The Doctors, The Culprit, and The Hypospray...

Posted on Sun Jun 18th, 2023 @ 5:41pm by Commander N'Garzi Zora & Lieutenant Commander Michael Ki & NVeid tr'Rehu

Mission: Wrath of the People
Location: Vespae Station: Medical Wing
Timeline: MD07
2700 words - 5.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Michael had been sent with NVeid to asses the status of the station's injured and Sick Bay. Thus far Michael was less than pleased with what he saw. It seemed that the Commander's assessment that the crew here were more worried about the stolen equipment than the wounded was correct. He walked through the sea of injured people, and medical staff saying little. His keen eyes began to evaluate the situation.

Following Ki close on his heels, NVeid could sense the injured before they even set foot inside the infirmary. He tapped his boss on the arm to draw his attention. "Do we know if their medical chief is among the survivors?" He asked softly, "otherwise perhaps you should take charge."

The infirmary looked to be packed with people, the range of injuries far and wide. The Romulan felt anger boil up. "Who did this," he hissed as he went for his tricorder, aching to help as many as possible.

As much as Michael would rather not be here, he knew that NVeid was right. Having not seen a Chief Medical Officer Ki decided he would step in until they found one. "Dr tr'Rehu you are too right. I am going to take control here in a moment. I would like you to head up triage. It seems that at the moment it is a mad house with no one actually doing triage." Michael motioned to one side of the Sick Bay where a weary young woman attempted to maintain some sort of order to the triage. However, she was failing.

Michael made his way to the center of the room and began to speak as loud as possible, so he could be heard over the din of confusion. "Right Ladies and Gentlemen I am Lieutenant Commander Michael Ki and as of this moment I am your Chief Medical Officer. If you have not been triaged or have someone in need of triage please see Dr tr'Rehu over there. I will be commencing rounds now." He made his way from bed to bed and examined the patients. Most were stable, burns and shrapnel wounds mostly. He was glad to see that there were no life or death cases at least not for the moment.

NVeid did the same, offering a quiet introcution over and over as he examined patients and labeled them accordingly as stable, unstable or deceased. He flagged a few nurses to take care of the deceased, while others went to tend to those listed as stable. "I need all surgeons to make themselves known, so they can assist me once we are done with triage procedures," he announced, "additionally, is your EMH operational?"

Before anyone could answer, the doors to the medical facility opened and three crew members in technician uniforms bundled into the room. "There was an explosion, one of the reactors," the human female at the front started to say. She had fair skin and short-messy-red hair that looked like it was more grease than anything else. She was cradling her arm and had a cut above her right eye. She was flanked by two others; a Cardassian male who had a rather large piece of metal sticking out of his left thigh. He was hobbling and groaning loudly, drawing all eyes to him. The other was an Andorian male, he was slightly hunched over, as though in silent pain, and was the quietest of the three.

Casting Ki the briefest of glances, NVeid instantly swooped in to assist the most concerning patient of the three: the silent Andorian. He guided him to a bed and helped him ease up. "Nod if you can lie down," he told his patient. "Don't speak unless it's necessary for now, but keep moving those antennae for me so I know you are still conscious." He paused very briefly to make sure he was going to be comfortable. "I am NVeid tr'Rehu and I'm a surgeon. This is doctor Ki, my boss. Can you tell us your names?

Ki began to silently scan the three patients. He started with the woman and the Cardassian, as the Andorian was already in NVeid's care. The woman seemed to have superficial wounds, and Michael labeled her a green tag, which meant she was stable and could be seen when there was availability also known as walking wounded. The Cardassian however, seemed to have shrapnel in his leg which had nicked the femoral artery. If the shrapnel is removed the man would bleed out, he is labeled yellow tag, potentially unstable. The next was a quick scan of the Andorian. As Michael read the scan he took a mental note to commend NVeid on his triage skills. Indeed this was the most critical as he was suffering internal bleeding, so the Andorian was marked with a red tag for immidiate treatment. Without saying a word Michael showed NVeid the results, which showed that the Andorian bled from his kidneys and had a punctured lung.

