What Light Through Yonder Crewman Breaks?

Posted on Fri Feb 17th, 2023 @ 10:28pm by Lieutenant JG S'Lace & Lieutenant Commander Klarth & Ship Elle

1,686 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Into The Void
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: During Assassin's Among Us (briefing attack)

Klarth instinctively reached for a phaser, but all he had on his belt was his medical tricorder. The enemy phaser and the invisible woman wielding it were right there in front of him. His Klingon instincts told him to just lunge at her. But that was also a good way to get killed. And then he thought of something else and he started laughing. "Shelly Shorn or whatever your real name is, you're already too l-"

Before Klarth could finish he and the fallen security guard were swept away by the transporter! Immediately the doctor found himself in sickbay beside the diagnostic bed, his new patient in the midst of a spasm. Nearby S'Lace glanced up from a patient suffering from a mild contusion, immediately she rushed towards Klarth and the patient!

Klarth really wished Elle hadn't done that, because he was worried about his crewmates back in the conference room. But she was correct that he had a duty to this security officer too.

"This poor man has been stabbed with an Orion needle. Let's try to stabilize his condition and check to make sure the blade wasn't poisoned."

"Understood, Doctor," As S'Lace grabbed the man and rolled him onto his side. His back was soaked with blood and the doctor could see a tiny hole just below his right shoulder blade. S'Lace was handing him a tricorder with one hand even as she activated the sterilization field.

"I have never heard of an Orion needle," the nurse replied as she reached for a laser scalpel, "I will remove the uniform."

Klarth started to examine whether the hole below the right shoulder blade was where the man had been stabbed. Then he would focus on stopping the external bleeding and investigating what damage had been done internally. He had been bleeding out of the mouth, so some sort of vital organ had no doubt been perforated.

As S'Lace cut away the tunic Klarth was able to determine the hole most assuredly was the entry point of the needle. in fact he could see the end point of the weapon where it had broken off. Scanner readings showed a perforated lung, the barbs of the blade extended.

"Extensive internal bleeding," S'Lace noted, "His left lung is full of blood, Doctor."

Nurses had already rushed towards the table rolling trays of medical instruments and drug dispensers. Meanwhile the crewman shuddered and coughed, blood exploding from his mouth...

"Okay," Klarth said "We have to drain that blood out of his lung, get the hole in the lung patched up and get that needle out of there. S'Lace start a transfusion of fresh blood into him, he has to be losing blood quickly and it's about to get worse." Klarth got ready to make an incision with the laser scalpel by the lungs his plan was to drain and patch the lungs and pull the needle out with minimal additional stress to the crewman's body.

S'Lace nodded and called for two units of O-Positive as she applied the IV and sedated the patient. Soon life critical fluids were pumping into the security guard's body to help restore his blood pressure. Over the decades medical advances had created techniques to "recycle" blood as the availability of the life giving fluid could be rare in the distant reaches of space. With luck a good portion of the man's blood could be drained and put back into him. A nurse arrived with the two units of O-positive and S'Lace prepared to swap out the IV.

Klarth studied the screen of where the needle was in the man's body and made an incision where he thought would be the best place to start removing it. He started with the area of the barb that hit the lungs. One at a time he shifted the barbs ever so slightly so the bladed barb was no longer cutting body tissue. Then he covered the barb with plastic so it would not cut again accidentally. S'Lace drained the blood as the barb was removed and patched the tissue. It was very slow and detailed work. Klarth and S'Lace worked well together like two hands of the same ancient Earth clock.

With the barbed blades 'safe', it could be extracted with no further damage to the lung. Once removed, S'Lace held out a pan for the doctor to place the apparatus into. Then she handed the doctor a sterile regenerator with its controls set to lung tissue.

Klarth began to use the regenerator. "Let's hope that he's out of the forest," he said.

An alarm on the biobed that the patient was laying on sounded. S'Lace looked to the display. "He's going into cardiac arrest, Doctor." The Vulcan nurse stated the obvious then in anticipation of Klarth's next orders moved to retrieve the cardio-stimulator which Klarth would need to attempt to restart and reset the pulmonary rhythm of the heart.

"Cardio-stimulator" said Klarth. With the crewman opened up Klarth was able to put the stimulator right near his heart. "Clear" he said. And the stimulator shocked the man's heart to try to revive his heart rhythms.

