too many tattoos and not enough sense dashed up towards the broken glass. Really, all the things that he had to put up with living in this city day after day, and then all of this junk with the fire freak? He'd earned this tv, dammit, and not nobody was gonna keep him from--
"Hey," a voice called out from his left. He turned to look. It was a blonde, pretty and thin, hands clasped behind her back. Shadows from her hair obscured her face and-- "Surprise," the same voice murmured from behind him. He felt two fingers on the side of his head, just above his ear, and and aNdnidka;vin$#@!%#
Esme made sure to kick him once in the ribs as she removed him from where he'd fallen on her feet. Really, people were so inconsiderate. Those shoes were expensive!
Back in the tent, Celeste cocked her head to the side. "...something like that," she said eventually.
"Good, have I got a job for you," Laurie replied, writing on a piece of paper and then handing it to Celeste. "Take that and hand it to the person in the next room, she'll put you to work cleaning burns and doing basic first aid."
Celeste raised an eyebrow as she looked over the note. "You do realize that I-- Oh, you have got to be kidding," she exclaimed suddenly, rolling her eyes and storming across the makeshift hospital in what was clearly annoyance towards a young-ish volunteer who appeared to be trying to fit an oxygen mask onto a victim of the chaos. "What the hell are you doing?!"
The young volunteer blinked up at her in surprise, still holding the oxygen mask against the face of an older man who had come into the emergency evacuation centre complaining about shortness of breath.
"I, ah...what?" she asked, not sure how to take the woman currently standing in front of her
"Celeste..." Laurie cautioned, having followed behind the young woman at her sudden departure, and now looked over Celeste's shoulder at the scene. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong is that she," Celeste waved haphazardly at the now unnerved volunteer, "is allowed to be within thirty yards of a medical tent in the first place." Honestly, Celeste knew good help was hard to find, but there were limits to the stupidity that should be allowed. "Honestly, if you can't do your job, don't offend those of us that can."
She quickly strutted past a table covered with emergency medical supplies, grabbing a large syringe with an extremely long needle as she passed. With the practiced ease of someone who'd been planning the motion for hours, thinking about it and planning every single instance so that not a motion was wasted and stride unbroken, she hip-checked the hapless younger volunteer, turned, and jammed the needle and syringe deep into the older man's chest.
She pulled back on the plunger, and the syringe was instantly full of dark, de-oxygenated blood. The older man was breathing easier, as well. "Cardiac Tamponade," she explained as she focused on her work. "He's going to need a surgeon."
"Pauline, please find Dr. Franklin and ask that Mr Arenberg be prepped for surgery immediately," Laurie explained gently but firmly to the young woman. She glanced at Celeste but waited till Pauline left before saying anything.
"Celeste..." Laurie paused on what she was going to say, giving Celeste a questioning look as she crouched beside the patient and ran a calming hand down his arm. The last thing they needed was the man panicking due to the pain he'd just experienced. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
Celeste held the large syringe up to the light, peering at it intently. "...hmm..." She cocked her head, then put the syringe down on a nearby table. She picked up smaller one, checked the plastic cap on the overly-long needle, and (once satisfied with whatever she'd been looking at), slipped it behind an ear.
"I could hear him struggling to breathe from across the room." She said idly, continuing to go through things on the table. "The veins in his neck were bulging, and he kept trying to sit forward despite being pushed back to lay flat because he knew it was helping. There was radiating chest pain, and your aide had already diagnosed low blood pressure. Cardiac Tamponade was obvious."
Mr. Arenberg's breathing had calmed by this point. Celeste shot him a glance.
"So yes, I was doing my job." There was a beat of silence. Celeste raised a brow, looking directly into the older woman's eyes. "Or I could have let him die, if you'd have preferred."
Laurie ignored Celeste's question for a moment, busy making sure Mr Arenberg was stable, before finally standing as the trauma team arrived. She gestured for Celeste to follow her, getting them out of the way so the team could work and she could ask some questions.
"I'm not ungrateful for the help, Celeste. You've got sharp eyes and right now we need those, but how did you learn to spot such a thing from across a room?"
"That's what I had been trying to tell you." She bent down and pulled out a small glass vial from the bottom shelf of a metal trolley, read the label, and put it back. "I've been trained for this type of thing since I was fourteen." (And wasn't there some irony there, Fourteen thought to herself idly.)
She pulled out another vial and held it to the light. "Well, close enough at any rate. Ah, here it is."
"That's not a skill one sees most fourteen year olds being trained in." Laurie noted, following Celeste's movements with a curious air. "What are you looking for?"
