Enroute, Jerry double-checked on Tony, calling in report, and then turned to Meghan. “Okay, Squirt, let’s see that leg again. Okay if I cut the pants leg?”

“Sure.” Meghan watched as the material was cut up to her knee. Jerry opened the fabric, revealing a nice long gash with a nasty splinter. Fortunately, it wasn’t bleeding much. Meghan made a face as she saw it.

“That looks kinda deep, Squirt. Hurting much?” Jerry reached for some gauze pads.

“No, not really. Must’ve happened when I tripped before we came down. Just thought I’d twisted an ankle or something. Ow!” she protested when Jerry pushed a little too hard when applying the gauze.

“Sorry. By the way, I asked Fred to swing by and pick you up.” Jerry secured the gauze with tape. He looked at her intently. “Let’s check your vital signs.”

Meghan raised her eyebrows. “I’m okay, Jerry. Focus on Tony.”

Jerry gave her a hard look. “Tony’s stable,” he said, gesturing to the monitor Tony was hooked up to. “You are going to have your vital signs checked. You’re my patient, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t.” His attitude was no-nonsense, and Meghan knew he was right. She sighed.

Jerry helped her remove the turnout coat she still wore before placing a blood pressure cuff on her arm. He looked rather intent as he listened to her blood pressure and took her pulse. He removed the cuff and put it away.

She motioned him close. “How was it?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“Your pulse is right at 100, and your blood pressure is in the 90s. I want you to stay put when we get to the ER. I don’t want you passing out.”

Meghan nodded. “Am I going to live?” she asked out loud, for Tony’s benefit.

Jerry caught what she was doing. “Yeah, you’ll live. Just wait so that I can help you in, okay?”

“Sure.” Meghan shifted on the captain’s chair so that she could be within Tony’s line of sight. “How are you doing? We’re…” she turned to glance out the windshield at their location, “about a mile from the hospital.”

“Doing okay, except for the pain.” Tony gritted his teeth as they went over a bump.

“Well, we’ll be there soon. The first few minutes are going to be busy. The doctor and nurses and techs will be doing a lot of stuff, but as soon as things start to calm down they’ll be seeing about pain meds and getting you off of this board, okay? You’ll be fine, I promise. Will you come visit me when you get back to training? I teach the EMT classes.” Meghan smiled.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll come visit you.” Tony gave her a weak smile. Meghan caught the hand he raised up towards her and gave it a squeeze. She felt the ambulance stop and back into the bay.

Jerry pulled the leads off of Tony’s chest and finger and draped them over the monitor. “We’re here, sport. We’ll get you out of here and hand you off to the doctors to get that leg taken care of, okay?”

The ambulance stopped moving, and soon Bill was opening the back doors. He unlocked the cot brake and pulled it out. Jerry followed, having already mouthed the word “Stay!” to Meghan.

Meghan sighed but complied. Like Jerry, she wasn’t really in the mood to deal with another syncopal episode. Bill came back out with a cleaned cot a few minutes later.

“What are you still doing here?”

“Jerry said stay put, so I’m staying put.” Meghan shrugged her shoulders.

Bill laughed but gave her an assessing look just the same. He climbed into the ambulance and started cleaning. At Meghan’s request, he handed her some cleaning wipes and she wiped down the area around her, cleaning the leads of the monitor and putting them away.

Finally, Jerry appeared with a wheelchair. “Bill, help me get her out and into this chair.”

Jerry climbed into the back and helped Meghan up. “Slowly. Let’s get you onto the bench seat, and slide across as far as we can.”

Meghan rolled her eyes, but followed his instructions. They had her carefully stand from there, stepped down from the patient compartment, and settled her into the wheelchair. Jerry then wheeled her into the ER, leaving Bill to finish up.

Jerry pushed her to the ER desk, where Bob waited, his arms folded. Meghan looked chagrined, then tried a smile. Bob’s features softened. “C’mon, let’s get you into a bed.” Jerry wheeled Meghan into Room 4, and both men helped her carefully onto the gurney.

Jerry brought the turnout coat and helmet into the room while Bob hooked Meghan up to the monitor. “What is it with you and that blood pressure of yours? Did you pass out this time?” Bob asked, concerned.

“No, not this time, thankfully, although I think that I might have if not for Jerry’s precautions.” Meghan strained to see the monitor, but was unable. “What’s it sitting at?”

“You’re currently sitting at 88/42. I’m going to go ahead and get an IV going before anything else.” Bob started reaching for IV equipment and soon had a catheter inserted into Meghan’s vein. He hooked up a bag of normal saline and set the flow rate for as fast as it would go.

“There. So, tell me what happened.” Bob disposed of the trash and pulled over his clipboard to make notes.

