x
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDOM175YBf2
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoUwCzbMwzX
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2bFpqhG0CT
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnPJwdmZNw6
He'd been in the hospital's emergency room just last year when he'd fallen on his hand and dislocated a finger. The place had been almost empty, and in minutes he'd been X-rayed and attended to. But now the emergency room had no semblance of what he remembered. There was crying, moaning, wandering figures of staff and patients.
"Where the hell are we gonna put 'em all?" an orderly cried as he lifted a burned man onto a gurney.
"Russell, I can't stop them coming in. There are just too many people..."
"Plasma....methyl morphine, gauze......"
"Move all the beds into the hall, away from the windows...."
"We need somebody to get us the radiological equipment!"
"Please get your hands down for just a moment, sir......Nurse, make him keep his hands away from his face."
"This guy won't make it. Put in the other room. Next!"
"Where's that help they said was coming! Try the phones again!"
"We tried two minutes ago...."
"Try again!"
It was impossible. There were too many injured and dying, with more coming every minute. He stopped a nurse who was carrying an armload of gauze pads and towels. Her normally crisp white uniform was soaked red with human blood. "Where's the drinking water? I'm supposed to bring some outside."
"Back there!" She nodded with a toss of her head and rushed on. He wove between beds and gurneys and people on sheets on the floor amidst broken glass and spilled fluids and vomit and blood.
"Hey, you!" a man called, "get me a broom...down the hall....and gimme a hand here!"
He ignored the man and moved on to where he saw a nurse kneeling on the ground beside a cardboard box. "Where the water supply?" he asked.
She looked up sharply. "Whaddya need it for?"
"I gotta take it outside. There are hundreds of people, just like in here."
The nurse began gathering up armloads of plastic bags containing a colorless fluid. "Open that box and bring it with you."
"I need to get water," he persisted, thinking first of his mother.
"Reality check, buddy! All the pipes are broken. There's no water pressure. We can't flush toilets or hose down the mess or clean people up."
"For drinking!" Richard pleaded.
She pushed by him, talking as she moved. "There's some bottled water in Supply, if the bottles didn't break; some distilled; a reserve tank on the roof.... That's it until help comes. Bring those boxes!"
Richard ripped open two boxes, stacked them one atop the other, and followed the woman back to the most crowded room. Almost immediately the plastic bags were snatched up by nursing staff and set up for IVs. He moved quickly, obeying orders to bring more boxes, move patients, do this, do that. And then he realized that their needs were insatiable, that those outside would be forgotten. Without asking permission, he stacked two boxes of the lactated ringers and started outdoors. "Hey, kid! Where you goin' with that stuff. Getcher ass back here!" He ignored the voices and left the building.
Outside, he found the nurse who'd sent him for water and showed her what he'd brought. Her tired face lit up with joy, and soon the two of them were moving people into new bunchings so they could hang the precious bags from car antennas or telephone poles or whatever else was still standing aboveground. He made sure his mom was part of that group.
"Now watch," the nurse said to him. "Watch how I do this because you've gotta help me do it, too." She fixed the plastic bag on a hook above the patient, unrolled the tubing, then showed them how to find the vein into which the needle had to be placed. "Your turn."
Oh no! he wanted to say, looking down at his mom. How can I? I never did it before! What if I hurt her, miss the vein, go through the vein to the other side? He licked dry lips and felt his heart pounding in his ears. He'd always been squeamish about things like frog dissection and handling injured birds. But looking down at his unconscious mother brought him courage. With shaky fingers he felt for the vein, took a deep breath, and plunged the needle in as he'd been told. His forehead broke out in a cold sweat. Then, letting out his breath, with a big grin he looked up at the nurse and released the rubber tourniquet.
"You'd make a good doctor," the nurse said approvingly. "Now get to the others."
He had no conception of time. It seemed hours, days even, but he felt nothing; he wasn't hungry or tired. He just moved mechanically to and fro, inside the hospital, outside, doing as he was told. They called him "Boy" or "Runner," and he brought supplies up from the basement, moved gurneys, wheeled people or carried them. The smell, the blood, the hideous wounds, the constant cries and groans of pain no longer bothered him. He neither felt, nor smelled, nor heard; he was numbed by it all.
At one point, as he was helping an older nurse, who seemed on the verge of collapse, he said. "This must be hell, but then why am I here? All I ever did was fight with my brother!"
