An Irresistable Force Meets a Critical Injury

Posted on Fri Jul 11th, 2025 @ 9:26am by Major Iria & Commander Saul Whitford

3,093 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: The Campaign for Coridan
Location: Unicorn Sickbay
Timeline: Current

::ON::

Whitford winced as he made his way to the Sickbay. The Unicorn had taken a beating over the past twenty-four hours. Facing off against flotillas of Romulan vessels had put her, and her crew, through the wringer. He was one of the lucky walking wounded, and as such had been rightly designated as a lower priority. With a pain in his ribcage every time he breathed, though, he was looking forward to getting seen sooner rather than later.

Walking in through the Sickbay door, he entered a realm of controlled chaos as the medical staff went too and fro to their charges, looking to their healing and wellbeing. He looked around, searching for someone who would be free for his allotted time.

Iria had been bustling about the sickbay for hours beyond when her duty shift would have ended. Although such things were irrelevant in the aftermath of battle - all that mattered was ensuring that those injured and ill were adequately treated. Her own physical complaints could most assuredly wait.

She saw Commander Whitford walk into sickbay...ah yes, she had recalled his name on the triage list. He had been designated a lower priority based on symptoms but as she looked at the human male, Iria noted that he appeared rather pale.

"Commander, bed 3, please." Iria called as she grabbed her medical scanner and walked over to the officer. "Please explain what occurred to the best of your recollection along with any symptoms you are currently experiencing."

'I was thrown from the Center chair,' Whitford noted dryly, 'hit a console. Probably hit my head, definitely did something to my ribs. It's painful when I breath in and out.' He set himself down on the bed gingerly, trying not to make contact with it too hard, or breath too deep because of the pain. 'How about you? You were evacuated from the surface, weren't you?'

"Yes." She responded simply. "I am functioning within acceptable parameters, sir. You, however, are borderline hypoxic." She looked over her shoulder to one of the medics on duty. "We will require a STAT imaging of Whitford's chest. Hypoxia, decreased right-sided breath sounds, low tachycardia..." She returned her attention to the XO. "You have a number of sequential rib fractures on the right side of your chest. Please unzip and and pull down your flight suit - I need to visually inspect you."

Grinning weakly through the pain, Whitford quipped breathlessly, 'I've heard that line before.' He unzipped his uniform, wincing as his muscles pulled on the broken ribs. Having successfully extricated himself from the flightsuit jacket, he gingerly began tugging at the Armory-red undershirt beneath. Shaking his head and going white, he said, 'it's too painful ... ya gotta give me a hand, Doc.'

Iria raised a brow and opened her mouth to inquire what exactly he meant by the 'line' comment, but her mind connected the dots. She dipped her head slightly and felt her cheeks warm with increased blood flow. Normally such remarks were easily ignored, but given her newly un-bonded status, these things may require more consideration. Regardless, any further questions were halted in their tracks as she watched the color drain from the XO's face as he attempted to remove his own flightstuit and undershirt.

"Of course, commander." Iria immediately responded, and she reached into one of the concealed pockets at her thigh and pulled out a folding hook-blade knife and with a quick movement of her wrist deployed the blade and cut through the fabric at the waist hem and then with both hands grabbed the edges and jerked the material apart, tearing the fabric up to his neck. It was easy to get him out of the remainders of his undershirt at that point.

The physical inspection was...disheartening. A large area of bruising was visible over the area in question, and she watched in a sort of fascination as the section rose and fell paradoxically with his breathing...flail chest. "I need those images, STAT." Iria called out most emphatically. She placed him on supplemental oxygen and began pulling out the equipment needed to place a chest tube. No breath sounds, flail chest, hypoxia...now definitely tachycardic...concerns for tension pneumothorax were mounting. She raised the head of the bed up and helped Whitford lean back.

"Sir...I am going to place a chest tube. You are becoming unstable. This is a stopgap, but it hopefully help alleviate some of your symptoms."

Lying back, Whitford, pale and sweating, nodded his understanding. He'd seen this performed - in dramas of course - so he knew what was about to happen. Breathing was becoming harder, and Whitford could feel the lack of oxygen affecting him. Though he knew he was in good hands, he unconsciously started clutching and clawing at his bruised side.

Iria raised a brow in ire as Whitford's filthy hands on the future operative site was going to make decontamination that much harder. Not thinking, she reached out to remove his hand from his injury, but when she gripped it a most curious sensation coursed up her body to the base of her skull. It felt mildly electrical.

She had forgotten, in the moment, just how vibrantly open--and alien--human minds were. However, intensity aside, Iria ignored the strange sensation and instead projected calmness and determination through their brief connection before she released his hand to the side of his body. Perhaps that would say what words could not.

"I will need to clean your skin where the injury is, commander. Please do not touch the area again. Now once the skin is cleansed I will numb the area, make a small incision which I will make larger so that a tube can be threaded through the opening and attached to low, continuous suction to reinflate the lungs."

