Vanessa was grateful Luna had remembered the four guys on D-shift worked for ODOT on occasion. It had been Vanessa’s job to sweettalk the plows into their possession. She and Luna had come in the night before, and Aiden and Kevin had a plow on their truck. The rest of D-shift had driven home after the plows.
In retrospect, even Luna had underestimated the snow. She’d failed to warn Erin before she left to get the pies. On the other hand, it had worked out because she was available to help Chief Baker now. Hopefully, they’d put their mutual animosity aside today.
Through Erin, Chief Baker had ordered an evacuation of the Briar Hill nursing home. The place had lost its power and with the rapidly dropping temperatures, the residents were in danger of freezing to death. It took another twenty tense minutes to reach their destination after dropping of their patient at MetroGen. She had communication throughout with Dispatch, but every time she tried the designated command channel frequency, she only heard static. She switched back onto the TAC-1 frequency and could hear a confusing jumble of chatter.
Things did not look good when they arrived with her two snowplows. The nursing home was a large, one-story building. The fire had started near what must have been the cafeteria. There were three engines mopping up the gutted remains over there. Two more engines, including 15, were parked to the side with two ladder trucks. A crowd was pressed together at the glass front entrance.
Vanessa ordered her plows to begin clearing the way to the entrance. She noted very few cars were in the parking lot, implying a skeleton crew staff. They were the first Medic to arrive which was bad. Equally bad, there was not a single Chief Car anywhere to be seen.
Then again, no one else had a plow. Where was Engine 15’s plow?
Vanessa jumped out and ran into the front entrance. Triage would be there.
Carver was directing traffic inside the front doors. “Lieutenant!”
“Give me an update.”
“The fire is out. I’m in charge of triage and transport. Lots of smoke inhalations, a few bad burns, and we’re trying to get a full head count. Four teams are searching for more victims and bringing them here. Clarke, Jones, and Jefferson are inside.”
She didn’t like teams of three. It was usually two in or two out, but Carver had useful abilities here. “What has incident command said about evac?”
“Ummm… I’m the medical incident commander right now. I get an occasional message from the Captain of 19, the IC.”
Now that was bad news. They were lucky 19 hadn’t burned the building down with everyone inside it. They were in dire straits indeed if the highest ranked officer available was the captain of 19 and they faced over a hundred people freezing to death.
“Where’s the backup generator?” she asked. Over fifty elderly residents were gathered in the front atrium. Many were smoke stained and gasping; their oxygen had been left behind.
“It was in the utility room next to the cafeteria.” Carver answered unhappily. “We barely kept the oxygen storage from blowing. This is the only place that isn’t on the oxygen line.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. “Good thinking, Carver. Are you separating into acuity levels?”
“Yes, we have about seven nurses and aides from the home who are helping corral them. Where are they going?”
“I’m not sure.”
Back on the street, Vanessa heard the hum of a diesel engine and more vehicles behind it. She grinned when she saw the third snowplow from the ODOT garage arrive, trailed by a city bus and seven ambulances!
She ran back outside to greet the caravan. The ambulances were a mix of Rescue Alpha and other firehouses. Vanessa waved her hands wildly to get their attention.
A short African-American woman dwarfed by a Cleveland Browns jacket ran out to meet her. “I’m Kyra Yates, Rescue Alpha instructor. Chief Baker needs us to assist with evac. How can we help?”
“You brought a bus?” Vanessa was shocked.
“Yeah, everyone in Rescue Alpha is firefighter trained first. Driving a bus isn’t different than a Ladder truck.”
“I have a firefighter separating the patients into groups. What’s Chief Baker’s evac plan?”
“The sickest patients are going to MetroGen. Chief Baker arranged others ones to meet at an elementary school about five blocks over. That’s what the bus is for. I have permission from Baker to double and triple up the patients inside the ambulances to MetroGen. I agree with his protocol suspension.”
“This way.” Vanessa pointed. Yates signaled her people to exit the ambulances.
Vanessa almost fell over when she saw who was unloading the gurneys. “So many ladies?”
“It’s the paramedic battalion. Where do you think the female firefighters were hiding?”
“And they all came to work?”