She paused, her hand shaking as she fixed a bandage in place. She looked up at him with dull eyes and showing only a glimmer of awareness. Then she covered her face and began laughing. She was shaking and shivering so hard that he reached out a hand to steady her.
Sometime, in what might have been the afternoon, the news spread that radio contact had been made with the Goleta P.D. Goleta, he remembered, was outside Santa Barbara, more than 100 miles from L.A. Within seconds nearly all the medical help had gathered at the doorway to the radio room, listening.
"The National Guard has been called out. They're landing them at Los Alamitos...." the indistinct voice announced. "It's also our understanding that President Reagan has called for help from the Army and Marines. Now, we need you guys to be patient....it might be a long time before we can get to you."
"We can't be patient, fella!" the plaintive voice of the nurse replied. "Our drug stocks are dwindling, not to mention our food! How the hell long do you expect us to wait?"
"Just tell us what you're in urgent need of and we'll air-drop it. I gotta tell ya, though, with all that smoke in the air, we can't be precise. Might help if you leave the heliport lights on. How long can you stay on emergency power?"
"I don't know. Maybe two to four more days----but don't you guys get it?! We've got hundreds, thousands, pouring in here! We've only got beds for two hundred! They're on the floor, in the halls, the parking lot, most of them lying in their own poop! We have no place to put the dead! What about other hospitals? We need doctors and nurses! Our staff has been working nonstop for over 24 hours!"
"Negative on other hospitals, nurse. The hospital's burned out in Glendale, last we heard. Valley View and Rampart General hospitals are totally overwhelmed. The old wing at Paloverde collapsed in the shockwave from downtown L.A. They were fighting a fire at San Simeon four hours ago. We have no contact with any of them now. For all we know, you might be the only operable facility, that hill near you protecting you from the blast and all."
Richard shuddered, then glanced at the others in the doorway. He could see on their faces the same fear he now felt. They knew that everyone half-alive or dying would eventually find their way to this hospital. Burns, shock, radiation, infection......
"We can relay your needs to the La Crescenta Sheriff's Department, if you want. But they've got troubles, too. Each city's gotta take care of its own---until we can get to you. Sorry."
"What about water?" the nurse repeated. "We have to have water! Our roof tank's almost empty. We've been out of bottled water for I-don't-know-how-many hours. We're down to soft drinks, and almost out of that...."
"Hmm." Pause. Static. Then: "Only thing I can suggest is to get someone to the fire station. Maybe they can locate a swimming pool or reservoir, hook up hoses, chain-gang it in."
"How long?" the nurse asked. "How long?!"
"Twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Honestly, I just don't know. The only good news I've got is that we should have the roads clear of debris by the day after tomorrow, then we can bring help in and take out your wounded."
"Forty-eight hours...." someone whispered beside Richard.
When the nurse didn't answer, the voice came back, exasperated this time. "Listen up, lady. We're doing the best we can. Ya don't know the half of the trouble that bastard Hinckley caused with his damn A-bomb! Draw a circle fifteen miles out from downtown L.A. and everyone inside that circle, 'cept for the lucky ones who got blasted right away, needs help!
"What's more, that fallout cloud's gonna start dropping stuff right over this whole area in another four days, so we gotta move everybody out, evacuate everybody---sick, wounded---everybody. That means millions. Get it?"
"Got it...."
"So just hang in there. Do your best. That's what we all gotta do. We'll get to ya, promise."
When the radio communication terminated, the nurse turned to those in the doorway. "You heard the man," she said. "It's too late for us all to become dentists, exactly, so get your asses back to work!"
Richard stayed in the doorway, hesitating. Then he spoke up. "I'll do it. I'll go to the fire station."
The nurse dropped her voice. "I don't think it'll help. We always have radio contact with the paramedic ambulance, and I can't get through. Maybe the ambulance was out when the blast came, or maybe the radio's smashed or the station was destroyed. I don't know. But I'm thinking that even if you do get there, the few men who haven't rushed home to their own families will be as bogged down with helping the burned and wounded as we are."
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
"Who knows? Pool water? Well water?" She paused, and her forehead wrinkled in concentration. "There was a man in yesterday, before the bomb. He had a strained back, could hardly straighten up. We got to talking. Retired, he said, from the Department of Water and Power. He lives just up the block, I think." She moved to her desk and started rummaging through a mess of papers. "Where is it? Yes----here!" She held up a sheet triumphantly. "Dan Scarlolfo, on Via Carlotta."