S'Lace stood clear of the body, ready with a hypospray of epinephrine and tri-ox should the first shock not resuscitate the crewman. The epinephrine would increase the arterial blood pressure and coronary perfusion during bio-bed's automatic performance of CPR, and the tri-ox compound would increase the oxygen in the blood.

The first jolt from the cardio-stimulator did not restart the heart. S'Lace handed Dr. Klarth the hypospray. "Epinephrine and Tri-ox at 0.5 mg each." she reported out loud so that the audio recorders in the room would note the medication given to the patient.

Klarth gave him the hypo and did the cardio-stimulator again.

S'Lace made sure to stand clear.

This time the heart responded to the jolt and after a moment of irregular beating settled into a normal sinus rhythm that could be heard from the bio-bed display speakers. S'Lace touched the bio-bed screen and its monitor changed from the close-up recording of the surgery to a diagnostic view of the heart's beating rhythm. "The patient has returned to NSR."

With that confirmation the surgery could proceed.

Klarth began to use the regenerator again and recreate his lung tissue. He hoped that he could repair the lungs and close him up before anything else went wrong. "If anything else goes wrong, I may start to feel like a sailor plugging holes with my fingers on a sinking ship."

S'Lace remained at Klarth's side, alternatingly alertly watching both the operation and the crewman's vitals. Things appeared to be improving. At Klarth's comment, S'Lace raised a single sloping eyebrow. "I'm not familiar with that analogy. I do recall a tale of a Dutch boy plugging a dike with his finger. Hans Brinker; or, the Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland by American author Mary Mapes Dodge, written in the mid-1800's. The boy saved his village, and perhaps his entire country - so 'plug away' Doctor. Your efforts are not in vain."

Klarth smiled and thought that S'Lace continued to be full of surprises. He continued to work on the crewman and he pointed to him and said "He definitely appreciates our efforts."

"Or will once he is conscious," S'Lace commented, deadpan. "Right now he appreciates nothing."

The regenerator stimulated the cells to repair themselves at an accelerated rate and soon the damaged lung was whole once more. All that was left to do was close up the entrance wound. This required a setting adjustment on the regenerator from lung tissue to muscle and skin tissue.

Klarth adjusted the regenerator and began to regenerate the muscle and skin tissue. But he wondered if they were quick enough. Modern medicine was practically miraculous but getting stabbed with such a dangerous weapon was still a very traumatic thing for a body to be put through. Klarth studied the crewman's readings.

The bio-readings were far from stable but neither were they critical.

S'Lace continued to keep watch over the crewman's vitals while the doctor continued his efforts to save the crewman's life.

Klarth finished closing the patient up. He looked at the man's readings and said "Well, we've done all we can. It's up to him if he has the will to live now." He looked at the unconscious man and said "What's it going to be crewman? Are you going to fight for your life? Because that's what it's going to take."

For the moment, the patient's vitals were weak but stable. While Klarth seem to be waiting for an answer from the sedated patient, the Vulcan nurse activated the biobed's forcefield at its lowest setting - as a means of securing the patient on the bed in preparation for transferring him into the Intensive Care ward; but that would wait until the doctor ordered it. In the meantime, S'Lace then began clearing away the medical instruments used. They would be recycled and new sterile instruments replicated to replace them. Only after everything had been cleared away did she return to the doctor's side. The vitals were showing slightly stronger.

"At this point doctor, it may be best to allow him to rest overnight. Perhaps even under an induced sleep? Much like Vulcan-healing trances most humanoid recuperate faster when in deeper sleep."

"Yes that would be best give him a sedative and get him moved to the Intensive Care ward." Then Klarth touched S'Lace's hand and said "Thanks for your help." Klarth knew his friends weren't safe until that assassin was taken care of. "Elle what's the status on the assassin?"

"She was wounded by Horri, but used a short range transporter. We are still trying to locate her."

Having cleaned up the surgery area, S'Lace returned her attention to her previous patient - Crewman Dorsey, who had a come in with a mild contusion earlier. She would finish up with him, hoping to send him on his way before Sickbay got busy once more with serious injuries because of this assassin.

But that was not to be.

(to be continued)

 

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