“I had the EMT class tonight, and got summoned that there was an incident at the burn building. Wound up helping to extricate your recent trauma patient. Tripped and fell in the room just before leaving the burn building. I honestly thought I’d twisted my ankle a little. Jerry is the one who caught the gash with a splinter,” she replied, indicating her right leg. “Jerry insisted on taking my vital signs, and caught the low blood pressure. And here I am!” she finished.

Bob smiled. “Well, at least you didn’t pass out on us this time. Have you ever gotten this hypotension checked out?” Meghan shook her head. “You need to, Meghan. Something is causing this.”

“I did ask Mitch about it,” she offered.

“Well, tell him he needs to investigate it.”

“What do I need to investigate?” Mitch asked, coming into the room. He froze when he saw Meghan. “Meghan?! What happened?” It was obvious that he was not expecting to see her, and his concern was immediate.

“I apparently have a large splinter in my leg, and my blood pressure is trying to tank on me again,” she replied.

Mitch ran a hand through his hair and sighed as he checked the monitor. “When did the IV get started?”

“I started it about 5 minutes ago, Doctor. Aside from that blood pressure, she seems to being doing okay.” Bob gave him a significant look.

Mitch nodded. “Okay. Let’s take a look at that leg.” He reached for a pair of gloves from a box on the wall and put them on. Bob started pulling out items from the cabinets and soon had her leg settled on a towel.

“I’ll go grab a suture kit, doc.” Bob left the room as Mitch settled on the rolling stool up by the bed.

“Did you help with that firefighter, Meghan?” Mitch asked as he started peeling back the bandages Jerry had taped to Meghan’s leg.

“Yeah. He’s a firefighter trainee, and let’s just say that the instructors got a little carried away with the debris they had tossed into the room he was supposed to be clearing. Something broke and it all came toppling down on him. I tripped over something and apparently did this. I thought I’d just twisted an ankle or something.” Meghan grimaced as Mitch looked at the wound, touching close to the gash in her leg.

“Well, I’m glad you were able to help him. He’ll be heading up to surgery soon. Rick Brant is working tonight.” Mitch glanced up at her and wagged his eyebrows. Meghan smiled, and Mitch returned to her leg. “Well, it’s not bleeding much, so that’s good. Looks like I just need to remove this splinter and put some stitches in. When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“I think it got updated with the car wreck. Ow!” she complained, just as Bob returned with supplies. “Bob, he’s hurting me!” Bob chuckled. “Dr. Brant wanted to talk to you for a second, Dr. Branston. I’ll get her ready.”

“Okay Bob. Meghan, I’ll be right back.” Mitch headed out of the room, and Bob assessed his patient, leaning in to take a better look at her wound. “Adrenaline must be still pumping somehow, girl. That looks painful. And this won’t feel much better, I’m afraid.” Bob pulled out betadine swabs from a package and started wiping down the area around the wound to disinfect it. Completing the job, he covered it with a sterile drape. He then pressed a button on the monitor to take another blood pressure. “It’s coming up: 96/56.”

“Well, that’s better,” Meghan agreed. She settled back against the back of the gurney. She yawned.

Bob gave her a sympathetic look. “Tired?”

“Yeah. The adrenaline is fading, and my leg is starting to throb. What time is it, anyway?”

Bob checked his watch. “A little after 9.”

“What?! Ugh! I need to call Kelsey. I was supposed to be over there half an hour ago.” Meghan buried her face in her hands.

“Have a hot date?” Bob teased.

“Well, I was supposed to be meeting someone she wanted to introduce me to. Guess that won’t be happening tonight now.” Meghan groaned.

A rap sounded at the door and Dr. Brant walked in. “Hey there, Meghan! Mitch told me you here, taking up bed space.” He took in not only the room, but also her leg and the monitor.

“Hi Rick. Yeah, thought that y’all didn’t have enough to do tonight, so I’d bring the entertainment,” she joked. Bob snorted. “Might I ask who is taking care of Tony? I thought you’d be taking him up to surgery.”

Rick nodded. “Mitch said you brought him in. I’ve actually sent Tony up for an MRI, so I’m waiting for that before he goes up. So now I’m here to see you.” Rick pulled on some gloves and took a seat on the rolling stool. He lifted up the sterile towel from Meghan’s leg and looked at the wound. “This should be pretty easy to take care of down here. Bob, do you have some lidocaine ready?”

“Sure thing, Dr. Brant. Here you go.” Bob handed Rick a syringe already filled, and moved the suture tray closer to him. Rick injected lidocaine in several places around the wound, allowing the medication to numb the area that would need to be sutured. Rick tested the area to make sure it was numb before reaching for tweezers.

“Let me know if it hurts, Meghan, and I’ll numb it up some more. Now let’s see if we can get this splinter out.” Rick probed her injury and latched onto the splinter. He carefully removed the 3” shard of wood, dropping it in a basin Bob provided, before probing the wound a bit more to make sure he had everything.

