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Old 04-10-2017, 07:31 PM   #135
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Calling Dr. Anderson

Taylor leaves the spare magazines on his tactical gear and the duty belt with baton and Mace on Warden Tyrrell’s desk, next to the two M67 grenades. All he retains on his SRT issue gear is the first aid kit they scrounged in the guard barracks. He’s not carrying any weapons, except the M67 he used to make an improvised incendiary device in the barracks and then re-safed after he disabled the bomb and stuck in his pants pocket, and that only because he’s forgotten about it for the moment. Despite shedding all that weight, Taylor walks slowly and stiffly as he leaves, like a tired old man.

Taylor first goes down the corridor on the third floor where he’d hear the weird scritching sound. He finds it hard to care about anything, but he’s still not going to leave potential threats where they can surprise the defenceless people in Tyrrell’s former office. From what Taylor can remember, the sound came from a direction which leads him to a door marked ‘Dr. C. McKinney’. There’s no scritching sound anymore, but there is somebody breathing in there. Taylor knocks and then opens the door. Inside is a distinguished grey-haired man in late middle-age, sitting at a desk and looking vaguely confused. Taylor addresses him in an affectless voice.

Taylor: “Sir, would ya be Dr. McKinney?”
Dr. McKinney: “Yes?”
Taylor: “You got a weapon?”
McKinney: “Certainly not!”
Taylor: “What you been doing in here? You with Dr. Cotton?”
McKinney: “Who? I’m a physician here! Who are you?”
Taylor: “Sir, there’s gone an’ been a situation. I’m gonna have to ask you to come with me.”
McKinney: “What do you mean? What’s been happening?”
Taylor: “Manhanock Asylum done got put under direct Homeland Security administration. Jes’ come to Warden Tyrrell’s office, Mr. Townsend will explain everythin’.”
McKinney: “Well, I suppose…”

Taylor guides Dr. McKinney to the door of the Deputy Warden’s office and points him at the door, without going with him there. Then he just walks away again. As Taylor comes to the stairway down to the second floor, Taylor slows down and calls out to O’Toole. O’Toole replies, whereupon Taylor identifies himself and walks down the stairs.

O’Toole has handcuffed the SRT sharpshooter he was struggling with when Taylor left. Judging from the dishevelled look of both men and the bruises beginning to show on the guard, it took considerable doing and O’Toole seems to have used his Mace spray and baton pretty freely. Taylor’s voice sounds drained, like he’s reciting his words in a daze.

Taylor: “We’ve done took charge of Manhanock until them Coasties arrive, which I guess makes you in charge. Townsend’s in Warden Tyrrell’s office, to the right, he’ll brief you. There’s a funny ole boy there, too, a Dr. McKinney, don’t know if’n he a hostage, on Tyrrell’s side or jes’ confused. You might wanna do a sweep of the rest o’ them rooms up there too, they ain’t all cleared. The guards is all supposed to be surrendered, but ya wanna be careful.”
O’Toole: “Uh, okay. What are you going to do?”
Taylor: “Try an’ keep anybody else from dying. Some bad injuries there down on first. I cain’t do nothing ‘bout brain trauma, but I might could help them guards who were too close to the flashbang. That second time, I’s meaning. Send Doc Anderson down if’n ya kin, soon as he agrees to come. Maybe you can fetch him some help from the staff room, Dr. King or some orderlies or something.”
O’Toole: “Taylor, what happened to your weapons? Want to borrow a pistol, at least?”
Taylor: “Ain’t gonna need one. I’m done with killin’.”

Without waiting for an answer, Taylor goes to the next stairwell, leading down to the first floor. O’Toole is clearly not happy about being left with a responsibility for everything and the possibility of having to secure rooms without assistance from Taylor, but can’t exactly demand that the convicted felon pick up a gun to carry when the Coast Guard arrives.

Taylor checks the unconscious guard at the top of the stairs and finds his breathing steady. This one took a beanbag to the face and seems to be still unconscious from it, but there’s no evidence of major trauma. A concussion, probably, but no fracture in the skull is evident and probably no major intracranial bleeding or he’d be dying or dead already. After he’s satisfied that the guard is probably going to live until proper medical help gets there, Taylor cuffs him with flexicuffs and leaves him lying on the side, so guard won’t drown in his own vomit if he gets nauseous.