The Romulan nodded slowly. "Can you assist with surgery? I may need assistance. We have no time for sterilization procedures...." His voice was soft as he continued to make the Andorian comfortable and injected him with several substances in the hope of stabilizing him. "How familiar are you with archaic surgery methods? If equipment fails we may have to resort to it "

He glanced briefly at the other two patients. "Have either of you seen how he was injured?" NVeid looked genuinely concerned as he fought to find a cause for the internal bleeding.

Ki reached into the med kit and pulled out a small device that resembled a phaser. "I concur that surgery is going to be needed. However, we are not going to put this or any other patient at risk by not at least sterilizing our hand to prevent infection of the patient." Ki pressed a button on the device and then ran it over both of his hands. Once finished he placed it down for NVeid to use and placed gloves on his hands. "So would you like the lungs or the kidneys?" He asked NVeid as he continued to prepare for surgery.

"I have no preference," the Romulan said curtly as he too sterilized his hands and pulled on a pair of gloves. "Time is of the essence if we are to save him.

"Reactor explosion," the woman repeated again. "He was thrown against the bulkhead, in erm... the fusion room."

"AARGGHH!" The Cardassan wailed loudly, cutting the human off. "Someone get this thing out of me!"

"Very well. Dr tr'Rehu put the patient under." Ki ordered as he retrieved a laser scalpel and waited for the hypo to be administered. Once the Andorian was under the effects of anesthesia Ki went to work. He thought it best to start on the lungs so he made a small incision into the Andorian's side right in between the third and fourth intercostals. Once the incision was made Michael placed a chest tube into the incision. This would allow some of the air that has built up in the chest cavity around the lung to be removed and the lung to inflate again. Michael kept a keen eye on things to make sure that his treatment was doing the trick.

NVeid nodded, not taking his eyes off of his patient as he worked. "Sedatives administered," he reported. "I will focus on his abdomen, but he seems to have lost a lot of blood already." He looked up, sadness in his dark eyes. "If there are no means for transfusion, we may have to consider him a lost cause, and let him go in peace rather than in pain."

"There are no lost causes Doctor. Andorians have a high threshold for pain and even organ loss. We can as the saying goes put him on ice and then proceed to other patients. But lets first see what we can do in the immediate. The patient needs to be stabilized before we can proceed with anything." Michael specialized in emergency medicine and this is where he thrived.

"I am not overly familiar with Andorian physiology," the Romulan doctor admitted, his specialty solely in surgery and general care and not emergency medicine. He found several causes for bloodloss as he worked, sealing them as he found them. "There are perforations in his bowel," he reported, "I may need to remove a section in order to save his intestines. If I do not, it may become ischaemic in time because of prolonged loss of bloodflow." He spared his superior the briefest of glances. "Do you concur?"

Two nurses came over to see the other patients. The older of the two scanned the Cardassian and led him away to the back of the medical area. The other nurse scanned the human redhead, running the medical scanner over the arm she was cradling and then her entire body. "What's your name hun?" He asked as he loaded a hypospray.

The redhead shifted uncomfortably, wincing from the nurse's touch. "Fraaay," she started to say through gritted teeth. She composed herself some more, "Freya."

"Ruwon," the nurse said as he pointed to his chest. "This should help the pain a bit," he added as he injected the hypospray into her neck. "There you should start to feel..." Before he could finish his sentence his tricorder beeped and flashed wildly at him. He cocked an eyebrow as he stared at the screen. She was having some kind of reaction to the medicine, not unusual but the displayed symptoms were. He loaded another hypospray, administered it and watched as all the readings fell to baseline levels. He gave the woman a curious look but changed his expression to a smile when he noticed her watching him. "That should be better. I'll grab my kit and then repair that arm and cut."

Ruwon moved over to where Ki and N'Veid had finished their operation on the now-sleeping Andorian. "Doctors, might I trouble you?"

NVeid turned his head away from the monitor which displayed the Andorian's readings. "Of course," he answered mildly, "how can we help?"

"I was sorting out the woman," he said in as low as a voice as possible, "and she had a strange reaction to normal painkillers. Look 'ere," he continued as he handed his tricorder over to Ki. "I might be wrong, but this looks like latent radioactivity from magnetized blood."