“Let’s irrigate this, Bob.” Bob carefully cleaned out the wound with a couple of saline flushes. Rick then began suturing the wound closed. Twenty-one sutures later, Rick finished taping gauze over the sutures and wrapped Meghan’s calf with roller gauze.

“There you go! Typical suture care: keep it clean and dry. Come back if it turns red or starts oozing. Holler at me or Mitch in a couple of weeks and we’ll remove the sutures. I’ll send you home with a script for antibiotics and some pain meds. And then I’ll let Mitch finish you out and send you home.” Rick pushed back on the stool and stripped off his gloves.

“Thanks, Rick, I appreciate it.” Meghan looked at her bandaged leg and sighed. Just then, Fred knocked on the door. She motioned him in.

“Hey Fred. Are you my ride, if I can get them to spring me?”

“Yeah.” He watched as Rick and Bob made their way out of the room. “So, I see that Jerry wanted more than a ride-along.”

Meghan frowned. “Yeah. He noticed that my leg was bleeding.” She gestured towards her bandaged leg. “Apparently what I thought was a sprained ankle was a 5” gash with a 3” splinter.”

He nodded. “And the IV?”

“Oh. My blood pressure tried to tank again.” She looked chagrined.

Fred just shook his head. “I packed up your stuff in your briefcase and brought it with me. Figured I could just drop you off at your place if you wanted.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be able to drive myself home. Besides, I probably should go ahead and grab some incident forms. Too bad I can’t dump all the paperwork for this on the fire guys.” Meghan smiled even as she sighed.

Fred smirked. “Yeah, they should have to do the paperwork on this one, but I know that we have to document our bit too. Don’t forget to also do the paperwork on your leg, here. Might as well get someone else to pay for the ER visit.”

Meghan groaned. “Sometimes I feel like I should’ve been a secretary. I’m doing enough paperwork lately to keep one busy.”

Fred just nodded. He pulled over a chair and sat down just as Mitch popped back into the room. “Rick said he took care of those sutures for me. How are you feeling?”

Meghan shrugged. “Leg is sore, but mostly just tired and hungry. I was supposed to go over to see Kelsey when classes ended tonight.”

Mitch nodded, glancing at the monitor. Her vitals were back in the normal range, and he couldn’t see any reason to keep her in the ER. “Well then, let me get your paperwork rounded up so you can get out of here and over to the house. Do you need a note for work?”

Meghan smiled. “Yeah, probably would be wise. On-the-job injury will wind up with paperwork going to Workman’s Comp, so an ER note will be helpful.”

“Okay. Just hold tight, and I’ll send Bob or someone in to remove that IV. Push the fluids over the next couple of days, and I’ve got a couple scripts you’ll need to fill in the morning.” Mitch patted Meghan’s foot, and headed back out of the room.

Meghan and Fred chit-chatted for about 10 minutes before Bob came back in. “Okay, Meghan, I’ve got some meds for you, a bunch of paperwork, and stuff to remove that IV. First, let’s hook you up on meds. Dr. Brant wanted you to have some Toradol before you headed out of here.” Bob hooked the syringe into one of the ports on her IV and pushed the drug into the line. Meghan hadn’t realized she was in as much pain as she was until the meds started taking effect.

“Thanks. That was starting to hurt a bit more than I realized,” she remarked. Bob smiled and set about pulling off all of the tape holding the IV in her arm, then removed the IV catheter. Meghan held pressure over the IV site until he wrapped her arm with coban.

“So that leaves the paperwork. Here’s a sheet on wound care which I’m sure you can quote in your sleep. If you have issues, contact your favorite doctor or come back in. Sutures can come out in two weeks. Here’s a copy of your ER record for Worker’s Comp, plus a doctor’s note. Dr. Branston has you off for two days, but then you can head back to work. And last but not least, prescriptions for pain meds and an antibiotic. Sign these forms, and then you’re free.”

Meghan slipped a pen from her pants pocket and signed the indicated forms. She accepted the rest of the papers and stood up from the cot. She gave Bob a hug. “Thanks for the help.”

He smiled. “Only the best for my favorite gal. Now get out of here!” He aimed a smack for her butt, which she avoided, laughing.

“I’m going, I’m going! Fred, get me outta here!”

He shook his head in amusement. “This way. I parked illegally in the EMS spots, so let’s go before they come after us.”

**********

Fred dropped Meghan at her car back at the college. “Come in tomorrow to get the paperwork. It’ll wait a few hours.”

She nodded. “Works for me. Thanks again.”

“Not a problem. Get some sleep. If you need anything, just holler.” He waited until she got into her car and started it before he drove away.