Celeste flashed Laurie the vial's label with one hand as she pulled the syringe out from behind her ear with the other. It was Epinephrine. "Well, it started with basic emergency techniques you teach to young adults. CPR and the like. I made the mistake of being good at it. Really good."
"So, after family hour with the basics, I ended up being taught basic first aid from a family friend." The slight hitch before 'family friend' was barely noticeable, but there. "Long story extremely short, I'm one of the best at this you'll find."
"First aid is one thing, this was a little more advanced," Laurie mused, giving Celeste a thoughtful look. Laurie hadn't missed the emotional reaction but there were things that were more important right now. They needed all the help they could get but she had to be sure, she couldn't just give Celeste complete run of the place without some due diligence. "Prove to me that this wasn't just a case of beginner's luck."
Celeste smiled the smug little smile of an egotist who'd just been given free reign to show off. "If you insist," she said simply, put the syringe down, and closed her eyes.
She snapped an arm out, pointing at a woman across the room. "The woman in the back has major 2nd and 3rd degree burns, but really you should probably be more concerned about her smoke inhalation. If she doesn't pass out in the next six hours she's probably fine, but I rather doubt that's going to happen. The gentleman next to her has a broken clavicle which he can't actually feel yet because of all the heroin in his system, but trust me it's there.
"All the way at the right, the guy in the cap is fine, despite whatever is chart claims. He's hoping to get his insurance to pay out for 'pain and suffering'. Apparently he has super villain coverage, but it only pays out for physical damages to person." She cocked her head to the side. "I wasn't aware that was a thing, but alright," she said more to herself than anyone else.
She pointed to the other side of the tent. "Lady wearing too much fake jewelry is afraid she broke her wrist. She hasn't. She should probably be more concerned with her ovarian cancer, but she'd probably have to be told about it first. The man she's been complaining to for the last ten minutes does have a broken wrist, interestingly, although he's managed to convince himself it's just a sprain."
She opened her eyes and cocked a brow. "Good enough, or should I do the volunteers next? You'll never guess who's just here to try and steal some painkillers."
Laurie's right eyebrow raised and she smiled, gesturing for Celeste to continue. It had taken her a summer back in her sixteenth year to perfect just the right amount of arch but at the time it had seemed a perfectly good use of her time.
"Far be it from me to stop you on your roll. Pray, continue."
If Kyle had been there, she knew this would have been the point he called time out and spent a few valuable moments explaining how she wasn't allowed to sound like a Jane Austen novel and wondering if she'd practiced that particular phrasing often. Which led her to two conclusions. One, she had, just like the eyebrow raise and two, it was lucky he wasn't here and Celeste was.
Admittedly, said woman being a telepath probably meant she'd heard this entire conversation in her head.
Damn.
Celeste's lip quirked upwards slightly. "I was kidding. Nobody's trying to steal drugs. But since you insist, I can tell you that most everyone volunteering here is boring. There's a girl in the back who's only here because she's hoping she won't see anyone she knows come in, but is morbidly curious and can't seem to help herself, and the young med student bringing out another roll of gauze is probably the most competent person here, after you and I of course. He just keeps letting his self-doubt get in the way of being great."
Celeste picked the syringe back up and filled it with the epinephrine. "Probably the most pressing problem is that she," Celeste gestured behind her at a younger woman, seemingly sleeping on one of the makeshift beds, "has a minor infection from where she was speared by some re-bar. This wouldn't be a problem, except that she's allergic to penicillin and someone's already treated her. So she's going to be going into shock probably in the next three min-" She was cut off by a cough and a pained wheezing.
"Oh, my mistake. Here." She held out the syringe of epinephrine to Laurie. "Would you like to handle this while I go track down whoever's responsible and explain to them why they don't throw around antibiotics for non-lethal problems until we have a positive identity?" From her tone, it wasn't really a question.
Sharon and Clarice wrestle with paperwork, people freaking out over a purple medic, and so on.
The temporary medical area that had gone up in Central Park was extremely busy - many people were coming in with burns or problems from smoke inhalation. This meant that medical personnel were in high demand - even if their skin was purple.
Sharon had just come in for a shift in the ER when she had been dispatched to triage area to help out. "Easy, easy..." She assisted the coughing man to sit down against a tree and crouched down next to him. The soot around his nostrils immediately had her suspecting smoke inhalation and she grabbed a probe to attach to his finger.
"You got him?" Clarice called over as she finished dressing a woman with burns on her arms. She'd have to go to a clinic and get checked, but she was okay for the moment and most likely didn't need a hospital. Sadly, situations like this were all too familiar from her time with Red X, but it was different now. Now, being purple was much more dangerous and the image inducer she usually wore out was out of power, but she worked anyways.
