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GWOT 1 Screaming NI
Apr. 3rd, 2019 07:40 pmGWOT 1 Screaming NI
After spending several minutes watching what the vet tech was doing to our injured employees, I broke off and started grabbing people and giving orders and making calls.
"Janitorial! I need two janitors, right now, life and death. Their orders are to _continuously clean_ the Infirmary and hallways around it. They keep doing this 24/7, with reliefs as needed, until I say otherwise."
"Cafeteria! Start making coffee and sandwiches. I need coffee and sandwich service immediately on D 1st floor, Conference Room 4. This is life and death. No, I'm not kidding. Do it or I come up there."
"Your orders are stand at this point and explain that this is the Infirmary Staff Lounge. Injured persons are not allowed in. People can eat food and drink coffee in here but cannot take it out with them. You will not leave this post until relieved. Use the phone if you need help. Blow your whistle in an emergency."
I made and posted a sign "INFIRMARY STAFF LOUNGE. KEEP OUT. THIS MEANS YOU."
I had Space Planning drag a desk to the Loading Dock and made another sign. "INFIRMARY REGISTRATION"
Next to the desk, I put several chairs and had a medical kit brought from Security Control, which left us without one. But it had a BP cuff.
"Go get the nurse from Building B Lobby. Post her here. No one is to be brought past into the infirmary without her approval."
"Control, I need three additional infirmary guards. Unarmed is OK. They report to me on arrival."
"Give me that," I said, literally demanding the yellow vest from the facility engineer's back. I took my ink pen and wrote the word TRIAGE on it in huge letters. Then when the nurse arrived, I handed it to her.
She flinched but put it on and went to work, with a ream of blank paper where she should have had forms.
"Logistics. I have a number of requests for you. Right now I need clean sheets, industrial ethyl alcohol, and certain metal tools. I need every clamp, hemostat, small nose pliers, #10 blades and sewing needle you have. Immediately. And any heavy plastic or metal pans. Now."
"Someone find me nylon thread. Stat!"
"Stop CPR." I paused and examined the patient carefully. "Time of death 1505. Stretcher bearers! Remove this body, outside, past the tent and the tarps."
"People are dying so she can take her coffee break, because she can't stitch half blind and with her hands shaking. If you try to get her to come out of the staff lounge again to see your friend, you will also be in desperate need of her services. I guarantee it."
"Let the instruments soak for at least ten minutes."
"Here's what you do." I cut the piece of cloth into a strip with a knife; my EMS scissors had been appropriated hours ago. "Sir, open your mouth. Sir! Open! Now bite down on this. It will protect your teeth." To the assistant, "Don't let him chew it up or start choking on it. The strip has to be at least eight inches long after you fold it up."
"I need you to sort these medications into three boxes. If the label says anything about DEA or it's an opiate or oxycontin or ends in phine, put it in the blue box. If the label says it's an -icin or -cillin or an antibiotic, put it in the red box. Shovel all the other crap in the third box. ONLY GIVE ANY OF THESE MEDS TO THE DOCTOR. SHE will give it personally to those who need it, until she authorizes otherwise."
"Guard! You will supervise the pharmacy tech as he sorts through. Each of these bottles will be defended with force up to and including deadly force."
"I don't have a gun."
"Hit them over and over in the head with your baton until they stop moving. Or blow your whistle and I will come running."
"Put the cots against this wall. Number each one."
This was all to a constant chorus of moans, groans, whimpering, crying and screams.
Being shot or stabbed hurts. And we had very little pain medication.
I'm an idiot.
"Cafeteria manager. E18 here. I am sending an armed escort for the liquor cabinet in Executive Dining. You will transfer its contents to the Infirmary Pharmacy at once. Who said? I said. People are dying for a drink. I'm not kidding. Two guards with rifles." I broke squelch on radio. "Brooke, George, meet me in Infirmary. With your weapons."
Bit by bit, moment by moment, we were converting what was intended as a first aid facility for one or at most two injured Employees, and the ability to give physicals, into something that could be mistaken for a small community hospital in dim light.
A small community hospital overrun with mass casualties and out of supplies.