Moving down to the main corridor on the first floor, Taylor can see that the fat guard who pretended to be unconscious is having some kind of seizure. As his injuries were to the body, Taylor doesn’t believe this is related to head trauma, so he figures it must be a pre-existing condition. Without knowing more, any treatment would be useless, so Taylor just turns the guard on his the side, kicks away the shotgun lying close to him and removes the pistol from his belt, tossing it away. Having done his best to clear away stuff that could hurt the guard, Taylor looks for something to use as a pillow, but doesn’t find anything.

Taylor checks into the next room, where he left the black gentleman in SRT gear cuffed next to the unconscious Warden Tyrrell. Taylor notes that the flexicuffs are loose on the floor, but the SRT guard doesn’t seem to be a threat, as he’s having the same kind of seizure as the fat one in the corridor. Taylor quickly repeats the process he performed in the corridor, removing any potentially dangerous items from the patient and placing him on his side.

Warden Tyrrell seems to be still breathing, but from the shallowness of the breathing, he’s in severe shock. As he clearly has a fractured skull in multiple places and very likely acute intracranial haemorrhaging, Taylor doubts that any assistance can be rendered without a qualified physician in attendance to diagnose and at least the resources of an air ambulance. Of course, it may well be that nothing short of an operating room and a full team of neurosurgeons can help Tyrrell, as his fractured skull looks disfigured in a way that suggests widespread trauma to the brain.

With a grimace, Taylor leaves the room, tossing the guns into the next one. He moves down the corridor to look for the room where the flashbang went off. He can see the two guards he hit with the beanbags at extreme range, both of them still unconscious. One has a ruined eye, which Taylor notes with a flash of guilt, but he figures that anything he does is more likely to do harm than help. He’s not fully trained as an 18D, Special Forces Medic, just cross-trained in basic battlefield first aid. Better to leave anything surgical to real doctors. Walking on, Taylor can hear someone talking in a low voice ahead, evidently trying to sooth someone in pain.

Taylor: “I’m from Homeland Security. There’s been an incident an’ Manhanock Asylum is under direct federal control. The Coast Guard has formed a perimeter an’ will be sending in paramedics. Can y'all use some help until then?”
Guard: “Yes, please! I need help with my friend here! He’s badly burned, but I don’t know what happened… or why I’m in here. Where’s the Warden?”
Taylor: “Warden Tyrrell done been removed from command. He gone an' took hostages, attacked federal agents an’ the like.”
Guard: “What? That’s crazy!”
Taylor: “Sure is.”

Taylor enters a room where a flashbang has clearly gone off. Two men are still there, one, an African-American in his thirties, is ineffectively trying to administer some help to the other, a slightly overweight bald white male in his late forties, who is lying on the floor badly burned, with one hand a horrible black and red ruin. Taylor kneels by the side of the burned man and takes out his first aid kit.

Taylor: “Agent O’Toole is in charge of the scene now, but if’n you cain’t find him, Mr. Townsend is a lawyer with Homeland Security an’ kin tell you everything. He in the Deputy Warden’s office now. Onliest thing is, I’m a-gonna have to ask ya to leave yer weapons here. Cain’t have anybody armed but federal agents on duty, now.”
Guard: “Oh, okay. I understand. It’s just, do I have to go to speak with them now?”
Taylor: “Wanna stay here with Fred?”
Guard: “Yeah.”
Taylor: “Ain’t a problem. I’ma gonna need the help, anyhow. What’s yer name?”
Whittaker: “Pat… Patrick Whittaker.”
Taylor: “Right pleased to make yer acquintance, Pat. Chase Taylor.”
Whittaker: “Are you okay, Taylor? You look kind of messed up…”
Taylor: “Let’s worry about Fred, Pat. He’s going into shock an’ that’s real bad. We gotta get a handle on that an’ then we gotta get him into a clean infirmary with all them fixings.”

Taylor looks around for a phone and finds one on the wall. He presses a number for the Deputy Wardens office and gets a dial tone. The phone connects and Taylor can even hear it ringing upstairs, but nobody answers. Three rings, four, five
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Last edited by Icelander; 05-16-2017 at 05:23 AM.
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