"Got it" She called back. She frowned as she observed the saturation level of his blood, then grabbed one of the small oxygen canisters with an attached mask. "Breath through this." She instructed as she handed him the mask and slipped her stethoscope into her ears and the other end into his shirt.
Finishing with her woman, Clarice headed to Sharon, squatting down to check the patient. Sharon was a very skilled nurse, she likely didn't need help, but Clarice also needed a moment to get herself back together, it was a rough day, "How're you doing?" she asked the man while Sharon listened to his heart and lungs.
"You... you're purple!" He exclaimed after pulling away the mask.
"So she is." Sharon commented as she draped her stethoscope back around her neck and guided the mask back to his face. "Really not liking the sound of his lungs." She commented softly as she grabbed the supplies to get IV access. "Best to get him to the ER as soon as possible. You got any yellow tags left?"
Pulling out her own stethoscope and listening to his lungs like Sharon had, Clarice had to agree, "I'm purple," she agreed with the guy absently, "and yes, I do. I think he can go with the next group, he's not imminent or anything," she pulled a yellow tag from her pocket, smoothing it out and securing it around his wrist. "Does he have paperwork yet?" she asked.
"Scratched some notes there, but nothing official yet." Sharon set out next to her what she needed, then addressed the man. "Sir, I'm going to have to put in an IV. Is that okay?" At a weak nod, she lifted his hand. swiping an alcohol wipe over it and searching for a good vein. "I put it over there." She gestured with her head.
Going to get his paperwork, Clarice began filling out more in a mostly neat scrawl, "How long ago were you using?" she asked the man, squatting back down as she noticed old needle marks in his inner arm. There was no judgement, but she did need to know. "We need to know to treat you properly."
Sharon's eyes briefly flicked to the needle marks Clarice was referencing, but her focus remained on the needle in her hand. Gently, yet firmly she pushed the needle into the vein and watched for the quick flashback of blood. Once she had it, she pulled back the needle. "Clarice, can you handle me that lock?"
Handing Sharon the lock as requested, Clarice waited for the man to reply.
"It's been 5 years," he said softly, not meeting her eyes, "I'm clean now."
Clarice nodded, not passing judgement. This wasn't the time or the place. "Okay, good," she replied, "Then that shouldn't affect anything. Thanks."
Sharon finished putting the lock in place and caught the eye of a man with a gurney coming towards them. "Looks like it's time for you to go checked out by the docs. Have that paperwork ready, Clarice?"
"Just finishing it," Clarice mumbled, signing off and then looking it over one more time. "Sign please," she added, handing it to Sharon. Normally all this would be digital and all this would be later, but for now, it was paper thanks to the emergency nature of the situation.
Sharon signed the form and handed it over to the man on the gurney with a quick set of instructions. She didn't watch the gurney being pulled away, but instead squirted some disinfectant over her hands, gathered her things and started to make her way to two women lying in the grass about ten yards away. "Want to do this together?"
"Sure," Clarice agreed, taking the disinfectant and using it liberally. "Let's see what we have."
Nica and Rahne are distributing supplies and helping out when they wind up drafted by a certain doctor who smells like science and anger.
The temporary medical center that had sprung up in Central Park was taking in a steady stream of people with burns, smoke inhalation issues, and the like. The volume of patients was such that anyone willing to help was welcomed, regardless of their medical experience levels. Even high school students could take personal information, carry messages, and so on.
One of those was Nica, who was coming back to the main tent from one of the park's entrances, where she'd been passing on communications about how many victims they were to expect. In her light form, she streaked above the trees like a comet, frowning slightly at the increasing crowd at the medical center. So much damage... She touched down lightly at the side of the tent, walking though the canvas before becoming solid again to save time.
"Nica?" Rahne's voice called out only seconds after the other girl had solidified. The Scot appeared around from one of the tents, a small stack of blankets in her arms. She sniffed once more and then gave a small smile when she saw that her nose hadn't led her wrong. "Oh, I'm really glad that ye're here. I haven't seen anyone familiar in ages."
She'd thrown herself into trying to help the wounded, though she wasn't really trained. Her senses were clamoring around her - the press of people threw never ending sounds and smells at her but keeping busy had helped keep her mind off things. But she really was glad to see Nica in all this chaos.
"The nose knows," agreed Nica, grinning back when she saw her classmate. "You might not be pleased to see me when you hear the news - we've got another twenty or so wounded on their way in. Have you seen any of the people in charge around?"
Rahne gave Nica a stricken look. Not only was the idea that the camp going to get even more chaotic upsetting, but the fact that there were still wounded coming. She knew she was naive when it came to a lot of the others but even she knew that if there was this many injured, how many hadn't made it. She clutched the blankets to her chest and said, with great feeling, "Oh ... bugger it all!"
