"Hmmm…I just might have to." Garrett let the corners of her mouth turn up as she allowed her eyes to gaze into Danni’s.


"Whoa, doggies, look at that!" The pilot was amazed at what he was viewing. "Doc, Danni, look out your window back there. You ain’t going to believe this one."


Garrett craned her neck trying to see out the window to the scene below. "I can’t see anything but a red glow."


"Gar, that glow is coming from all the vehicles down there. Where’s the…" Danni moved trying to find the best view of the unfolding rescue below. "Jeez, I hope they don’t expect us to get to him there."


"What?" The surgeon stretched trying to see.


"I don’t think I’m up for this one." The nurse mumbled in amazement.


"I’m starting decent." Cowboy informed his crew. "We’ll be on the ground in less than a minute."


"Where? What?" The surgeon was puzzled at her friend’s mumbled thought. "Danni, give me some idea of what we’re going into here."


"You’ve got to see this one for yourself."


The helicopter landed outside the ring of emergency vehicles. Cowboy had done his job well positioning the craft in such a way as to have the doors for the patient compartment in direct line with the scene. Garrett was pleased with his timesaving effort for the loading and liftoff but slightly miffed that she still had no idea of what they were walking into once she threw open the doors of the crew compartment.


Loaded with gear, Danni got up from her seat and waited patiently for the strong arm of the surgeon to open the door. Throwing the handle to release the locking mechanism, Garrett slid the door open and emerged to her first sight of the precarious rescue.


There, perched halfway up a huge tree, was the small compact vehicle. From the looks of the scene, the car had gone off the road at the top of the hill were it curved to the left and by some unknown force, became airborne, thus landing in the tree. By the looks of it, the only thing keeping the car in place was the long branch that had skewed it through the front and back windows. The car teetered like a hanger hooked on to someone’s finger.


Garrett took in a deep breath and let it out. "Well, standing here ain’t getting our job done. Let’s go find the Scene Commander."


Danni nodded and they trooped off together in the direction of the man in charge.



* * *

It was only a matter of ten or fifteen minutes before the bloodstained body of the small vehicle’s driver was lowered out of the tree. The use of an aerial ladder raised to the side and above the treed vehicle afforded them the vantagepoint that they needed. They rigged their rope and pulley assembly there to lower the victim secured to the backboard down to the ground and into the waiting hands of the medical personnel. Surprisingly, the victim was alert and oriented to his plight. His anxious cries for help tore at the young nurse’s heart. It was her nature to care and comfort, not stand around, waiting for the patient to come into your reach.


"He’s going to be full of glass, Danni. You’d better make sure to have your heavier gauge gloves on." Garrett thought out loud as they stood there watching.


"Yeah, got them right here in my pocket." The petite nurse touched first her right then her left side leg pockets. "Never leave home without them." Then she began to pull them from her zippered pockets. In the process a small vial of solution started to emerge with them. ‘What the…oh, forgot I had that in there from yesterday in the E.R.’ She pushed it back into her pocket, pulled the zipper shut and stood ready for the patient as she pulled the gloves onto her hands.


Within minutes the lowered form was disconnected from the rope system and carried across the rough terrain. The group of litter bearers never stopped until they were well out of the danger zone, and the patient placed on the framework of the helicopter’s stretcher.


The rescue worker in the lead looked directly at the Flight Surgeon, his eyes pleading for help. "He’s bleeding from somewhere on his face and we just can’t get it to stop."


Garrett glanced quickly at the blood soaked clothing of the rescue personnel then to the patient himself. If something weren’t done to stop that bleeding soon, there would be little blood left to keep him alive on the inside. She caught a glance of the lone I.V. site in his left arm. The fluid chamber of the regulating gauge was dripping so fast that it was almost a steady stream.


"Danni, get another I.V. line established and hang Ringer’s Lactate wide open." The surgeon muscled her way into the group of concerned E.M.S. personnel. "Shine those lights on his face. Let’s get a look at this wound." She reached into the pile of gauze and absorbent dressings, carefully lifting them from his face.


Garrett grabbed the offered gauze from the Medic’s hand and used it to try to wipe some of the blood from the patient’s face. As fast as she blotted the area, more blood appeared. It seemed to be gushing out of his very pores, all concentrating in the area around the right eye. After a few more handfuls of fresh gauze, it appeared that she was making a little headway. The long jelly-like masses of coagulated blood clung to the gauze like a baby to its mother’s nipple. Now, the injury could be seen much clearer.


Danni noticed the quietness at once as the voices around her halted. She looked up from her ministrations with the I.V. tubing to see several shocked faces on the rescuers. "What’s wrong?"


Her question was meet only briefly by the blue eyes of the Flight Surgeon as Garrett looked up from the brutalized flesh, then, continued examining the right side of the patient’s face.


The nurse looked directly at the traumatized patient’s face. Even from where she stood an arm length away, the injury was horrendous. The right eye was protruding from its socket and grossly misshapen. There wouldn’t be much that they could do for that eye now. Stopping the bleeding was their major concern. Knowing that head wounds have a tendency to bleed more due to the vascular nature of the body, Danni was not appalled by the site like many of the rescuers were. She just kept moving along about her job.