“My husband is a gambler and, according to the Magic 8 Ball, disaster was certain, so I had my entire team spend the night at our firehouse. Baker sent us a snowplow, and we borrowed the city bus. I was a nurse at MetroGen. I don’t do surprises.”
Vanessa was feeling better leading this group of paramedics into the building. “This is Jacob Carver. He’s our acting medical incident commander. I’m Lieutenant Vanessa Knight, by the way.”
Yates had stopped and was staring at Carver, pretty unhappily. She shook herself. “I see. Give me your red tags first. No black tags. MetroGen is already beyond the capacity of their staff, so prioritize.”
“Absolutely, ma’am.” Carver’s previous good mood sank. Vanessa didn’t have time to care what Carver had done to annoy this particular woman.
Just then, the other three from 15 arrived with three patients in wheelchairs. They were pretty smoky, and Aiden looked stressed.
Vanessa made a decision, “Carver, you take Katz. Give me your turnouts, helmet, and SCBA.” The protocol was to only enter buildings in appropriate gear. Carver was doing medical stuff, so he didn’t need his. It was safer in pairs, especially if Aiden wasn’t cutting it, again.
Carver handed over his gear. Kevin pointed to a map on the wall that was covered with post-it notes. There was an empty section. “We’ve have teams in almost all of the areas except hospice. They were closest to the cafeteria and usually had their oxygen wide open. The staff said they are housed in pods of five.”
“Can you take the pod closest to the fire? I’ll send more teams after you.” Yates asked.
Once again, Aiden didn’t take charge. Vanessa took over. “Closest pod to the cafeteria, got it. Radio contact on TAC-1? Incident command on the command channel?”
“Everyone is on TAC-1. Command by the engines is using TAC-1,” Kevin kept his voice low. The captain of 19 must not have bothered to switch to Command Channel or set Maydays on TAC-2.
“Fine, Carver, listen for us on TAC-2.” Vanessa decided to claim the unused channel for herself.
Theo handed Vanessa an extra light, and she sealed on her air. The fire might have been out, but smoke and other chemicals were still present. The air gauge on her borrowed SCBA was full, indicating Carver had never engaged his air.
“We still have about twenty minutes on our bottles,” Kevin assured her. Another discouraging sign. An engine team was used as ladder. Then again, the captain of 19 might have done them a favor by not recklessly spending their lives.
“Move out, 15.” Aiden finally contributed something, and they started off.
Vanessa was glad for the helmet lights and her flashlight. The building had severe smoke damage, and the lack of power turned the windowless internal hallways pitch black. There had been high heat too, because as they got closer to the cafeteria, the flowered wallpaper near the ceiling was bubbled and buckled.
They dodged another team rolling two gurneys down the hallway, warned by the bobbing lights of the helmets. A sharper left turn moved them away from the dripping remains of the cafeteria and into a new corridor. They came to a wide-open room and found five patients in beds lined up against the wall. They were covered in a sheen of ash and didn’t appear to be breathing.
Aiden walked unsteadily toward them, abandoning their formation, and started mumbling, “No, no, no!”
Her first impression hadn’t been wrong. They weren’t breathing and they had oxygen resting on their chests, not their faces.
It took her about ten seconds to understand what had happened. She took in the large card reading DNR next to each bed. The room wasn’t burned, and the wallpaper wasn’t distorted. It wouldn’t have been too hot in here, only very smoky.
Aiden exploded into action. He ripped the jump bag away from Kevin and ran toward the closest bed an unmoving elderly man with his nasal cannula in his hands. “I’ll bag. Jones compressions.”
“They’re dead,” Vanessa said. “They… they took off their oxygen on purpose.”
“No. No! NO!” In an impressive show of dexterity considering his SCBA mask and turnouts, Aiden began compressions on the man, dropping the jump bag.
Theo quietly started on the opposite end of the line, checking for pulses. Kevin tried to get closer to his roommate.
“Aiden. He’s dead. They are DNR. Stop.” His attempt to show logic to his lieutenant had no effect.
“NO! They aren’t! A little epi and some good compression will bring them back!”
By the fourth body, Theo shook his head. Vanessa keyed her radio. “This is E415.” Vanessa gave the designation that would have been Carver’s. “I have five DOAs in the first hospice pod. Requesting permission to check out the second. We can send for mortuary after evac for recovery.”