Which, for Rahne, was pretty strong language.
"Excuse me ladies coming through," a harried looking older man slid past the two girls dropping to his knees next to one of the younger patients lying nearby and setting his bag to the side as he examined the boy. "Alright lets see what we have here shall we?" Gently he reached out to check on the patient, "Everything still seems to be attached in the right place, so that's a good start although, that cut looks pretty painful. Lets take care of that shall we?" Bruce kept his voice steady and calming as he waved at Nica, "I've got some bandages and solution in my bag, could you pass them to me?"
Nica hefted the heavy med bag from where it was sitting on the ground and handed it to the man, who handled it with the ease of long familiarity. "Sorry to distract you, Doctor...?" she said. "But we've got a bit of a crowd on the way up the path from the East Gate as well. Rahne and I can help, if you need it?"
"Bruce," the man introduced himself off offhandedly, rooting through his bag for the bandages wrapping them efficiently around his patient's wound. Securing the bandage Bruce stood up and turned his gaze on the two girls in front of him, "How much more of a crowd are we talking about?" he queried, "please tell me you're only thinking about 10 more patients."
"Closer to twenty," Nica admitted, pulling a face. "I saw them on my way back from the gate and came on ahead to give you all a head's up."
Bruce groaned quietly as he forced himself to his feet, "Cap, you really need to learn to do this a little more quietly," he muttered to himself as he surveyed the scene before him, "All right," he started towards the door, "lets see what we've got shall we?" he asked gesturing for the girls to follow him, "we can send the worst injuries inside but we'll have to treat the rest where they stand."
It wasn't said quietly enough for Rahne's ears to pick up on the words and her eyebrows rose a little. Bruce smelled strange. Almost like he had two different people worth of scents laid on top of the other. One was normal, if understandably stressed, but the other ... she blinked and then blinked again. Her brain came up with two words, the only way to really describe it: science-y and rage.
She bit her lip and followed, despite her sudden misgivings. Even Maya didn't actually smell angry, even though she was all the time and this man seemed the furthest thing from it...and then another scent flooded her and Rahne's head snapped up.
"Someone's bleeding badly," she said. She tossed the blankets down and started to dart through the crowd, nose leading her past Bruce and Nica. There was no time to feel embarrassed at the way she sniffed at the air, uncaring at what anyone might think.
"Hmm," Bruce regarded the girl as she sniffed the air and lead them towards one of the entrances, "So does she do this often? the whole human bloodhound thing?" he asked Nica, curiously indicating Rahne. Bruce wasn't particularly worried, if there was someone really coming who was injured then he'd be in the right place, and if there wasn't, well there were always new people being set down wherever they could find a spot. It would almost be sad if not for the bright spot offered by girls like this throwing in to help out when all the chips were down.
"Er, she's Scottish. You know how they are," Nica replied inanely. She had no clue what the doctor's reaction would be if he realised they were mutants, and she really didn't want a scene with so many people already in a state of panic. "Come on, let's go." She grabbed Bruce by his sleeve, tugging him along through the crowd to where Nica could just see her schoolmate's red head.
"Ahh right...Scottish," an amused Bruce allowed as he let Nica pull him through the crowd after Rahne, if the very obviously mutant girls wanted to hide their identities then he was the last person who was going to out them. "Just a tip for you girls, if you want to just be ... Scottish, then it helps if you keeps things a little on the down low. Girls who appear when walking through walls could set off a few alarm bells."
"I'm Scottish because I am bloody well Scottish!" came the snippy response. For once, Rahne wasn't scandalized that she'd cursed, she was too busy trying to find the source of the smell that was occupying her thoughts. Finally, she turned around a tent and found a young man on a stretcher. He was alone, covered in blankets but it was clear he'd been triaged already.
Grimly but gingerly, Rahne pulled the blankets back to show what was hidden. The bandages surrounding his mid-section were soaked with blood, too much of it. Something had gone wrong after someone had patched him up. She looked up at Nica and Bruce. "This ... this is bad," she said, eyes filling with tears. "I ..." She'd already blown her own cover and from what Bruce had said, she figured he didn't care. "I could smell it all the way from where we were standing. Can ye fix this? Yer, like, a doctor, aye?"
"Something like that," Bruce agreed wryly as he settled down next to the man peeling back the bandages to examine the wound on his side. "This doesn't look good, the man needs surgery but he won't last till we get him to an area hospital. It looks like they missed something when they treated him, an artifact, chunk of wood or metal probably, is still lodged inside him and that's making the wound go bad," he explained to the girls giving them a level look. "I'm not going to mess you around, I'll need both of you to help if we're going to save him. You," he gestured at Nica, when you do your thing do you become sterile? You're going to have to either locate or pull the shard out of him if you can. Meanwhile, Miss Rahne and I are going to have to clean out his wound. I can do that but I need you to tell me when it stops smelling bad so that I don't exorcise too much flesh while I'm at it."
