Abroad Liberty: In the Eye of the Storm

Scorched

As Lieutenant Rossi arrives at the fourth floor, he sees them all covered in sheets as the fire englobes the rest of the hall, he rushes them down "What the hell were you all thinking running into a fire like that, you could have burned yourself"

Mr. Garcia looks over his shoulder "If we hadn't, we would have died back there, my daughter would have died" emotions taking over his tone. Lieutenant Rossi ushers him down "Sir I understand your priority is your daughter but your recklessness could have put you and every one of them in danger as well as my team."

Kyle stands next to the Lieutenant and looks into his eyes "He was just doing what I told them to do, so if you have to blame someone, blame me, I'm the one the captain spoke to, and I'm the one who didn't follow his instructions in the first place" Mrs. Garcia replies to Kyle "You are also the reason we are alive"

The Lieutenant opens a door and looks to make sure it's safe to step out "Yeah well, next time he may not be so lucky, your stupidity put not only your staff but your patient at risk. So, do me a favor and the next time you are told to something, listen and obey, you may not run with the same luck twice."

Kyle, annoyed by the Lieutenants tone takes a deep breath and replies "Well, next time, you may want to do your jobs better, cause you're right, we may not run with the same luck twice"

They all reach the bottom floor of the hospital and are evacuated. Once down there, Malcolm comes rushing toward Kyle who looks over and shouts "I need someone to check their vitals and make sure her airways haven't been compromised by the smoke inhalation, let's get her started on some fluids STAT, and someone GET ME A ROOM FOR THIS CHILD ASAP."

Malcolm hugs him "Kyle thank God you're ok" Kyle gives him a pad on the back "I'm fine Malcom, now if you excuse me, I have a patient and a team to make sure are fine" Tatiana comes to his side "Kyle you need to get checked first" All stressed out, and focusing only on his patient, Kyle moves away from them "I SAID I'M FINE, CAN YOU JUST STOP HOVERING OVER ME JESUS!"

His friends stare at him, the Lieutenant in the back looks over his shoulder and approaches Malcolm "is he always like that? Or is it the situation?" Samantha looks at the firefighter "a bit of both, he is stressed, the floor beneath the room he had a high profile patient exploded and almost kills them all, and well, he has a tendency to be oversharing with his thoughts, so yeah, both" 

A paramedic approaches Kyle as he walks towards the Garcias "Sir I'm going to need you to come with me, we got to make sure your lungs are ok and that your vitals are stable" Kyle looks at the young paramedic "listen, I know you're trying to do your job, but in all honesty I'm fine, my patient and her family on the other hand, they could use some assistance"

Lieutenant Rossi watches as Kyle passes by the ambulance and the paramedic and shouts at him "HEY, YOU NEED TO STOP MEDDLING AND GET YOURSELF CHEKED, OUT HERE YOU ARE NOT IN CHARGE, I AM AND I CAN'T BE WORRYING ABOUT YOU ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE"

Kyle looks at him "listen, you don't have to worry about me, I'm fine, hut my patient isn't, so you continue on doing your job, and just, just let me do mine" Kyle starts coughing and Malcolm and Tatiana rush towards him and drag him to the back of an ambulance to get him checked out and rule out any possible dangers.

Kyle sits on the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask at 2 liters, the Captain of Station 323 walks by them and heads towards the director to update him

"There hace been no signs that this was intentional, my team is still working to put off the fire on the fourth floor, but aside from that, everything seems well, all patients have been evacuated and no casualties have been encountered so far"

The director of the hospital thanks him, Kyle looks pass them to the end of the parking lot where you can see as news reporters start to arrive to cover the explosion in the middle of the cold storm winds. 

After a better part of an hour the firefighters manage to put out the fire and people start going back inside the hospital, doctors and nurses start moving their patients backs inside. 

Kyle stays outside staring at the burned hospital, with the adrenaline shock finally leaving his body he starts to get cold and realizes he standing in the middle of a snowstorm soaking wet. 

Firefighters pass him by, and he starts walking when he notices Mr. Garcia stumbles and falls, as he rushes to him, the responder on one of the aid cars comes to help "What do we have?" asks the paramedic

"Male, in his forties, he is hypotensive and shows signs of respiratory distress, lets get a non rebreathing mask on with oxygen at 10 liters" Kyle looks to nurse Ander "page cardio to wait in the ER, and do not tell the wife anything, last thing we need is for her to get even more stressed and compromised their daughters health"

The paramedic looks at Kyle "Ok, I got it, let's move" They get Mr. Garcia on the gurney and rush him inside where the cardiologist is waiting to take over.

Afterwards, Kyle heads to the nurse's station followed by the paramedic "You have quick reflexes" she says to him, Kyle grabs a tablet and looks at her "My job depends on it" she scratches the back of her head "Of course, that was very silly of me, I'm Adriana by the way."

He looks at her "I'm Kyle" she tilts her head "Oh, you're the guy who ran towards the fire instead of away from it, my boss was pissed, kept saying how irresponsible you were."

Kyle puts one hand on his waist as he leans on the counter "Yeah, well, my irresponsibility kept me alive, if I sat there and waited like they said the Garcias would probably be dead and so would I."

At that moment, Kyle gets called "Sandoval, I need a hand here, bring a crash car." He pushes the crash card near the gurney, the paramedic joins him"Let's bag her" says the doctor. Kyle hands the manual ventilator to the paramedic, and moves to the side of the bed "starting compressions"

The doctor nods "alright, let's push one ml of epi, and continue giving compressions" the patients remains unresponsive, with a pulseless ventricular tachycardia, the doctor gives an order "let's get ready to shock her, at 180"

A nurse hands the doctor the paddles "Doctor, ready" the doctor puts them on the patient "Ok, clear"

They continue CPR for another 40 minutes with no luck, the doctor looks at his watch "Time of death 6:35 am" he turns around and hits the side of the gurney "damnit, she was finding just an hour ago."

"It's been a stressful night; I'm surprised we didn't have many more casualties" says a nurse, the paramedic looks at her "You can say that again" 

After that, they take the body to a private room to get it ready for the family. Once over, Kyle goes to check on Mr. Garcia "How are you holding up Mr. Garcia?"

Mr. Garcia looks up at him "Well my throat's a bit soar but aside from that I feel much better now" the doctor walks into the unit "He was lucky you and that paramedic where out there still, if not, story might have been different"

Mr. Garcia clears his throat "Where are my wife and Lindsey" Kyle puts a hand on his shoulder "They came in before you did, I told the staff not to say anything, so they wouldn't worry, but I'm heading up to go check on them, I'll send your wife to come see you, ok, all you have to do now is rest."

Kyle heads up to the second floor and walks into the ICU to tell miss Garcia about what happened only to find them in the middle of a hall with Lindsey out of the bubble and all exposed.

———

"life is an exploration, a rollercoaster, every high is followed by a low, but depending on how you choose to look at it, every low can be a new a beginning, a chance of something great waiting to happen, waiting to be made"

———

*Mr. Garcia is going to be alright, though, being exposed to everything she's been will Lindsey run with the same luck as her father? And who are these firefighters? *

Continue reading
⛈️Abroad Liberty: In the Eye of the Storm⛈️
To find out