Most firefighters were willing to carry the recoveries to the front, but they were needed elsewhere right now. Carver answered. “Copy that. There should be a census on the back of the door. Bring it back to account for them.”
Vanessa took the census clipboard from the door. “Stop compressions,” she ordered. Aiden showed no signs of stopping.
“Lieutenant Clarke, cease compressions!” Kevin called, trying to pull Aiden away.
“Not yet,” Aiden whipped off his mask seal and kept going. “We can get him back. They can’t have been down that long. We can get them all back. Find the AED.”
“Stop,” Vanessa said. Theo crept closer.
“I said get the AED! We passed one in the hallway!” Aiden pushed Kevin away.
“Stop, man!” Kevin grabbed Aiden by the back of his turnouts.
Aiden lost it and punched Kevin in the chin. “I’m the commanding officer, not her! I gave you an order, JONES!”
Theo tackled Aiden from behind, and he and Kevin pinned Aiden down. Their senior lieutenant flailed, kicking and cursing them.
Her heart was breaking for him, but he was going to hurt someone. “Lieutenant, I order you to discontinue any heroic action. The patients were DNR.”
“Go to hell!” He tried to get up.
Breaking protocol, Vanessa removed her helmet and SCBA. She got face-to-face with Aiden. “The patients are dead. You are relieved of command.”
The fight went out of Aiden, and he went limp.
“This is E415. We need rehab. Take us off rotation.”
“Out of rotation?” Carver asked over the radio.
“Have Dispatch take us out of rotation. That is an order, Carver.” Vanessa didn’t move her eyes off Aiden’s. His blue eyes were flat and blank.
“Copy,” Carver answered. There was silence for a few seconds. “Dispatch confirms Engine 15 is out of rotation. Two other firehouses have arrived on scene.”
“Roger, E415 out.” Vanessa clicked her radio off. She nodded at Theo and Kevin to let Aiden go. “We’ll deal with this later. Return to evac site.”
Aiden didn’t speak. He replaced his SCBA and stalked out of the pod. The other three shared a look and followed him.
They made it back to the front entrance to find Yates in charge of the evac. Vanessa informed her of the demises in Pod 1. Yates took the census form and went back to work.
They rejoined with Carver, who had been left without a ride. The Chief had direct control over the snowplows, and Katz in Medic 15 had gone with a member of Rescue Alpha. Saying nothing about the state of Aiden, Vanessa elected to take Carver with them.
Mopping up and overhaul was taken over by the new fire trucks and a battalion chief who had finally arrived. Vanessa strapped herself into the front seat, taking Aiden’s place, while he sat in the back.
Kevin took the wheel, and Vanessa keyed on to what she assumed to be the Command Channel. “This is E115, we are off rotation and returning to firehouse 15.” She changed her designation to the officer’s riding position.
“This is Incident Command at Firehouse 15.” The radio unexpectedly answered her in Erin’s voice. Vanessa was then instructed to change to alternative channel which was neither TAC-1 or TAC-2, but one of the other twelve possible digital frequencies.
“Switching over.” Vanessa punched a few buttons. “This is Lieutenant Knight on Engine 15.”
“Please confirm your position and staffing,” Erin requested.
“We are leaving Briar Hill and heading westbound on Mayfield. I have a team of five, myself, Jones, Carver, Jefferson, and Clarke.”
“You were on Medic 15 last. Where is Medic 15?”
“Katz took Medic 15 off with Rescue Alpha. I do not have a current location,” Vanessa said. “Paramedic Yates will have that information.”
Chief Baker’s voice came through the radio, “Is Ladder 15 at the incident?”
“Ladder 15?” Vanessa swiveled her head back to the parking lot. “Not that I saw.”
“What was your last communication with them?” He sounded urgent.
“Nothing since the MVA with you and Hudgens. Jones?” Vanessa asked Kevin since he had been driving the engine at the time and may have had different communications. He shook his head. “No, we have had no contact with them after they left for the freeway MVA.”
“Thank you, Knight. Report immediately to 15.”
A sense of dread settled in Vanessa. That communication was irregular. The implication was that Ladder 15 was missing.