"I turn into light, so yeah? I guess it's sterile?" Nica was torn between grabbing Rahne and fleeing the imminent anti-mutant panic using their powers in a crowd would cause, and her own sense of duty and compassion. Her need to help won out. "I guess I could try?"
Rahne's coloring definitely was looking more and more white by the second but she took a deep breath, immediately regretted taking that breath, and nodded. "There's nay time for anything else," she agreed weakly. "If I vomit, I'll try to avoid yer shoes, sir." She wasn't really joking.
Bruce looked at her uncertainly, "I...appreciate that," he assured her as he stared down at the man before them, "Alright, if you two are ready then?" The man turned to his bag setting the instruments he'd need on the ground next to them. "First off you, umm lights Miss...?" The man looked down slightly ashamed, "I don't think I even asked for your names, or what you wanted me to call you."
"You can call me Spectrum," Nica replied decidedly, giving Rahne a Look. On no account was she giving him her real name. "And this is Wolfsbane." She moved to the best vantage point and, after a hesitant glance around her, allowed her body to light up as brightly as any hospital surgery.
Bruce screwed up his eyes against the sudden light, glancing down at their patient giving him his whole focus. "Alright then Spectrum, the first thing I'm going to need you to do is reach in there and grab the shard of the bullet that's still inside him. We don't know where it is," he looked up, giving her an almost apologetic look, "so you're gonna have to root around in there, but it should be near the centre of the affected area." The doctor glanced over at Rahne next, "When we're done then you and I are up."
Nica screwed up her nose, but nodded. If she'd been able to grit her teeth, she would have. She pushed her hand inside the man's abdomen, closing her eyes as she focussed. She seemed to be able to feel something, strange considering she didn't usually feel anything when she was ghosting. She opened her eyes, and to her surprise she could see into the patient, like some kind of Harry Potter moving picture version of an x-ray. "Can you see that?" she asked the other two.
Rahne glanced at Nica and shook her head. "Nay, at all. There's a change in yer smell but nothing visible. Though, the smell isn't bad, just in case yer worried ye now smell horrible. Ye don't," Rahne added helpfully. She turned back to Bruce as she rubbed her suddenly very sweaty palms against her shirt. "Alright, sir, I'll follow yer lead."
Bruce nodded his attention now only half on the girls as he narrowed his eyes and stared at the wound in front of him, a wound split by the glowing hand of the girl, 'Spectrum'. The doctor could spare a few seconds of thought for her and the obviously fake names they'd provided before he refocused on the groaning man. "I don't think either of us can see whatr you see, but you need to focus now, get the shard out of him."
"No, see, that's the thing, I can't just grab it - if I go solid while I'm inside him to grab the bullet, I'll do a lot more damage than getting shot did," Nica protested, still peering into the man's body. "But I can see it right now, like I'm wearing those corny old x-ray glasses, only it's really working. I can tell you exactly where it is so you can pull it out."
Bruce pursed his lips and then nodded as he reached back into his bag to pull out a fresh pair of white latex gloves, "Ok, we can do that," he agreed handing the bottle of saline to Rahne as he probed the opening of the wound carefully. "Ok, Miss Spectrum, you guide me in, Miss Wolfsbane, you just keep washing out the wound till it doesn't smell wrong anymore."
"There's two pieces," Nica said, sounding a little distant as she focussed on the man's abdomen again. "A big one here, about an inch and a half down..." She pointed at the entry wound. "But there's another smaller piece here, just under the rib. Maybe it hit the bone and broke?" She pointed to another spot at the level of the floating ribs. "The bone's cracked, just a little, but there's no break."
It was taking a great deal of willpower for Rahne not to give in and start gagging. The smell had been strong enough when she'd been trying to find it but now that she was right on top of it it was overwhelming. Breathing through her mouth made it worse because then she could taste it. But she soldiered on, squirting water into the open wounds where Bruce directed.
"His pulse is ..." she tilted her head and listened. "His heartbeat is erratic but it's still there." Under her breath, Rahne began to pray, asking quietly for, if not a miracle, than at least that their efforts weren't in total vain.
Bruce pursed his lips, his eyes following Nica's pointing fingers absently as he rooted around in his bag for a pair of surgical forceps, quickly stripping them out of their coverings. "Alright then girls," the doctor took a deep breath as he leant forward, "keep the information coming cause here we go."
Laurie bears witness to 14 demonstrating an impressive medical skillset. Even if her bedside manner is...lacking.
