Chapter 2

Prologue and Chapter 1  (13+) The story begins. The jeep, Jack and the man in the desert. #2034879 by Hyperiongate

Chapter Two
 
By any yardstick one would care to use, Doctor Lise Marshall was a cut above the competition. She graduated near the top of her class at Johns Hopkins University. Her pioneering work combating infectious complications associated with burn treatment had earned her international recognition. Today, she served as the department chair at Renown Regional Medical Center’s Burn Unit in Reno. She was exceptional at nearly everything. Nearly everything...

The giant ego sitting across the table from her typified the one glaring area in her life that was best classified as a “swing and a miss.”

The restaurant was top-notch. Unseen attendants anticipated her every need. The wine was old enough to justify a cost per bottle too high to print on the menu. Expensive tableware complemented a meal cooked by the finest chefs in town. The setting was perfect. Unfortunately, she wasn’t on a date with the restaurant. She was here with a shallow personality in a suit. Her mom would be proud however, Lise was less than impressed.

He’d seemed like such a nice man when they’d met at the hospital; handsome, well-educated and a good sense of humor. This had been their first date. He was certain that there would be more. Lise was equally certain he was wrong. The night had been a series her listening to “I this” and “I that”. He was the stereo-typical egomaniac who would have been just as happy if he had been sitting across from a mirror instead of another human being.

“Fooled again,” she thought focusing on dinner; dessert was out of the question as it would add at least another half hour to the infinity she was now sitting through.

“How do I always end up with the same make and model?” She wondered to herself.

She nodded politely as he continued talking about golf shots or hunting or something else he assumed would impress. Lise’s allotted him enough attention to ensure she appeared engaged in the one-way conversation, all the while vowing to be more patient before saying yes to a date. Give them a chance to expose themselves as the self-centered oafs most, perhaps all, men seem to be.

Her mom claimed she was too picky; expecting to find someone that was perfect in every way. Lise disagreed. She knew the difference between perfection and reality. She wanted someone self-assured, bright and easy to be with. Not such a high crossbar in her estimation. She just needed to be a little more selective when it came to choosing who she would allow into the game. She needed to have her picker calibrated.

Her date nodded enthusiastically when asked if he would like to see the dessert menu. Lise sighed inwardly as time was added to her sentence due to her own good behavior. Thankfully, her cell phone came to the rescue. She answered it on the first buzz, her date faded into insignificance as the true passion of her life reached out to pull her in. They needed her at the hospital ASAP. A burn victim was inbound. ETA at the hospital was fifteen minutes. Her team had been notified and would meet her there.

This was a double bonus. There was no place she would rather be than work and no place had she wanted to escape from more than where she was right now. With a quick apology, Lise headed for the door, pretending not to hear as her date said he would call.

After over eternity-lasting dinner spent with an energy draining “bad call”, Lise could feel life being pumped back into her. Thankfully, she always drove her own car to a date if the quality of her companion was still in question.

“I’m on call,” she would explain.

Tonight, it was a legitimate emergency. This was what she lived for. This was her true love. If she were to be absolutely honest with herself, the reason she chose men poorly was that she didn’t want to risk any relationship that would come between her and her work.

The hospital was only fifteen minutes away but her cell phone started ringing before she even got half way there, All of the calls were from her burn team, those doctors and nurses trained to provide the first care when a burn patient arrived. As soon as her team members got to the hospital, they would check in on the status of the inbound patient and relay that information to her.

As details started to come in via text from List could feel the excitement start to build. It looked more and more as if the patient’s condition, while sketchy, qualified him for a new, radical treatment pioneered by Lise and her team. The final decision as to what treatment would be used would be up to her. Of course, she would have to examine the patient all signed pointed towards this being their man.

One of her team members met Lise in the hospital lobby. “We just received a one-minute standby,” he said as the two of them turned in unison and ran towards the express elevator. They would just make it to the roof on time.

“Is the team all here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and professional as they rode the elevator up. This was it! She could feel it.

“Yep, you’re the last one. The TIG is being prepped as we speak.” Dr. Shepherd said.

He was the youngest member of the team, five years her junior. That didn’t keep him from following her around like a love sick puppy. Lise was not oblivious to this and smiled inwardly at his discomfort. She thought him both cute and completely out of the question. Besides, she wasn’t sure that she might actually infect him with what appeared to be her anti-Midas touch which turned every potential romance into an uninteresting lump of coal

At his mention of the TIG, her pulse jumped. She was sure the team could feel it as well. The Total Immersion Gel treatment was their baby. It represented a potential breakthrough in the world of burn treatment. All they needed was a test subject.

The two doctors burst onto the roof as the helicopter was just touching down. Three of the team’s nurses were already there with their equipment. She had chosen her team well and they were performing up to her high expectation.

Lise waited as they transferred the body to a mobile gurney. The lead EMT briefed her as she stood by, letting her team members do their jobs.

“His pulse and respiration are intermittent at best. We are not sure but we think he may have died at least three times on the trip over.”

At that last comment, Lise held up her hand. “What do you mean at least three times? How many times did you have to resuscitate him?”

“None, all of his vitals, those that we could measure, would drop to zero and he would flat line. Each time, he started back up on his own before we could even get the paddles charged. It was kind of spooky. I have never seen anything like that before.”

“You may want to check your instruments,” Lise said. “It’s been my experience that dead means dead.” She instantly regretted how harsh she’d come across. EMT’s were on her side. They were all in the same business – saving lives.

Careful not to interfere with her team, Lise got in close enough to take a look at their new patient. She immediately felt her hopes take a dip. She’d made a career out of dealing with burn patients and never had she seen someone so far gone, who was still alive. Protocol dictated that they could only use the TIG on someone unlikely to survive conventional treatment. This one, however, might be too far gone for any treatment short of divine intervention.

