I Am Morgan

Chapter 5: Hanging On

"He's over here." A worker at the factory we've been called to says.

He leads us to a man that has his arm trapped in a piece of equipments that looks as if the parts move and spin inwards. If that makes any sense.

"How we doing?" Sev asks calmly, while assessing the damage and what they need to do to get the guy's arm free.

"I just need some help getting it out." He replies.

"Okay, well, stay with us."

"The power's off, it's locked ou.. holy cow." Herrmann says and then catches sight of the man.

"How are you feeling?" I ask.

"Not so good, to tell you the truth."

I get closer and take a look at the injury. His arm is trapped up to his armpit, "that's a lot of blood." I whisper to Dawson. "What's you're name, hon?"

"Garrett." He tells me.

"Garrett, how long you been stuck, hon?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"How long's he been stuck?" I ask the manager.

"Going on 15." He replies.

"All right, Garrett. We're just gonna put some morphine in, all right? Give us a minute." Dawson tells him and I get the morphine into his system while the firefighters lean over us and do what they can.

"Garrett, we're gonna try to ease your arm out now, okay?" I tell him, "Here we go. One, two, three."

All of us around try and pull his arm out but he starts to scream and tell us to stop.

"The gear segments come right off." Casey tells us after reading through a set of instructions. "If we get the gears off, we can separate the casing and travel with it. "We need power drills,"

A new plan is set and everyone gets to work while I grab the gurney and wheel it in just as they finish releasing the gears. We lay him down on the gurney with the huge piece of released metal still on his arm and we transport him to the hospital like that. He'll be lucky if he gets to keep his arm.

"Casey, Severide, we need you guys." I say and they climb into the back of the rig with me. "Grab the I.V. set it to 5 ml drip. We need four-by-fours to stop this bleeding and call Lakeshore to tell them about the incoming."

I get a nasal oxygen line in to help him breath because he's in shock and then help Kelly put gauze around the wound (which is hard because of the machinery still in the way).

We soon reach Lakeshore and we wheel him in, "Possible crush syndrome, gave four of morphine, heart rate 130, BP 110 palp, 2 litres of saline." I tell them.

"Call my boss, tell him that I'll be there tomorrow, so don't worry about covering my shift." He says while we continue to wheel him through the hospital.

"Dude really loves his job." Kelly says.

"Hmm, like someone else I know." I reply sarcastically. "Ready on three. One, two, three." We take him off the gurney and put him onto the hospital cot.

A nurse injects a sedative, "he's out." she says once his eyes are closed.

Hallie intubates him and says, "tourniquet's on and we're ready to go."

"All right, let's get this thing off." Casey and Kelly get to work unscrewing the metal. "Okay. This piece should just slide out."

They pass the pieces of metal to a nearby nurse, "Type and cross four units stat. I need compression. Get him to O.R. five. Go, go, go." Hallie instructs and he's wheeled away again while Dawson starts filling out the reports and I put the gurney back in the ambo.