14 sighed in disgust. Sophie had soot in her hair. Again.
She'd been visiting a few of the higher-end shops a few blocks over when everything had gone straight to hell. Doug had sent her a text asking her to help out with search and rescue going on while the rest of the mansion scrambled to get up and help. Just her luck she'd decided today was the perfect day to check the newest fashion lines. Now, everything was on fire and the multitude of panicky, shrieking multitude of thoughts were echoing though the buildings and bouncing down alleyways.
Honestly she wasn't sure what they were thinking. She could do searching, so long as people weren't dead or comatose. She was good at searching. But nobody had bothered to show up and help with the 'rescuing' part of the plan. She'd already ruined Phoebe's dress and it didn't seem like things were going to get any better in that regard anytime soon.
She turned Celeste back towards the makeshift camp that had been set up in Central Park as the rest worked to carry and track the multitude of victims that were still out there. With any luck, she'd find at least one familiar face.
Laurie had also been summoned into help, albeit from a different place. She'd been working at Bellevue, going through her first year of residency in Emergency Medicine.
There'd been a contingent dispatched from the hospital to help with triage and Laurie had managed to 'convince' one of the people in charge to let her go.
She noticed Celeste enter from her spot in the middle of the chaos and gestured her over.
Celeste glided across the makeshift hospital grounds, pulling out a file to clean her nails. "You got here quick."
She took a minute to casually glance around the room, watching various volunteers rush and shout. "The others on their way?"
"Possibly," Laurie replied, handing off a stack of blankets to a young man who had the air of a well-meaning but mostly useless civilian helper. "Were you looking to help out?"
Three and a half blocks away, a brick sailed through the plate window of a store. A gangly young adult with too many tattoos and not enough sense dashed up towards the broken glass. Really, all the things that he had to put up with living in this city day after day, and then all of this junk with the fire freak? He'd earned this tv, dammit, and not nobody was gonna keep him from--
"Hey," a voice called out from his left. He turned to look. It was a blonde, pretty and thin, hands clasped behind her back. Shadows from her hair obscured her face and-- "Surprise," the same voice murmured from behind him. He felt two fingers on the side of his head, just above his ear, and and aNdnidka;vin$#@!%#
Esme made sure to kick him once in the ribs as she removed him from where he'd fallen on her feet. Really, people were so inconsiderate. Those shoes were expensive!
Back in the tent, Celeste cocked her head to the side. "...something like that," she said eventually.
"Good, have I got a job for you," Laurie replied, writing on a piece of paper and then handing it to Celeste. "Take that and hand it to the person in the next room, she'll put you to work cleaning burns and doing basic first aid."
Celeste raised an eyebrow as she looked over the note. "You do realize that I-- Oh, you have got to be kidding," she exclaimed suddenly, rolling her eyes and storming across the makeshift hospital in what was clearly annoyance towards a young-ish volunteer who appeared to be trying to fit an oxygen mask onto a victim of the chaos. "What the hell are you doing?!"
The young volunteer blinked up at her in surprise, still holding the oxygen mask against the face of an older man who had come into the emergency evacuation centre complaining about shortness of breath.
"I, ah...what?" she asked, not sure how to take the woman currently standing in front of her
"Celeste..." Laurie cautioned, having followed behind the young woman at her sudden departure, and now looked over Celeste's shoulder at the scene. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong is that she," Celeste waved haphazardly at the now unnerved volunteer, "is allowed to be within thirty yards of a medical tent in the first place." Honestly, Celeste knew good help was hard to find, but there were limits to the stupidity that should be allowed. "Honestly, if you can't do your job, don't offend those of us that can."
She quickly strutted past a table covered with emergency medical supplies, grabbing a large syringe with an extremely long needle as she passed. With the practiced ease of someone who'd been planning the motion for hours, thinking about it and planning every single instance so that not a motion was wasted and stride unbroken, she hip-checked the hapless younger volunteer, turned, and jammed the needle and syringe deep into the older man's chest.
She pulled back on the plunger, and the syringe was instantly full of dark, de-oxygenated blood. The older man was breathing easier, as well. "Cardiac Tamponade," she explained as she focused on her work. "He's going to need a surgeon."
"Pauline, please find Dr. Franklin and ask that Mr Arenberg be prepped for surgery immediately," Laurie explained gently but firmly to the young woman. She glanced at Celeste but waited till Pauline left before saying anything.
"Celeste..." Laurie paused on what she was going to say, giving Celeste a questioning look as she crouched beside the patient and ran a calming hand down his arm. The last thing they needed was the man panicking due to the pain he'd just experienced. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
Celeste held the large syringe up to the light, peering at it intently. "...hmm..." She cocked her head, then put the syringe down on a nearby table. She picked up smaller one, checked the plastic cap on the overly-long needle, and (once satisfied with whatever she'd been looking at), slipped it behind an ear.