Lise stepped back long enough to allow her people to finish connecting the wires and tubing they’d need to keep their patient alive during the trip down to the O.R. A few moments later, they were all in the elevator. Lisa got her first good look at her patient who was now laying on the gurney amidst a nesting of medical paraphernalia. Burn coverage was total. A couple of fingers were missing. There was no nose, eyelids or ears. The underlying muscular structures had been damaged and in some cases, complete muscle groups had become detached from the bone as ligaments were burned away. Some internal organs were exposed. On top of everything, the body was filthy. Infection was almost assured.

In the world of burn treatment, infection equaled death. However, he was still alive and that was what was most important. Lise would like to think she’d seen people who had survived worse, but no examples came to mind.

The elevator door slid open and the team rushed him out towards the O.R.

Twenty minutes later, the patient was a stable as they could make someone that was more dead than alive. It was time to make the call. Lise met with the other two doctors on the team to discuss their options. Meanwhile, specially trained nurses worked to clean up their patient and prepare him for whatever treatment he would eventually undergo.

“Alright, let’s have it. How do you see our options?” Lise said to Doctors Shepherd and Ruiz. She had been a mentor to both and each knew better than to give her anything other than their own professional opinion. Lise didn’t tolerate “yes men” well.

Doctor Ruiz cleared his throat and said, “His vitals are all in the red and trending downward. The nurses are still trying to find a way to hook up some of the monitors. He is simply too far gone. There is too much damage. If we ever hope to bring TIG into mainstream treatment, it would be helpful to start out with a “win.” I know that seems a little self-serving but the fact is his chances of survival are hovering just above zero. Even if by some miracle, we were able to save him, he would never be able to live a life with any degree of quality. I say we should allow nature to take its course. Let him die on the table.”

The truth of the words fell on Lise like a heavy weight. She knew Ruiz was right, no matter how much she wanted to disagree. The TIG had been approved for a test run only; on someone that had over ninety percent burn coverage and a twenty-five to fifty percent chance of survival. The man in the O.R. was too far below the bar to play ball. It would be a waste of resources and almost guarantee that their first efforts with this new technology would result in failure.

“Ben, what do you think,” she said turning to the youngest member of the team.

Ben looked down at his hands for a few more moments. “I say we should go for it,” he said with a sudden strength of conviction. “We can’t be afraid to fail. Even failure will teach us something. As for the “quality of life thing,” who are we to judge. I thought we all agreed that subjective outcomes are not to be part of our equation.” He looked around, his eyes bright with excitement.

The two men sat quietly while Lise contemplated her final decision. She looked at the two men at the table with her then glanced through the observation window where three nurses still worked on the patient. She admired how they could be so dedicated. They would keep doing everything they could for their patient until Lise made the call.

She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly – her decision made.

“We’re going to let him go.”

That was it. There was not argument. Everyone knew the call was hers to make. She stood up and walked out to where the patient and nurses were. They could tell from her expression that it was over. Had anyone asked them, they would have agreed.

After Lise made the announcement, the nurses began to strip off their gloves and go about the business of wrapping up the event. Nurse Lockhart would stay with the patient until all vital signs had flattened out. In the meantime, she would begin to administer heavy doses of morphine to help ease any suffering that the patient may be experiencing.

Her scream caught everyone off guard.

No one said a thing for several seconds. What they were looking at was unimaginable; sitting up on the operating table was the man they had just left for dead. He slowly raised his hand and seemed to take a deep and labored breath; his lungs, visibly scarred black beneath his exposed ribs. On the exhale came the unmistakable plea “Help me” before collapsing back onto the table.

Lise ran over to the table and immediately began working to hook up some of the monitoring sensors that the nurses had been having trouble with. She looked up at Ben Shepherd.

“Game on?” he asked.

“Game on.” She replied with a determined smile and turned back to the patient.

The entire team came alive, following the steps they had drilled over and over again. With severely burned victims, time was critical. They had practiced this event for months. Lise stepped back and watched as her team did their jobs. No movement was wasted, nothing was overlooked. They seemed to anticipate each other’s needs and thoughts as they went about the process of setting up the TIG event.

TIG was an acronym for Total Immersion Gel. The idea was to submerge the subject into a tank of an embryonic type fluid that had been infused with the subject’s own DNA. It was analogous to a return to the womb. The subject would stay submerged for several weeks as the body was encouraged to re-grow, skin without the tell-tale scaring that most burn victims carried with them the rest of their lives. It would also eliminate the number one enemy of all burn victims, infection.

This process had been tested with pigs with a limited degree of success. Most failures were attributed to the lack of complexity of a pig’s brain and nervous system. Lise and her team believed that if they used the process on a human patient, they would see more success. They had received permission to try their process only when there was virtually no hope of any other treatment working.

Lise paused a moment to look over their patient’s chart. In the box where a name should have been was written “John Doe #11.” He was the eleventh unknown person admitted to the hospital this year.

Glancing up, she watched as her team wheeled in the large Plexiglas tank and parked it next to the patient. She wondered for a moment if they were doing the right thing, experimenting like this. Left alone, he would have died, wasn’t that what God had intended? Who was she to defy what may have been divinely ordained?

She shook off the thought. If God wanted him, he would take him no matter what she did. In the meantime, she would do everything in her power to give the Almighty time to reconsider his position with regards to her patient.

She looked back down at the name “John Doe #11.”

“Well JD11, what’s it going to be? Do you want to live or die? Think about it. In the meantime, we shall see what we can do?”

Replacing the chart, she jumped back into the fray.

Chapter 3  (13+) Sheriff Tucker interviews Jack and Dr. Marshall about the burn victim. #2035323 by Hyperiongate