"I know where that is! I run by that street almost every day." He glanced over the nurse's shoulder to see the number. "What do you want me to say?"
"I dunno!" The nurse gazed around the frantic, overcrowded room. "Just talk to him! Maybe he knows what do. Maybe there are reservoirs nearby, and he knows where they are, and he can show you what to do to get that water coming again."
He'd do it, of course, but how could he leave his mother for an extended time period? He'd put aside extra bags of the lactated ringers for her, hiding them under her arm. But there were thousands of people out there, all beginning for IVs. How could he leave his mother and be sure someone wouldn't just tear the lifesaving fluid from her veins to give to one of theirs?
"On one condition," he said, meeting the nurse's eyes defiantly. If she refused, he knew he'd go anyway, because without water, so many more would die besides his mother. He swallowed the fear of her answer and tried to justify asking for preferential treatment. Washington had always scorned people who used their clout to get favors instead of waiting their turn. Richard hated the idea, but felt he had no choice.
The nurse brushed by him. "You just keep your 'conditions' to yourself right now!" she admonished.
He grabbed her arm. "Please! I want to help. I'll do anything. But I can't leave my mom out there on the ground, all alone. Who's gonna look after her?"
The nurse whirled around. "Oh, all right. Bring her in. I'll find a space for her somewhere!"
"Where?" he persisted, only slightly relieved. It flashed through his mind that this was just this kind of dogged persistence that always infuriated Washington, and his parents, and others.
"Don't push me!" the nurse said in a warning voice. "I don't know where!"
"What about you? Can't you look after her?"
The warning look turned into a frightening scowl. From behind them voices called for more help, more supplies. The nurse turned to the voices without answering. Richard trailed behind, followed her all the way to the supply room. "Can't you?" he asked again as they left the room together.
"No."
"Well, at least put her in that back room, the one where they're putting the people who'll be first to get to the burn centers, as soon as the helicopters can land!"
"My God, kid! You're a pain in the ass, you know that? I'm coming!" she shouted to the voice calling. She gave Richard a push. "Get going. It's 943 Via Carlotta. Dan Scarlolfo!"
Richard stood his ground. "The back room?"
"All right!" the nurse cried. "All right! Bring your mother in, and we'll find a space for her in the back room."
He let out his breath in a deep rush. "I'll bring her in right now." He nearly ran from the room, turning only at the last moment to call back over his shoulder, "Thank you!"
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxvTiaHJ3tu
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo2BRVBVTIZ
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwxfZc8gqti
"Hi, Mom," he said softly, leaning over her. "Mom?"
She moved her lips, but no sound came out."
"I'm going to pick you up. It's gonna hurt, and I'm sorry, but I have to take you inside."
"Stop that!" he heard someone scream. "Get away from her!"
He glanced up and saw one of the orderlies run along narrow lanes between bodies towards a man crouched over one of the victims. The man stood, then quickly bent over the next person before scurrying over the brick wall separating the hospital grounds from the road.
"Did you see that? Did you see that?" the orderly screamed, turning to Richard. "He was stealing their rings, their watches! Just yanking them off those poor helpless people. Psychos! That's what they've become. Psychos!"
Richard stared into the anguished eyes of the speaker, then looked back into his mother's. "Mom," he said again, "can you put your arms around my neck?"
She didn't answer. He reattached the D5W bag to a rod above the gurney he'd managed to acquire. Carefully he lifted his mother, wincing at her obvious pain. He laid her down on the fresh, clean sheet. The woman on the ground nearest them lay with skin hanging in rags from her arms. The man next to her stared up at the sky, even though his eyes were gone from their sockets. Richard shuddered and wiped away tears, then took a deep breath. He pushed the gurney towards the emergency room door. His mother's eyes opened. Through tears he smiled down at her.
"George...." she mumbled.
"Don't worry, Mom....I'll find him," he promised.
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmfufMsTL0d
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpqW70zHvy2
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT69LFqysFp
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZRxYer0fr1
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDweXOsPreM
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4tKCJp4qfq
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLpZhEzluzU
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSXfJHPnVcZ
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGOJl77bIaO
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrZhcC6Cpv1
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOhmkHr05in
284Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8KDTMUzECs