The prepwork for the tube placement went rather quickly. One learned to perform these procedures by rote, setting up everything in the correct order, applying the antiseptics onto right side of Whitford's chest, cleansing her hands, using the hypospray to numb the area, donning the sterile garments, the incision between fourth and fifth ribs, and using a sterile-gloved finger (as it was a far more sensitive tool than the curved hemostats favored by some) to push through the intercostal muscles until she felt the pop and entered the void where his lungs inhabited.

"As I have heard many times said at this juncture...and now for the moment of truth." Iria slowly withdrew her gloved finger and readied the tube with her dominant hand. Air was one thing, but blood...that would mean another. Her finger pulled away and bright crimson sprayed from the variance in pressure. She quickly inserted the tube into the opening her finger just vacated and moved the chest tube into position. Blood began to pool down the tube. Hemothorax. Whitford was bleeding internally.

"Get the trauma blood, now. Prep for mass transfusion." Iria called out in an authoritative tone, and the feel inside sickbay shifted. She turned her attention back to Whitford's face. Her hands kept moving as the next steps involved suturing the tubing into place and dressing the site. "Sir, you are bleeding into your chest cavity. Most likely it is from your multiple broken ribs, but I will not know until I get inside your chest."

Nodding his understanding, Whitford felt strangely calm after Iria's naked touch earlier. There had been a whisper of ... something, somewhere at the back of his mind. Ineffable, he had been unable to grasp at it before Iria had let go of him. Not being able to feel the gloved finger, and then the tube following, he could feel a strange sensation of diminishing pressure in his rib cage. Fascinating he observed, almost dispassionately.

"Prepare for rapid sequence intubation." Iria called out after receiving the 'go-ahead from Whitford. The strange feeling in the back of her head remained - like a grain of sand under foot in a shoe. It bore further consideration but there was no time for such contemplation.

"I want 30 mg of etomidate followed by 100 mg succs." Her attention again was focused on Saul Whitford's eyes. "Sir, We are going to administer a sedative followed by a paralytic. I will place a breathing tube in your throat to aid your breathing. Then I will perform a thoracotomy to stop the bleeding into your chest."

Feeling faint, Whitford managed a wan nod, going grey in the face, and feeling faint. Managing to give the Vulcan a thumbs up, he said, 'you do what you need, Doc. I trust you.'

She nodded to the nurse who administered the one drug and waited for his eyes to close. Once that occurred the second drug was administered and she picked up a laryngoscope and positioned herself at the head of the biobed and opened his jaw and inserted the scope. "Visualizing chords; passing bougie now...we are in." It was an easy intubation. Whitford's anatomy was ideal. Iria inflated the cuff on the end of the ET tube and hooked it up to the ambu bag and gave a breath - the ETCO2 sensor changed color on the 'exhale' indicating proper placement. Satisfied, she hooked him to the ventilator and then set to work...

---

(Time Skip)

All in all, it wasn't a difficult surgical procedure. A 'simple' thoracotomy into the right side of Whitford's chest revealed several intercostal arteries were severed when he broke his ribs. They were quickly repaired and his chest was closed. barring any unforeseen complications, the XO would survive this particular round.

The now-closed incision that bordered the line of his right pectoral muscle had been meticulously sutured and a transparent dressing was placed. The surgical field was taken down and the sedatives were turned off to allow return to consciousness. He currently rested silently on the biobed; chest tube still in place but now the output was quite minimal. She would allow him to awaken on his own...and yet, she had rather illogically managed to busy herself with tasks that could wait in order to remain nearby.

As he woke, Whitford felt a dull throbbing pain in his side, and suddenly realised there was a tube in his mouth. Heart beginning to pound, he began clawing at it to try and get it out so he could speak and breath. A bit of panic began creeping in as he grasped at the tube, not sure what it was doing down his throat.

"Commander, NO." Iria responded emphatically while her hands darted forward, grabbing both of his hands to prevent him from pulling the tube out which would cause damage. "You have a breathing tube in your throat - I will remove it now - please release your grip from the tube."

Hearing her voice, and feeling her hands grab his, Whitford felt a calming sensation washing over him, whether something new, or a lingering effect from her touch before he went under, he couldn't tell. Relaxing his grip on the tube, he forced himself to try and breath normally and bring his heart rate down. Swiveling his eyes he looked to her for the next step.

Iria looked down at him, and nodded once with relief that he was able to not give into the rising panic he had been experiencing. Once his hands released from the ET tube, Iria's hands reached in and performed the necessary steps to deflate the balloon at the end of the tubing and quickly pulling it out of his mouth.

"Commander. I apologize for your discomforting awakening. You metabolized the anesthesia faster than I had calculated for." Iria studied his face with an assessing gaze. He did not currently appear to be in any distress and his color was appropriate. "How do you feel?"

'Terrible,' Whitford smiled weakly, throat dry and tongue thick after the anesthesia. He took a few deep experimental breaths, suddenly aware he was naked from the waist up. 'But at least I can breathe now. I don't know if you were aware, but oxygen is kind of important to humans,' he winked. Then added sincerely, 'thank you, Doctor.' He could feel the soreness in his throat where the tube had been. 'I doubt if you hadn't acted so quickly I'd be talking to you know.'