Sometimes that's the best you can do, in Apocalypse.
After spending several minutes watching what the vet tech was doing to our injured employees, I broke off and started grabbing people and giving orders and making calls.
"Janitorial! I need two janitors, right now, life and death. Their orders are to _continuously clean_ the Infirmary and hallways around it. They keep doing this 24/7, with reliefs as needed, until I say otherwise."
"Cafeteria! Start making coffee and sandwiches. I need coffee and sandwich service immediately on D 1st floor, Conference Room 4. This is life and death. No, I'm not kidding. Do it or I come up there."
"Your orders are stand at this point and explain that this is the Infirmary Staff Lounge. Injured persons are not allowed in. People can eat food and drink coffee in here but cannot take it out with them. You will not leave this post until relieved. Use the phone if you need help. Blow your whistle in an emergency."
I made and posted a sign "INFIRMARY STAFF LOUNGE. KEEP OUT. THIS MEANS YOU."
I had Space Planning drag a desk to the Loading Dock and made another sign. "INFIRMARY REGISTRATION"
Next to the desk, I put several chairs and had a medical kit brought from Security Control, which left us without one. But it had a BP cuff.
"Go get the nurse from Building B Lobby. Post her here. No one is to be brought past into the infirmary without her approval."
"Control, I need three additional infirmary guards. Unarmed is OK. They report to me on arrival."
"Give me that," I said, literally demanding the yellow vest from the facility engineer's back. I took my ink pen and wrote the word TRIAGE on it in huge letters. Then when the nurse arrived, I handed it to her.
She flinched but put it on and went to work, with a ream of blank paper where she should have had forms.
"Logistics. I have a number of requests for you. Right now I need clean sheets, industrial ethyl alcohol, and certain metal tools. I need every clamp, hemostat, small nose pliers, #10 blades and sewing needle you have. Immediately. And any heavy plastic or metal pans. Now."
"Someone find me nylon thread. Stat!"
"Stop CPR." I paused and examined the patient carefully. "Time of death 1505. Stretcher bearers! Remove this body, outside, past the tent and the tarps."
"People are dying so she can take her coffee break, because she can't stitch half blind and with her hands shaking. If you try to get her to come out of the staff lounge again to see your friend, you will also be in desperate need of her services. I guarantee it."
"Let the instruments soak for at least ten minutes."
"Here's what you do." I cut the piece of cloth into a strip with a knife; my EMS scissors had been appropriated hours ago. "Sir, open your mouth. Sir! Open! Now bite down on this. It will protect your teeth." To the assistant, "Don't let him chew it up or start choking on it. The strip has to be at least eight inches long after you fold it up."
"I need you to sort these medications into three boxes. If the label says anything about DEA or it's an opiate or oxycontin or ends in phine, put it in the blue box. If the label says it's an -icin or -cillin or an antibiotic, put it in the red box. Shovel all the other crap in the third box. ONLY GIVE ANY OF THESE MEDS TO THE DOCTOR. SHE will give it personally to those who need it, until she authorizes otherwise."
"Guard! You will supervise the pharmacy tech as he sorts through. Each of these bottles will be defended with force up to and including deadly force."
"I don't have a gun."
"Hit them over and over in the head with your baton until they stop moving. Or blow your whistle and I will come running."
"Put the cots against this wall. Number each one."
This was all to a constant chorus of moans, groans, whimpering, crying and screams.
Being shot or stabbed hurts. And we had very little pain medication.
I'm an idiot.
"Cafeteria manager. E18 here. I am sending an armed escort for the liquor cabinet in Executive Dining. You will transfer its contents to the Infirmary Pharmacy at once. Who said? I said. People are dying for a drink. I'm not kidding. Two guards with rifles." I broke squelch on radio. "Brooke, George, meet me in Infirmary. With your weapons."
Bit by bit, moment by moment, we were converting what was intended as a first aid facility for one or at most two injured Employees, and the ability to give physicals, into something that could be mistaken for a small community hospital in dim light.
A small community hospital overrun with mass casualties and out of supplies.
Sometimes that's the best you can do, in Apocalypse.
