"Dr.Weaver??? Kerry.. Can you hear me... Stay with us..." Abby said hushed
as she brushed the hair from the woman's eyes. It was stiff and stained
with blood, blood that ran through Abby's fingers as she cradled the woman.
Vomit rose in her throat and she started to shake. "Luka... We have to
get her home.. We have to get her back.."
Doug looked around the road and put in reverse.. "We can't go that way.. I.. I guess we'll have to go around.. Back-track.. For fuck's sake.." His voice trembled and hitched with fear, Kerry was a supreme bitch.. But she couldn't die....
"We have to get her to a hospital.." Mark said simply... As if it was that simple.. Unfortunately, it wasn't..
Luka shook his head. "She'd have a better chance at home... What's her blood type? Carter you're O... Right?"
An hour later, Kerry was unconscious in Abby's arms as they pulled into the lane of Drzislav's farm.
The group of men, who'd sobered up immensely since their Karaoke stint, carried the bloodied, limp body of the ER Chief into the kitchen and lay her onto the blankets and towels that the women had placed on the linoleum.
"Careful... Come ON PEOPLE!!!!!" Peter barked, and everyone glared at him.
"Cut it out Peter..." Elizabeth growled. "We have some work to do... Luka.. Where did you get all this stuff!?" She asked with a bitter surprised smile.
"I sort of liberated it from County.. I knew going anywhere with you guys was just asking for some sort of near fatal disaster, and the hospitals are certainly not up to par compared to America.. We're good doctors.. We can do this.." Luka said with more confidence than he felt.
She smiled comfortingly and opened the paramedic's box pulling out scalpels and bandages. Elizabeth cocked a brow as she pulled out a couple empty blood bags with needles.. "You sure thought of everything.." She said with hushed admiration..
"Aren't you glad I did?!" Luka replied, mopping the sweat from Kerry's feverish brow.
Abby got Carter and Doug ready, as they pulled up their sleeves. "You're Kerry's blood type, Doug?!"
He nodded. "Fortunately yes.. That's all we share in common.."
"Doug!!! Stop that!" Carol snapped as she was monitoring Kerry's vitals.
"Carol... Abby.. Get over here with me. Carol.. Assess her, tell me what her GCS is.." Luka said calmly as he started cutting off Kerry's pants.
"Kovac.. We don't have time for this. Kerry is not a teaching case." Mark warned as he continued to cut Kerry's blouse.
Kerry was a trauma case. Except, they weren't in a trauma room, they were on the floor in the kitchen of a two-hundred year old farm house in a foreign country that was struggling to get to it's feet after being barraged by the evils and spoils of war-fare.
The familiar scent of antiseptic, the metallic sweet smell the hospital was gone. Along with the sound of the monitors telling the doctors who was alive, who was dead and who was on the way down that lighted tunnel to meet their maker.
Now they had to think for themselves, they had to pay attention and special care to their patient. There was nothing to fall back on, nothing mechanical to rely on. Nothing but themselves and their years of training and experience.
"Carefully roll her... I want to examine how extensive the damage is to her back." Peter said soberly.
As Carol hung the two units of blood on the end of a kitchen chair, she watched concernedly as Dave stared, observing growing pale and trembling at the damage done to Kerry.
Benton methodically picked the shrapnel from the shredded burnt flesh, swallowing painfully and his nostrils flaring at the smell.
"M-mark.. Look at her leg.. Her ankle.. It's bad.. Broken.. I.. I can't set it right without an x-ray.. If I do it now.. She'd be lame in both legs..." Luka said his voice rough with tears.
Mark glared at him.. "She'll be lame in both legs anyway if you DON'T set it... At least try to fix it for fuck's sake!"
"I.. I'll try.. I'm not an orthopedic surgeon.." Luka said softly, glancing over at Elizabeth and Peter, with pleading, moist eyes.
"Neither are we, Luka.." Elizabeth replied sadly. "But I think we can do something to save her leg.."
Dave's stunned, wordless gaze travelled down the bloodied shell that had been his Chief, and stopped on her legs.
Kerry had slowly started to come around as her blood supply had been slowly replenished by the pints donated by Doug and Carter. Benton and Elizabeth had stopped the bleeding and had sutured up her wounds and removed the shrapnal, only to start on her mangled leg.
She moaned softly as Dave's soft hands went to her other leg. Fingering
it lightly with the touch of an angel's wing. His smooth palms touching
her scars and he looked at his friends.. "I don't think this was her first
run in with a land-mine.."
********