"I could hear him struggling to breathe from across the room." She said idly, continuing to go through things on the table. "The veins in his neck were bulging, and he kept trying to sit forward despite being pushed back to lay flat because he knew it was helping. There was radiating chest pain, and your aide had already diagnosed low blood pressure. Cardiac Tamponade was obvious."
Mr. Arenberg's breathing had calmed by this point. Celeste shot him a glance.
"So yes, I was doing my job." There was a beat of silence. Celeste raised a brow, looking directly into the older woman's eyes. "Or I could have let him die, if you'd have preferred."
Laurie ignored Celeste's question for a moment, busy making sure Mr Arenberg was stable, before finally standing as the trauma team arrived. She gestured for Celeste to follow her, getting them out of the way so the team could work and she could ask some questions.
"I'm not ungrateful for the help, Celeste. You've got sharp eyes and right now we need those, but how did you learn to spot such a thing from across a room?"
"That's what I had been trying to tell you." She bent down and pulled out a small glass vial from the bottom shelf of a metal trolley, read the label, and put it back. "I've been trained for this type of thing since I was fourteen." (And wasn't there some irony there, Fourteen thought to herself idly.)
She pulled out another vial and held it to the light. "Well, close enough at any rate. Ah, here it is."
"That's not a skill one sees most fourteen year olds being trained in." Laurie noted, following Celeste's movements with a curious air. "What are you looking for?"
Celeste flashed Laurie the vial's label with one hand as she pulled the syringe out from behind her ear with the other. It was Epinephrine. "Well, it started with basic emergency techniques you teach to young adults. CPR and the like. I made the mistake of being good at it. Really good."
"So, after family hour with the basics, I ended up being taught basic first aid from a family friend." The slight hitch before 'family friend' was barely noticeable, but there. "Long story extremely short, I'm one of the best at this you'll find."
"First aid is one thing, this was a little more advanced," Laurie mused, giving Celeste a thoughtful look. Laurie hadn't missed the emotional reaction but there were things that were more important right now. They needed all the help they could get but she had to be sure, she couldn't just give Celeste complete run of the place without some due diligence. "Prove to me that this wasn't just a case of beginner's luck."
Celeste smiled the smug little smile of an egotist who'd just been given free reign to show off. "If you insist," she said simply, put the syringe down, and closed her eyes.
She snapped an arm out, pointing at a woman across the room. "The woman in the back has major 2nd and 3rd degree burns, but really you should probably be more concerned about her smoke inhalation. If she doesn't pass out in the next six hours she's probably fine, but I rather doubt that's going to happen. The gentleman next to her has a broken clavicle which he can't actually feel yet because of all the heroin in his system, but trust me it's there.
"All the way at the right, the guy in the cap is fine, despite whatever is chart claims. He's hoping to get his insurance to pay out for 'pain and suffering'. Apparently he has super villain coverage, but it only pays out for physical damages to person." She cocked her head to the side. "I wasn't aware that was a thing, but alright," she said more to herself than anyone else.
She pointed to the other side of the tent. "Lady wearing too much fake jewelry is afraid she broke her wrist. She hasn't. She should probably be more concerned with her ovarian cancer, but she'd probably have to be told about it first. The man she's been complaining to for the last ten minutes does have a broken wrist, interestingly, although he's managed to convince himself it's just a sprain."
She opened her eyes and cocked a brow. "Good enough, or should I do the volunteers next? You'll never guess who's just here to try and steal some painkillers."
Laurie's right eyebrow raised and she smiled, gesturing for Celeste to continue. It had taken her a summer back in her sixteenth year to perfect just the right amount of arch but at the time it had seemed a perfectly good use of her time.
"Far be it from me to stop you on your roll. Pray, continue."
If Kyle had been there, she knew this would have been the point he called time out and spent a few valuable moments explaining how she wasn't allowed to sound like a Jane Austen novel and wondering if she'd practiced that particular phrasing often. Which led her to two conclusions. One, she had, just like the eyebrow raise and two, it was lucky he wasn't here and Celeste was.
Admittedly, said woman being a telepath probably meant she'd heard this entire conversation in her head.
Damn.
Celeste's lip quirked upwards slightly. "I was kidding. Nobody's trying to steal drugs. But since you insist, I can tell you that most everyone volunteering here is boring. There's a girl in the back who's only here because she's hoping she won't see anyone she knows come in, but is morbidly curious and can't seem to help herself, and the young med student bringing out another roll of gauze is probably the most competent person here, after you and I of course. He just keeps letting his self-doubt get in the way of being great."