"Magnetized?" the Romulan surgeon queried curiously, looking up at Ki. "Perhaps we should suggest further scans, we can even use the pretense of possible micro factures that do need healing?"

Michael looked over the scans and saw there was no doubt about it, her blood was magnetized. He knew that the only way this could have happened was if the patient had been exposed to radiation consistent with an explosion. "Yes I concur we are going to have to get further information from the woman. For the time being escort her in here. Tell her it seems that she is beginning to have an allergic reaction the medication just administered. That would allow us to do an in depth scan." There was a mystery here and Michael had plans to solve it.

NVeid nodded, accompanying the nurse back towards the Human woman. "Ma'am, if you would come with us please. It appears you had a severe allergic reaction to the injections you have just received. We will need to make sure that there are no further averse effects to what you have been given. This will only take a few minutes and then you will be free to go," he told her, gesturing towards the ward where Ki would be waiting.

"Why do I need more scans?" She asked as she eyed the Romulan suspiciously. "I just want to get my arm fixed and get the hell outta here."

"I just explained that ma'am," NVeid answered patiently, "you had an averse reaction to something we gave you and now I need to make certain there are no remaining consequences for you. I promise, it'll only take a few minutes and then you'll be free to go. We will look after your injuries at the same time so we won't waste more of your valuable time."

Michael could see NVeid with the woman almost to the ward. He decided to lend a hand. "Miss, I am Doctor Michael Ki. I am the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Athena. Myself and Dr tr'Rehu are here to help. It seems that you are having an allergic reaction one of the pain medications that you just received. Please allow us to take you to a bio bed so that we can clear the allergy and make sure that you are okay." He took her good arm as they spoke and began to escort her to the bio bed. In truth she did not have a choice because by the time he had finished speaking they were at the bio bed. Michael eased the woman down into a seated position on the bed.

"Be quick," the woman said as her eyes scanned the room. No sign of security officers yet so that was a good sign but she didn't like the direction this was going. She needed a diversion if this was going to go south. "I have important work to finish."

"Of course ma'am," NVeid answered as he loaded up a hypospray then approached with it and his tricorder. "Anti-histsmines are ready doctor," he reported, "injecting once scans are completed." He rested his hand on the woman's arm as if to comfort her. "It will only take a moment." Sedation ready he chanced a telepathic report to his superior officer.

"Very well proceed Doctor..." Michael said as a response to NVeid. "I am beginning the scans now." He the scanning node of a medical tricorder toward the woman. Now would tell the tale, and let them know if this woman had anything to hide. As he looked at the readings he could see that the amount of tricylic radiation in the woman's cells were off the charts. That alone would be enough that they now knew she was at least close to the blast. He continued to scan as he looked for further evidence.

The woman's eyes never left the tricorder, watching as the human doctor ran the scanner up and down her body. She knew that every beep and chirp from the small device was giving the Starfleet officers more and more information and she was more than compromised. She chanced a glance at the door but her route was obstructed, by accident or design, she wasn't sure. She needed to escape, now. She made a small movement with her good arm that accidentally knocked the node out of the doctor's hand. As he moved to pick it up, she threw her head into his as hard as she could.

The woman was faster than he'd given her credit for. NVeid moved swiftly, making a grab for her arm while 'arming' the hypospray with his other hand. He kept half a mind on his boss, just in case but he first needed to try and restrain their patient. "Don't resist," he ordered as he tried to press the small device against her arm, realizing that a phaser would indeed be very useful right now.

The pain in the back of his head was bad, but not entirely unexpected. As Michael stood he saw Dr NVeid struggling with the patient. Calmly and with precise movements Ki took another hypospray and loaded it with succinylcholine a paralytic. While the woman was distracted and fighting with the doctor he administered it to her thigh. Within moments the woman was unconscious. "The medication is short acting. So get her into a stasis field immediately." Michael said as he stared at the tricorder results. The scan was incomplete but the results he needed were there, she was loaded with trycilic radiation. The only cause could have been her proximity to the explosive device. Michael tapped his comm badge. "Dr Ki to Commander Zora. Please report to the Medical Wing. We have your culprit."