Letting out a breath she was unaware she had been holding, Iria quickly 'composed' herself after such an overt--for a Vulcan--display of relief upon hearing Whitford's voice again. Of course, he would begin in an inexplicably human manner. She surmised that his rather ludicrous statement regarding his species' need for oxygen was meant as an inane comment of some sort given his single-eyed blink. He then quickly followed conveying gratitude...their unique style of verbal and non-verbal communication was fascinating.

"You are quite fortunate, commander. Had you delayed much longer I would have been unable to save your life." Iria turned and stepped away from Whitford, making it appear as if she had chided him and walked off in a Vulcan version of a 'huff,' but that wasn't the case. She returned after a moment with a container of iced-water, a human delicacy given how often they drank it in such a manner, and carefully held the straw up to his mouth. "You have lost a lot of blood. You will be thirsty. Please try to only take a few swallows at a time for now."

Whitford resisted another joke. It was a defense mechanism for him, when things got uncomfortable or when he had to confront a particularly complex emotional response. For a moment, he thought back to her calming touch before he went under, and wondered. He took a few small sips of water. 'That's really good,' he said appreciatively. 'You said something about internal bleeding?'

"Yes. Your broken ribs punctured your lung, and a number of small arteries that run along those bones were severed. The right side of your chest was filling with blood."

'Sounds pretty gnarly,' Whitford replied, feeling the fatigue and the dull ache in his side that the day had brought him. 'I suppose I should learn that hard consoles and soft human bodies don't mix.' He looked around Sickbay, noting the still buzzing space around him. 'How long was I out?'

"Six hours and thirty-seven minutes." Iria answered. "Which was longer than average, but I needed..." Her voice trailed off. Why had she been so overly thorough - checking and rechecking her sutures as if she was an untried resident just being given the surgical helm for the first time? Of course, she hadn't wanted the XO to perish, but she could sense there was more behind it...there had just been no time to examine the events surrounding him up onto this point.
"I needed to ensure that the closures were holding. The output in your chest tube has dropped off precipitously since the surgical repair...that is a good thing."

Vulcans were such an inscrutable people, Whitford thought, noting the trailing off midway through the sentence. Putting it down to the evident fatigue that working for six hours on a man's chest cavity would cause to anyone, even a Vulcan, he opted to say nothing. 'I'm very grateful that you were so thorough in your work,' he replied sincerely. Flashing another weak smile, he said, 'when I'm fully up, and fully clothed,' he indicated his torso, 'you must allow me to thank you properly.'

"Oh." She hadn't even considered how he would react to awakening unclothed. It had simply been a logical act to leave his chest exposed so the surgical site could be assessed immediately without the added layers of fabric impeding visualization. Nonetheless, it was important to attend to personal comfort as long as it did not interfere with any interventions. "Exposing your body was a practical consideration sir; I will provide you with a surgical gown now...and you are not required to thank me. I come to serve, Commander Whitford, although that is not to say I would not welcome the opportunity to engage with you outside of a medical emergency."

Her initial words were said in an automatic way. Humans expressed thankfulness far more often than her own people. At first she thought it was unnecessarily excessive but after living and working with them in the IME, she found the effusive thankfulness to be more...endearing than anything else. Besides, Iria had saved Whitford's life. The cause was sufficient.

'Acknowledgement of good work is required,' Whitford responded simply, and nodded, 'I'd welcome the opportunity to engage with you in a less formal setting as well.' He wondered at the odd construction of his sentence there, and thought back to the touch they had shared earlier, pondering whether or not there had been some sort of transference between the two of them.

Iria tilted her head slightly and her stoic expression softened infinitesimally. His reciprocation thrilled--wait, what? She blinked a few times as if to clear her vision, but the sensation did not dissipate, and she forced herself to take a small step away from the XO's biobed, noting that her hand had--without her knowledge--found its way to within centimeters of his as it rested atop the blanket draped at his waist.

"I should allow you time to rest, Commander." Her mouth opened and closed but no further words came forth.

Smiling, Whitford nodded his understanding, 'I'm sure you have other patients to attend to.' Her behavioural cues were far too subtle for him to pick up on, but for a moment he fancied that she lingered before deciding to move away. Briefly, he wished that she would stay, but stoically pushed the feeling aside, determined not to sink into self-pity despite his injury.

"I will return shortly. If you require anything there is a small call bell to the side of you that you can engage..." Iria chastised herself for continuing to find a reason to remain near him. With far more effort than it should have taken Iria retreated from the biobed and found herself walking blindly towards her small office. She took a seat behind her desk and stared out, unblinking, and considered the most unusual exchange with the XO...

[OFF]


----

Major Iria
Chief Medical Officer
Unicorn NX-151

&

Commander Saul Whitford
Executive and Chief Armoury Officer
Unicorn NX-151

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