Poor Girl

Posted on 05 Aug 2016 @ 2:20am by Ensign Elisha Cherno & Lieutenant Lucas Abrams M.D.

894 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: Sick Bay
Timeline: MD 6 : 0731

The doors to Sick Bay swished open and a young Ensign in security gold hurried through them, carrying Cadet Cherno carefully in his arms. Someone had contacted security and said that she hadn't reported for duty. He'd been the one to check on her and had found her lying on the floor of the girl's barracks, knocked unconscious. He'd checked to make sure she was breathing and had a pulse, then checked to make sure nothing was broken before he'd scooped her up and made his way here.

He looked around for a spare bio-bed, and found one. He quickly placed her on it and started looking around for a doctor.

Lucas stepped away from another patient when he saw a young woman being carried into sickbay. He grabbed his tricorder and moved toward the two of them as she was laid on the biobed. "What happened to her?" he asked, beginning his scans.

"No idea," said the Ensign. "We got a call that she didn't report for duty, so I went to check it out. Found her on the floor of the girls' barracks, out cold. I tried to wake her, but no luck. You don't think... she can't have been there since we had that turbulence, can she?" he asked, looking sick at the thought.

"If you're asking if she's dead, the answer is no, she isn't," the tall man replied as he continued to run his scans. "She is in pretty bad shape, though. Severe head trauma, swelling to the brain, concussion..." His brow furrowed. They were already slammed, but this was a pretty serious case. He tapped his combadge. =^=Abrams to Road, I need your help. Biobed three.=^= He tapped his combadge a second time to end the link, then looked to the Ensign. "Thank you for bringing her in. We'll see to it that she gets taken care of properly."

Abbey finished up with the patient she had been checking as quick as ever she could, then hurried over to biobed three just in time to see a security ensign walking away. "What've we got?" she asked, glancing at the young girl stretched out on the bed. The beeping coming from his tricorder did not sound good.

"Severe head trauma, swelling on the brain and a concussion," Lucas replied. "The Ensign that brought her in couldn't tell me how it happened, but considering everything that's happened today, there's no telling."

Abbey made a noise like an angry cat and began preparing the cortical stimulator. "You don't suppose she'd been there since we went through the gravimetric distortions, do you?" she asked. "Poor thing, lying there helpless all this time." There was no telling how much damage was done because the concussion went untreated.

"Anything is possible," the taller man answered as his brow furrowed. He reached for a hypospray and loaded it with 0.4ccs of trianoline, then pressed it against Elisha's neck to administer the percussive medication. "With the readings I'm getting, I wouldn't doubt it. If she would have been brought in sooner, things wouldn't be this bad."

Abbey nodded. She secretly thought they'd be lucky if the girl woke up. "Let me know when you're ready for the cortical stimulator," she said, holding the device at the ready. "Wait a minute," she said, suddenly realizing who this was. "I know her. She's Cadet Elisha Cherno. She was going to be the singer in our jazz band."

Lucas shook his head. "Well... if we have anything to say about it, that's still going to happen."

Abbey carefully attached the cortical stimulator to the young girl's forehead and watched it carefully, making a couple of adjustments to the output. "How'd they find her?" she asked.

"Someone from Science reported to Security she didn't show up for duty, so I would say she got knocked around in the wee hours, and has been there ever since... until now," he said with a frown.

Abbey shook her head sadly. "Now I understand why so many doctors lobby for body monitors," she said. "We'd have found her in minutes instead of hours. Swelling like this can leave permanent damage if untreated. I only hope she doesn't wake up disabled because of it." She shivered, thinking about the conditions she'd read about it medical school. Hopefully they'd found her in time.

"Well, we're going to hope for the best," Lucas said, making his way back over to the bed to run a scan to see if there was any change.

Abbey crossed her fingers and took a deep breath. "I wish I had some wood to knock on," she muttered. The cortical stimulator beeped and she made a slight adjustment to it. "How's it look?" she asked, nodding at his tricorder.

"She's showing signs of improvement, as slight as they are. We'll keep on the same track we're on," he replied. "The swelling has started to go down."

"Well, that's good," said Abbey. If the swelling was going down already, it probably meant that it hadn't started hours ago as she had first feared. Oh, the initial injuries probably had, but the swelling was probably more recent. It was either that or Cadet Cherno was far more resilient than any other human to ever have lived.

"As soon as it's safe, we'll get her moved to a room and continue treatment," Lucas stated.

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