“Ma’am!” Diona yelled.
But she ignored her. When she reached the ladder, she grabbed the handrail and launched herself upward, bellowing, “Make a hole!”
The sailors above moved aside and permitted her unfettered access to ascend to the “oh three” level while the corpsman raced to keep up with her bulky medical kit slung across her back. “Ma’am, what’s going on?”
Stepping off the ladder, Doc paused and waited for the first class petty officer to catch up before answering. “One of the pilots hit his head. He is bleeding and unconscious.”
“How bad?”
“I don’t know,” Doc said, turning for the passageway to make her way across the ship to the ladder that led to Sleepy Hollow. “He was the first one I saw with symptoms. Could be related, but we won’t know that until we can draw blood.”
Doc was on autopilot, moving through the ship’s darkened corridors while thinking through the potential outcomes of an unconscious patient with a head injury. Normally, she would have to consider the potential for a concussion based on symptoms like nausea, headaches, and unsteadiness. But Andy had exhibited each of those even before hitting his head.
She reached the ladder and descended into Sleepy Hollow, listening to Diona’s boots thumping softly behind her. But before she could knock on the door, it opened, and she saw Andy lying in a pool of blood.
“Shit.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Goldy said, stepping aside to permit her entrance.
Though she rarely had to deal with anything worse than minor illnesses on the ship, she fell back on her training with ease. Doc swept into the room while pulling on a pair of latex gloves and fell to her knees next to Andy, squeezing his shoulders while calling out to him. “Andy, can you hear me?”
No response.
Though it was obvious what had happened, she followed the training she had received in tactical combat casualty care and swept his body, looking for other injuries while following the mnemonic MARCH.
Massive hemorrhage.
The wound on his head was the only source of bleeding, and she turned to Diona. “Place pressure on that.”
The corpsman ripped open a package of gauze and placed it against the unconscious pilot’s head while Doc continued her assessment.
Airway.
She leaned down and placed her ear close to Andy’s mouth while looking down his chest to watch it rising and falling with his labored breathing. It didn’t appear there were any obstructions to his airway, but she worried that with his nausea he was at risk of pulmonary aspiration.
“Let’s move him into the recovery position,” she said. “Control his head for me.”
Though she didn’t think there was a significant risk of a spinal injury based on where the wound was, she still wanted Diona to help stabilize the head while she rolled Andy onto his side. She lifted his right arm above his head and draped his left across his neck. Then, she bent his left leg upward at the knee and looked to Diona for confirmation she was ready.
“On three. One… two… three.”
While the corpsman stabilized Andy’s head, Doc rolled him onto his right side before continuing to evaluate him.
Respiration.
Andy’s breathing was labored, but no more so than any of the patients she had already treated for the illness. And, aside from the head wound, she was certain he had no other injuries, so she skipped the next step of checking on circulation and moved directly to the last one.
“Grab me a blanket,” she told Goldy.
The COD pilot spun away and ripped a wool blanket off the top rack and handed it to Doc. Even though Andy wasn’t wet or cold, she knew he had lost blood — and therefore body heat — and was at risk of hypothermia. She wrapped his body in the blanket, then motioned for Diona to remove the gauze bandage to inspect the wound.
The laceration was above his left temple, and she softly manipulated the tissue around the wound until she was certain it hadn’t fractured the skull. The cut was deep and would require stitches, but there was nothing life-threatening about it. She breathed a sigh of relief.
A blinding light consumed his consciousness, pushing aside every other sensation. The painful stomach cramps and worsening headache seemed to fade into the background as he registered only the brilliant white light.
“Andy, can you hear me?”
He noticed a feeling against the side of his forehead, and when the light moved on, he saw a hand moving something against his temple. He winced at the pressure and inhaled a whiff of a metallic smell that made his stomach churn, then knot up again.
“Andy, it’s Doc Crowe.”
He swallowed and tried working his tongue to form a response. “Doc?”
“You’ve had a rough day,” she said.
His eyes took in his surroundings, surprised to find he was no longer in his stateroom. He felt something tug against his head, but it didn’t hurt. It was just the vaguest notion of pushing and pulling. “What’s going on?”
“There,” Doc said, stepping back to look down on him. “How are you feeling?”
He lifted his hand to his head, but Doc stopped him.
“I just stitched you up.”
“Stitched me…” Suddenly, the memory of tying his boots to make his way down to the Sickbay came back to him. “What happened?”
“Looks like you passed out and hit your head. Gave your roommate quite the scare, but it was nothing a few stitches couldn’t fix.” A corpsman handed Doc a sheet of paper, and Andy saw her face scrunch up with worry. “Are you sure this is right?” she asked the sailor.
“We ran it twice.”
Doc looked back down at Andy and forced a smile. “Just rest here for now.”
He swallowed again and nodded, then watched Doc walk to the phone a few feet away and dial a number. He still felt woozy — probably from hitting his head — and his stomach cramps hadn’t seemed to let up at all, but he felt comforted knowing he was in medical and that Doc was taking care of him. All lingering feelings of guilt at not being able to fly were gone, and he resigned himself to resting in the bed until whatever bug he had caught worked its way out.
“Yes, sir, it’s Lieutenant Crowe,” he heard Doc saying into the phone. “The number of cases is increasing, and we just ran blood tests on the first patient we treated.”
His ears perked up when he realized she was talking about him.
“It’s something we haven’t seen before. I recommend we initiate quarantine protocols and begin sanitizing the spaces. I’m going to send the results to BUMED.”
The knot in Andy’s stomach tightened as the fear he had kept at bay roared to the surface. If Doc thought whatever he was infected with warranted immediate notification to the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, then it was much worse than he thought.
37
The bold word SHOOT stood out next to the symbology as a not-so-subtle reminder that Colt had satisfied the requirements of the Rules of Engagement. Even though the E-2D Hawkeye controller had already declared the Chinese fighters hostile, his onboard systems correlated the target and met the programmed criteria to engage.
He glanced at his radar attack display to ensure he had both Chinese fighters targeted, then reached up with his left hand to the master arm switch and moved it from SAFE to ARM.