Celeste picked the syringe back up and filled it with the epinephrine. "Probably the most pressing problem is that she," Celeste gestured behind her at a younger woman, seemingly sleeping on one of the makeshift beds, "has a minor infection from where she was speared by some re-bar. This wouldn't be a problem, except that she's allergic to penicillin and someone's already treated her. So she's going to be going into shock probably in the next three min-" She was cut off by a cough and a pained wheezing.
"Oh, my mistake. Here." She held out the syringe of epinephrine to Laurie. "Would you like to handle this while I go track down whoever's responsible and explain to them why they don't throw around antibiotics for non-lethal problems until we have a positive identity?" From her tone, it wasn't really a question.
Sharon and Clarice wrestle with paperwork, people freaking out over a purple medic, and so on.
The temporary medical area that had gone up in Central Park was extremely busy - many people were coming in with burns or problems from smoke inhalation. This meant that medical personnel were in high demand - even if their skin was purple.
Sharon had just come in for a shift in the ER when she had been dispatched to triage area to help out. "Easy, easy..." She assisted the coughing man to sit down against a tree and crouched down next to him. The soot around his nostrils immediately had her suspecting smoke inhalation and she grabbed a probe to attach to his finger.
"You got him?" Clarice called over as she finished dressing a woman with burns on her arms. She'd have to go to a clinic and get checked, but she was okay for the moment and most likely didn't need a hospital. Sadly, situations like this were all too familiar from her time with Red X, but it was different now. Now, being purple was much more dangerous and the image inducer she usually wore out was out of power, but she worked anyways.
"Got it" She called back. She frowned as she observed the saturation level of his blood, then grabbed one of the small oxygen canisters with an attached mask. "Breath through this." She instructed as she handed him the mask and slipped her stethoscope into her ears and the other end into his shirt.
Finishing with her woman, Clarice headed to Sharon, squatting down to check the patient. Sharon was a very skilled nurse, she likely didn't need help, but Clarice also needed a moment to get herself back together, it was a rough day, "How're you doing?" she asked the man while Sharon listened to his heart and lungs.
"You... you're purple!" He exclaimed after pulling away the mask.
"So she is." Sharon commented as she draped her stethoscope back around her neck and guided the mask back to his face. "Really not liking the sound of his lungs." She commented softly as she grabbed the supplies to get IV access. "Best to get him to the ER as soon as possible. You got any yellow tags left?"
Pulling out her own stethoscope and listening to his lungs like Sharon had, Clarice had to agree, "I'm purple," she agreed with the guy absently, "and yes, I do. I think he can go with the next group, he's not imminent or anything," she pulled a yellow tag from her pocket, smoothing it out and securing it around his wrist. "Does he have paperwork yet?" she asked.
"Scratched some notes there, but nothing official yet." Sharon set out next to her what she needed, then addressed the man. "Sir, I'm going to have to put in an IV. Is that okay?" At a weak nod, she lifted his hand. swiping an alcohol wipe over it and searching for a good vein. "I put it over there." She gestured with her head.
Going to get his paperwork, Clarice began filling out more in a mostly neat scrawl, "How long ago were you using?" she asked the man, squatting back down as she noticed old needle marks in his inner arm. There was no judgement, but she did need to know. "We need to know to treat you properly."
Sharon's eyes briefly flicked to the needle marks Clarice was referencing, but her focus remained on the needle in her hand. Gently, yet firmly she pushed the needle into the vein and watched for the quick flashback of blood. Once she had it, she pulled back the needle. "Clarice, can you handle me that lock?"
Handing Sharon the lock as requested, Clarice waited for the man to reply.
"It's been 5 years," he said softly, not meeting her eyes, "I'm clean now."
Clarice nodded, not passing judgement. This wasn't the time or the place. "Okay, good," she replied, "Then that shouldn't affect anything. Thanks."
Sharon finished putting the lock in place and caught the eye of a man with a gurney coming towards them. "Looks like it's time for you to go checked out by the docs. Have that paperwork ready, Clarice?"
"Just finishing it," Clarice mumbled, signing off and then looking it over one more time. "Sign please," she added, handing it to Sharon. Normally all this would be digital and all this would be later, but for now, it was paper thanks to the emergency nature of the situation.
Sharon signed the form and handed it over to the man on the gurney with a quick set of instructions. She didn't watch the gurney being pulled away, but instead squirted some disinfectant over her hands, gathered her things and started to make her way to two women lying in the grass about ten yards away. "Want to do this together?"
"Sure," Clarice agreed, taking the disinfectant and using it liberally. "Let's see what we have."
