There was a mindset John had often got into during the war, one in which he stopped thinking about the person beneath his hands as a friend and comrade and thought about them as nothing more than a body. Remove all emotional attachment – treat them as if they are simply an illness to be cured, an injury to be fixed, not a human being with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams.
“Check his blood pressure.” John instructs, pushing the stretcher away from the wall so that he might access the body from all angles. His fingers move quickly, now, without any sign of a shake – the breathing is rapid, shallow. The hands look dead – may require amputation, but John will have to see what he can do. The cuts and bruises are, for the most part, easy to deal with. Any internal injuries John will not know about, not without feeling along the torso for anything out of place.
It is the knee, though, that truly brings him concern. Compound fractures prove difficult, even in places with outstanding medical facilities. Here, there is little John can do. No doubt it will be infected – septic, if the other signs John has picked up on are accurate. John can certainly make do and get the bone back in place, get the skin stitched back together, but that would simply condemn the patient to an agonising death. He can’t seal the infection inside and allow it to tear the person apart – he simply can’t.
Though John has been running on autopilot ever since feeling that painfully alive pulse, he now has time to stop. Maria has obediently been doing the basic tasks John left her with, though when his running commentary stops, she looks nervously up at him.
“He needs to be moved.” John says seriously, returning his attention to the swollen hand closest to him. These he can try and do something with – save them, maybe. “We don’t have the facilities to treat him here.”
Maria stares at John, looking very much out of her depth – and for a woman whose sole task is to preach birth control, that much is to be expected. “Will he survive?” She asks, eyes wide.
Re: Fill: Sans Frontières (3b/?)
“Check his blood pressure.” John instructs, pushing the stretcher away from the wall so that he might access the body from all angles. His fingers move quickly, now, without any sign of a shake – the breathing is rapid, shallow. The hands look dead – may require amputation, but John will have to see what he can do. The cuts and bruises are, for the most part, easy to deal with. Any internal injuries John will not know about, not without feeling along the torso for anything out of place.
It is the knee, though, that truly brings him concern. Compound fractures prove difficult, even in places with outstanding medical facilities. Here, there is little John can do. No doubt it will be infected – septic, if the other signs John has picked up on are accurate. John can certainly make do and get the bone back in place, get the skin stitched back together, but that would simply condemn the patient to an agonising death. He can’t seal the infection inside and allow it to tear the person apart – he simply can’t.
Though John has been running on autopilot ever since feeling that painfully alive pulse, he now has time to stop. Maria has obediently been doing the basic tasks John left her with, though when his running commentary stops, she looks nervously up at him.
“He needs to be moved.” John says seriously, returning his attention to the swollen hand closest to him. These he can try and do something with – save them, maybe. “We don’t have the facilities to treat him here.”
Maria stares at John, looking very much out of her depth – and for a woman whose sole task is to preach birth control, that much is to be expected. “Will he survive?” She asks, eyes wide.
“He won’t if he stays here.”