Extreme Medical Services: Medical Care On The Fringes Of Humanity (20 page)

   
“Is it something I can get, too?” Dean asked. “I’d like all the protection I can get after recent events. I don’t even know what is dangerous to me anymore. I feel like my sense of scene safety is kind of a joke right now.”

   
“Don’t stop trusting your instincts,” she said. “They’re good. They alerted you that something was up with that cardiac arrest call and they alerted you that James was up to something. All were true. Your instincts were dead on.” She stopped as they arrived back at the station. “Hop out and back me in. We’ll finish talking about this when we get back inside.”

   
Dean jumped out as she pressed the button to raise the garage doors. He helped her back the ambulance into the bay safely. Then he hooked up the electric line to the side of the ambulance box and headed into the squad room just in time to see a figure in dark clothes run out the other door to the parking lot. A quick glance showed the desks in disarray, papers all over the floor and the room a complete mess. He shouted at the person as he ran across the room, pushing the door to the parking lot open and watching as that same black SUV sped away from the station parking lot. He tried to get a look at the license plate, but they were gone, disappearing into the night too fast for him to make out the letters and numbers.
 

   
Brynne came into the squad room just as he returned. “What the …?”
 

   
“I just chased some guy out of here. He was dressed all in black like some sort of ninja,” he said. “He sped off in a black SUV. I’d swear that’s the same black SUV I’ve seen around for the last few weeks off and on. I thought at first they were with James, but when I asked him about it, he denied having anything to do with them.”

   
“James wouldn’t do something like this,” Brynne said. “He could just ask me if he wanted information.” She walked over to the pair of desks and the computer workstations. “It looks like they were trying to pull the hard drives out of these but couldn’t get the cases open. The filing cabinets are still locked.”

   
Dean walked over to the break area. “They tore apart the bookshelf and dumped all our small collection of tomes and legends on the floor. It’s like they were looking for something in particular.”

   
“I’ll call this in. We should probably get the police involved,” Brynne said. “You check through the rest of the building and see if you can find anything else that’s missing.”

   
“Maybe they were looking for drugs or something,” Dean proposed.

   
“Why look in here, then?” she asked. “They would have been trying to break into the med dispenser out in the bay if that were the case. It’s like they were after patient information or something. There are some hate groups out there that target the Unusual population.”

   
Dean looked at his desk and quickly checked his pockets. “Oh no,” he said rushing over the messed up desk and moving papers and books around.

   
“What is it?” Brynne asked.

   
“My thumb drive,” he said. “I think I left it plugged into the computer. I was keeping a record of my call reports on there and had a copy of my version of the cardiac arrest call complete with my suspicions about James’ involvement.”

   
“That’s not good, Dean,” Brynne said. “Why would you keep an unencrypted copy like that in your personal collection? That’s protected patient information, Unusual or not.”

   
“I just wanted to keep track of what I was doing. I only had the last few days of calls on it.” He looked up at his partner. “I upload it to a secure cloud-based server when I’m home, but I hadn’t updated it for the last several days. There were three or four run reports on there as well as the cardiac arrest report.”

   
“Okay, we’ll deal with that later,” she said. “I’ll call dispatch and report the break in. You keep looking around and see if there is anything else missing.”

   
It didn’t look like the intruder had made it back into the bunkrooms or bathroom of the station. He, or she, had just focused on the office and squad rest areas. He wasn’t sure what to do next. He remembered his class on dealing with medical crime scenes and decided not to clean anything up until the police had come and gone. He walked back into the main squad room area and saw Brynne talking on the phone.
 

   
“They’re sending a police unit over - one that specializes in Unusuals so we can talk to them freely,” Brynne said as she hung up the phone. “They’ve put us out of service for now. We’re to continue to inventory anything that’s missing but try not to muck up the crime scene any more than necessary.”

   
The two cops arrived in about five minutes. They said the door looked like it had been forced open and that they would probably have to get it repaired before it would lock correctly again. A crime scene unit showed up, and a tech came in and looked around. He dusted the computer and desk for fingerprints, as well as the inside and outside of the door. He said it all looked smudged like the intruder was wearing gloves. Dean couldn’t remember if he saw the intruder wearing gloves or not. He closed his eyes, trying to picture what the person looked like as they ran out the door. He couldn’t get a clear picture in his mind.
 

   
The police stayed for about two hours interviewing he and Brynne separately. They also got fingerprinted by the crime scene tech to rule out their prints from any others that were found. The tech said they’d have to get the other regular Station U paramedics printed as well to rule them out. Dean pointed out that they were all fingerprinted for their background check when they entered the academy. The tech said that it would save time to get them locally and not have to go to the state and FBI databases to request them.

   
It took about two hours for each of them to give their report both to the police and then writing it all up for headquarters to review. It was well after midnight and Dean was suddenly very tired. He’d gotten into this job for the excitement of it, but lately that excitement had gotten pretty stale. A sleepy maintenance guy was the last person to show up. He attached a new deadbolt lock to the door and screwed in a receiver for the bolt on the metal door jam. He handed Brynne two sets of keys for them and the next shift and said he’d get more made the next day when he came in for his regular shift.
 

   
Now that the door was repaired and the squad room was straightened up, Brynne called headquarters on the phone and put them back in service. Dean just sat down and looked around. That SUV he’d seen earlier obviously was following him. It bothered him. James and Brynne had both skewered the likelihood that James had anything to do with it.
 
James could arrange to have him followed in much more covert ways. So who were they and what did they want from him and from the station?

   
“Penny for your thoughts?” Brynne asked as she came over to the recliners and sat on the edge of the couch across from Dean.

   
“Wow,” Dean said, “The last time I heard that it from my grandmother.”
 

