First Casualty

Posted on 03 May 2016 @ 11:35pm by

1,076 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 8 - 1030 Hours

Sickbay was an environment of controlled chaos. Once this was an accepted fact, then it was possible to move on, and function appropriately. Nurse T'Lura knew this, and her work was usually efficient, precise, orderly, and logical.

However, the current crisis went far beyond controlled chaos. In fact, it was uncontrollably chaotic. There were far too many patients. An Akira-class Sickbay was designed to accomodate at most twenty people simultaneously. But the Black Hawk's treatment center was currently servicing over fifty patients, and at least as many had been sent to their quarters for bed rest, under close monitoring by the ship's internal sensors. People were calling out to her constantly, and it was all she could do to keep up. Her normally neat and tidy ponytail was beginning to unravel, and dark circles were showing under her eyes. She knew she was affected by the virus - she could hear voices calling for her attention when no one was there, and she hadn't slept in the past 45.7 hours.

Her throat hurt, and she had difficulty swallowing her own saliva. But she kept her cool, logical head, and tried her best to control the effects of the infection.

Lieutenant Bast had informed the nurses that Doctor Kij needed to rest for four hours, and to follow standard procedure for this infection. The ship's Chief Medical Officer was currently in Medical Laboratory Two, along with the ship's Chief Science Officer, and the Chief of Operations.

There was sudden alarm from one of the biobeds. T'Lura's head snapped in that direction, but there was no visual alarm displayed on the monitor. She walked to the biobed to confirm, and pushed the sound from her mind - another auditory hallucination.

She walked back to the nurses' station, and continued annotating her patients' charts.

Ensign James Calloway - Human, aged 32. Reported the first symptoms six hours ago. Currently in the intense exhaustion phase of the disease, sleeping in his quarters.

Crewman Barra - Bolian, aged 54. Currently in the restless phase. Attempted sedation, no effect. Currently in Biobed Six, resting. Gave 1 mg per kilo of Diprivan, currently monitoring blood pressure at 90 / 60.

There was another alarm from one of the biobeds. T'Lura pushed the sound from her mind, and labelled it as another auditory hallucination.

"Nurse..." called out a weak voice, drawing her attention to Ensign Random Fellowes's biobed, where the monitor was flashing an alarm.

Hurley, who had been checking on other patients, heard the alarm and the voice and hurried over. "He's going into cardiac arrest," he said, checking the monitors. "We should get the doctor."

T'Lura raised an eyebrow, and pushed back the first thought that came to mind - that she had failed in her duty, because of her exhaustion, and because her faculties had been compromised by the virus. Such recriminations were not logical at this time.

"We were ordered to let Doctor Kij rest," she pointed out. She looked at the monitor as it started beeping again. "Respiratory failure, and renal failure," she read out.

Hurley cursed again. "Computer, activate Emergency Medical Hologram," he said. As soon as the EMH appeared, he said, "no time for intros, doc. This man is dying of multiple organ failure cause by an unknown virus!"

The EMH closed its mouth, cut off before it had a chance to utter its customary request to state the nature of the medical emergency. It snapped into motion, and held out a hand for a medical tricorder.

"Indeed," it said, reading the output on the tricorder. "Viral load extremely high. Blood pressure almost nil, ventricular fibrillation, EEG scan erratic."

It flipped the tricorder closed. "This man is dying," it declared. "Fifty milligrams tricordrazine," it ordered.

As T'Lura pressed the hypospray to the patient's elbow, the EMH installed cortical stimulators to Fellowes's forehead, in an attempt to keep the brain alive.

Hurley sprang into action, too, preparing all the life-saving tools just in case they needed them.

T'Lura read the display on the biomed monitor. "Synaptic degradation," she called out. "His cerebral cortex isn't responding to the stimulation."

The EMH frowned. "What kind of virus is this?" it asked.

"One that doesn't look like a virus to the immune system," answered Hurley. "We have no idea how to fight it."

The EMH nodded. "Then our only course of action is to treat the symptoms and keep the patient alive until your staff figures out their asses from their elbows," it snarked. "Reverse the polarity of the neutron field in the cortical stimulators."

Hurley did so quickly and watched the output. "No change," he said.

"Fifty CC's isocholine," ordered the EMH. It turned its attention to the patient's heartrate, which was nonexistent.

It picked up a defibrillator, charged it, and pressed the circular device to the center of the man's chest. "Clear," it ordered.

T'Lura had just pressed the hypospray to the man's neck, and injected the drug before the EMH discharged the defibrillator. Ensign Fellowes's back arched on the biobed as the electrical current contracted his muscles, but no rhythm appeared on the monitor following the discharge.

"Can we put the patient in statis?" asked the EMH.

"We don't have any stasis pods big enough for a person," answered Hurley. "It's the first thing they take out when space is limited."

"Wonderful planning," spat the EMH. "Increase the output in the cortical stimulators by fifty percent."

Hurley did so and watched for a change, but nothing. "Still no change," he said.

The EMH read the display on the monitor. The brain waves were now perfectly flat - there was no activity in the cerebral cortex. The patient's heart was also perfectly still. The man was dead.

"Time of death, 1036 hours," it declared.

Hurley just stared at the deceased crewman for a moment, stunned. In all his years nursing, he'd never seen a person go from stable and not on any form of life support to dead so fast. It happened sometimes with heart attacks, but this was more like all of his vital functions just shut off one by one, like someone was flipping switches and shutting him down. "Doctor Kij is not going to like this," he muttered, reaching over to turn off the monitors. "I'll get him to the morgue."

The EMH turned to T'Lura. "Please make the necessary annotations in the patient's medical file." It turned, and looked over the rest of the overfilled medical ward.

"What's next?" it asked.

 

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