"Artery?"


Garrett shook her head. "No, the blood just keeps coming from that whole area." She blotted the raw flesh again trying to see it better. "Danni, we don’t carry Lidocaine with Epinephrine in our drug bag, do we?"


The nurse handed the bag of I.V. solution for a rescuer to hold. "I.V.’s in and running wide open. Lidocaine with Epi, not likely. They only use that in Plastic Surgery." She moved out of her position and joined Garrett at the head of the patient. "We don’t carry that in our bag," she smiled as she remembered the vial in her leg pocket, "but I know where we can get some."


Danni quickly produced the vial from her pocket. "Would 20cc be enough?"


She held the bottle up with the label facing the surgeon.


The lopsided grin spread like a bolt of lightning across Garrett’s face. "Yes, that just might be enough." Her eyes twinkling with delight at the sight of the drug she needed. "Get me a syringe and a few needles, 25 gauge if you have them. Were going to use an old plastic surgery trick to stop this blood loss."


With needles and syringes procured, the Flight Team worked to arrest the bleeding by injecting small amounts of the drug under the skin. It was a way of keeping the very vascular regions of the face that were filled with multitudes of capillaries, small veins and arterioles from bleeding while the plastic surgeon would do the tedious job of stitching up any lacerations through the layers of nerve sensitive tissue. It would allow plastic surgeons a lengthier time to work at the tiny hair-fine stitches that were necessary. Garrett finished the last of the injections, using up the last of the drug. "There, that should give us a chance to get him to the Trauma Center and replace some of his blood." She straightened up and rolled her shoulders trying to release the kink that was forming already. "What’s his pressure now?"


The medic took another reading while the surgeon studied the exposed globe and placed moist gauze then the domed plastic shield over it for the protection of the once sighted organ.


"BP is 100 over 76, Heart Rate is 108, and Respirations are 24."


"Okay, let’s get him loaded for transport, there’s nothing more that we can do here."


The Flight Surgeon’s words were like gold taken at face value. The group of rescuers hastily carried the helicopter litter into the receiving door as Danni slipped inside the craft to direct the stretcher into place and lock it down. The surgeon brought up the rear, as she gathered the equipment bags, bringing them with her. Once the bags were stowed inside, Garrett slid the compartment’s door closed, locking it in place. She promptly took her seat and buckled herself in for the ride. A quick visual check assured her that Danni was in place and ready for flight. Garrett gave the thumbs up sign to the pilot and they were on their way.

The sound of the whirring blades picking up both speed and power for lift off were a welcome noise. It would mean that they were at best, only twelve to fifteen minutes from the hospital and an awaiting ophthalmologist to whisk him into surgery. That was, if there was any hope to save the eye.


The surgeon continued on with her secondary assessment of as much of the patient as she could reach while Danni monitored his vital signs. With the abbreviated survey giving her no additional speculations of injury, the surgeon called in her report. With that out of the way, the Flight Team settled into their seats and waited for the familiar sights of the City of Pittsburgh to come into view.


"Danni," the soft voice of the surgeon could be heard over the helmet radio, "that was a nice assist back there. Where did you come up with that Lidocaine with Epi?"


The nurse shrugged her shoulders rather tiredly. "Sometimes it pays to help out in the E.R. when we’re waiting to be called out. I was assisting the Maxillo-Facial Surgical Resident yesterday and just happened to pick up an extra vial." She let the smile spread across her face, content in the thought that she had everything that Garrett could possibly want.



* * *

With their patient turned over to the Trauma Team at the hospital, Garrett and Danni waited to see what the ophthalmologist could report after his close scrutiny of the traumatized globe. It wasn’t looking good in respects to being able to save the eye even cosmetically. The lens was ripped out of its place and the cornea, what little there was left to it, was trashed. Even though the loss of the eyesight would be a permanent thing, the patient still had his life, which was lucky considering the nature of his accident. It could have been so different an outcome if the car had propelled itself a little more to the right.


Wearily, Danni and Garrett replaced their supplies and bid Cowboy farewell and safe flying, as they themselves headed back to their home. It was almost morning now and sleep was still nothing more than an allusion to them.



* * *

The ringing clamored so close to her, that Danni initially thought it was coming from inside her head. The blonde woke to the sound of the phone. There it was again. Her single eyelid opened as the tired green orb tried to find the source of the racket to stop it from ringing another time. Her jumbled mind fought from dominance over sleep. ‘What’s the phone doing in my room anyway?’ There it was, starting all over again. She reached out her hand and swiped it from the table next to where she lay.


"H...Hel…lo," she croaked, her voice husky from sleep. The nurse tried to push herself up from her warm pillow but the effort was too much as she sank back into it.


"Danni? It’s nearly 1 in the afternoon. I thought you didn’t work the night shift anymore."


"Don’t…" she mumbled into the receiver. "I’m with Garrett now."


"You’re still in bed?" Brie was shocked by the openness of her sister. She hadn’t even tried to hide the fact. "Are you feeling alright, I mean, you’re not sick are you?"