   
“Are you saying I’m old?” Brynne asked, dangerously.

   
“No, I’m just saying that the 1970’s called and they want their catch phrase back,” Dean said with a chuckle.

   
“It seems like you’re back to your old self,” Brynne laughed. “Are you feeling better?”

   
“I guess so,” Dean said. “I’m just tired of all the excitement. This has been more than I bargained for when I took this job.”

   
“C’mon, Dean,” Brynne said. “Excitement and adrenaline are what this job is all about. They don’t call us adrenaline junkies for nothing.”

   
“That’s a different kind of excitement,” Dean pointed out. “We come in and deal with someone else’s excitement. We bring order to the excitement. It’s not supposed to happen to us.”

   
“True,” Brynne agreed. “Still it gives us a sense of how our patients feel about things. Maybe it’s a good thing for us to have our own emergencies from time to time to give us some perspective.”

   
“Maybe, Brynne. but I’ve had enough excitement focused on me.” Dean said. A pensive silence was followed by the jarring sound of the tones on the radio.

   
“Ambulance U-191, respond for an injured subject at 49th and Main Street,” came the voice over the radio. The printer chattered to life as it began to spit out a page with the response location.

   
Dean grabbed the page off the printer and headed for the unit in the ambulance bay. Brynne checked the new lock on the parking lot door and then followed him out to the ambulance. She started up the unit as Dean climbed in on his side. He keyed the mic and put them responding, turned on the lights and activated the siren. He switched to the med radio channel.

   
“Ambulance U-191, you are responding for a 52-year-old male involved in an assault. The subject will be located in the office of the Rusty Cue Pool Hall at that location. Police are on the scene, and report assailant has fled the premises. You are safe to proceed in. No additional information at this time.” the dispatcher said.

   
“Ambulance U-191 received. Proceed in. The scene is safe per police on location,” Dean repeated back. He looked at Brynne. “Well, that’s pretty cryptic. It could be almost anything.”

   
“Yeah,” she said. “The police don’t like to put out too much information over the radio - even over secure channels. When we get there, you grab the trauma bag and oxygen bag. I’ll jump in the back and get the heart monitor and med bag.” She steered the ambulance up the ramp onto I-95 to head downtown and hit the gas.

   
The trip downtown took about eight minutes. It was after two o’clock in the morning and traffic was light. It was just after closing time for the bars and most of the people had cleared out of the downtown bar district by the time they arrived. There were two police cars out front. One young officer was just coming out the front door of the pool hall, and he looked a little green around the gills.
 

   
“I’m glad you guys are here,” the younger cop said as they passed him on the way to the door. “That’s more than my limited first aid training can handle.”
 

   
Dean gave Brynne a look and reached out to hold the door for her. As the two paramedics entered the large central room, they heard a familiar voice coming from way in the back. “If you would just hold this end, officer, I can help myself and pull it out,” they heard Gibbie say. They quickly crossed the room. As they turned the corner into the office, they both stopped and stared. Gibbie sat there on the corner of the manager’s desk facing two police officers who both looked completely out of their element. The patient had the broken half of a wooden pool cue sticking out of his chest.
 

   
Gibbie looked over and saw them standing there with their jaws hanging open. “Well don’t just stand there, doooo something,” he shrieked, his voice climbing an octave as he said it. “I can’t sit here all night. I have to go and see what got Brenda so upset this time.”

   
The older of the two police officers looked at him. “This Brenda, she’s the one who did this to you? Do you have an address for her?”

   
Gibbie responded to the officer with pursed lips then turned back with a pleading look at the paramedics.

   
Brynne set the monitor down on the floor, followed by the med bag and walked over to the middle-aged vampire with her gloved hands held out in front of her. “Gibbie, I want you to calm down and sit very still,” she said quietly. “That pool cue has got to be sitting right next to your heart, and you know as well as I do what will happen if so much as a splinter gets in there.”

   
She carefully reached out and held the end of the cue still and stable at the point it entered Gibbie’s chest right through an old “Frankie Says Relax” t-shirt. She looked over her shoulder at Dean. “Get that shirt cut away, and then get the monitor on him. I want to see what’s going on with his heart.”

   
“Don’t you dare cut this shirt off young man,” Gibbie shouted. “I got this at their U.S. concert tour back in 1984. I got to go backstage and meet the band. It was fabulous.”

   
“Gibbie,” Brynne said, sternly. “You need to sit still and calm down right now. Dean is going to do what I told him to do, and you are going to let him. Do you understand?”

   
“But Brynne, honey…” he began.

   
“Don’t ‘Brynne, honey’ me,” she said. “Dean, do it and try not to move him while you do.”

   
Dean got out his trauma shears from his pants pocket and started to carefully cut up from the bottom to the point where the pole jutted out of the T-shirt. Then he cut carefully around the obstruction and up to the collar. Gibbie groaned and whimpered. When Dean was done, he slid the shirt off like a jacket. Now that the chest was exposed, and Brynne stabilized the impaled pool cue, Dean connected electrode stickies to the wire harness of his heart monitor and attached them to Gibbie at the upper arms and ankles. He turned the monitor on and took a look at the screen. He saw a run of ventricular fibrillation as he’d expected in a vampire but then he saw what looked like two or three organized sinus rhythm beats before it turned back to V-fib.
 

   
“Brynne did you see that?” he asked.
 

   
“Yeah, I saw it,” she said. “Normal sinus rhythms are not good in someone like our friend Gibbie.” She looked at the vampire and got his attention. “Gibbie, this thing must be resting right up against your heart. The monitor is showing your heart with a bad rhythm every few beats. If that rhythm takes over, there will be nothing we can do for you, so you have to stay really still, do you understand?”