Meatball Medicine

Posted on Fri Jan 17th, 2025 @ 3:47pm by Lieutenant Commander Alexander Coleman & Colonel Josiah McEntyre & Major Iria & Lieutenant JG Amelia Johansen

2,464 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: The Campaign for Coridan
Location: Unicorn NX-151
Timeline: Coridan Campaign

"Incoming Transport....Incoming Transport"

The alarms for the shuttlebay squealed. More incoming shuttlepods and dropships with wounded aboard. It was a mess. Medics and Corpsmen scurrying about as loading ramps drop and more medics disembark with stretchers of wounded MACOs, Vulcan Territorial Army and Andorian Guardsmen.

Colonel Josiah McEntyre had used the chance to get back to Unicorn after onboarding a new MACO captain and hearing of the ambush on his men at the Sensor Relay. This batch of wounded though was from Field Marshal th’Groffe's Andorian Guard and MACOs of the Combined 1st and 4th MACO MEUs under Lieutenant General Kauri Te Wiata.

Josiah through the crowded bay, spotted his Chief Medical Officer amongst the chaos.

Coleman was going over scans of the various wounded and trying to give out orders. His uniform was a mess of various shades of blood, but it was the cost of doing war, unfortunately. Coleman looked up and saw Colonel McEntyre walking towards him and Coleman got up to his feet, saying, "How can I help you, sir. You're not hurt, are you?"

"No more than usual. I got word on my way up that we're getting fresh medical personnel rotated in. Starfleet saw fit to get you some proper help."

Josiah spoke as he drops his pack onto the ground.

"Hope we haven't kept you too busy up here doc?"

"When you work in the medical profession, you tend to stay a bit busy with one thing or another. Just depends on what it is, you know?" Coleman replied as he watched them send off with another soldier for recovery.

Amelia only gave a quick sideways glance to the Colonel. She typically ran triage when they had a big influx of wounded, and didn't stop rushing around until the most serious cases were with Dr. Coleman, and the rest in order well enough for her to leave it to the charge nurse while she took the next in line.

Chaos. Iria's first impression of Unicorn was outright chaos. She hustled herself--and her gear--out onto the deck and found herself dropped into a mass casualty event. Her head pivoted in a methodical manner scanning the injured and looking for Unicorn personnel who remotely looked like they knew what was going on and...there.

She strode over to the two human males, one wearing navy blue, and the other in a tri-colored pattern that she had learned was called 'camouflage.' Apparently human vision found these digitized patterns and colors difficult to discern in surroundings of similar tones. Her eyes didn't read the patterns in the same manner. The man in the grey fabric stood out quite clearly. She stopped in front of them and quickly, yet carefully dropped her gear and stood at attention.

"Colonel...McEntyre, I presume. I am Major Iria. I believe you are in need of my services." She tilted her head towards the officer wearing the navy jumpsuit--splashed with dark maroon, presumably blood--with the teal piping and counted out the pips. There was only one lieutenant commander in the sciences division. Lieutenant Commander Alexander Coleman...her superior officer, if her postulation proved correct.

"I am a trauma surgeon. I come to serve."

"Major, Welcome. I'm Josiah McEntyre, this is Dr. Alexander Coleman, our Chief of Medicine. We're certainly glad you're here." Josiah turns to greet the newest member of the medical staff.

"I was grateful that the I.M.E and Admiral Ve'lak were able to effect your transfer here. We've been taking a hell of a beating, so plenty of work to go around for the Medical Corps."

"Yeah, we're glad to have the help. Between Amelia and myself, it's been a bit harder to help keep up with all of the trauma patients we've had down here. So, to have a trauma surgeon would be amazing!" Coleman offered up, glad to have another wonderful addition to the team.

"Then I'll leave you all to your work. I have to confer with Command Authority. Would y'all excuse me." The Colonel nods to the group, picking his pack up once more and weaving through the crowds to the turbolifts.

"Dr. Coleman, sending this one for immediate surgery," Dr. Johansen called out. "Human female, ballistic injury to the abdomen, also bleeders in the anterior right thigh, and apparent shrapnel in the shoulder. She's lost a lot of blood, and pressure is dropping!"

Iria didn't even blink as she switched gears. "Ensure there are two large bore access lines in that crewman; get MTP or at bare minimum crystalloid fluids running wide open. I want norepinephrine on board now - it might clamp down some of the bleeding while supporting cardiac output and improve pressures - titrate until MAP of 60 is obtained. I will presume we do not have advance scanning equipment to adequately stage her injuries." She recalled the briefing - this was not going to be like Starfleet Medical, or the Vulcan Medical Institute...what was the term used...ah yes, meatball surgery.

She dropped her seabags on the ground and tore into one of them with a ferocity that belied that absolutely serene expression on her face. Digging about for a moment, she pulled out a large strap looking device - a trauma tourniquet. She rushed over and crouched down to slide the strap underneath the crewman's leg which was spurting blood in time with the beat of her heart, even with the first tourniquet still in place. She moved it above the initial tourniquet and slotted the material into the buckle , pulled the strap back tightly against itself underneath the limb ensuring it was tight. Then, grabbing at the small connected rod, Iria began turning it until the bleeding ceased. The crewman moaned. "It is not my intention to cause you pain but we must stop the bleeding or you will perish." Looking up to the rest of the officers, her hands covered in crimson, the Vulcan woman stood. "This is a most efficient introduction to a new assignment. I will accompany this patient to surgery...do we have adequate staff to man anesthesia and equipment?"

Coleman had started on another crewmen that had been injured when he heard his name being called upon. Once he was done working on closing a massive wound to the crewman he was working on, Coleman turned to see that Major Iria had already begun working on a patient that appeared to have been bleeding out. She had what appeared to be a metal rod in the crewman and working on them.

Coleman ran over and switched out his gloves en route to the patient that Major Iria was working on. He said, "Tell me what you need and I'll hand it over to you."

"We will need to get the patient anesthetized, and airway secured. Then, I will perform an exploratory laparotomy to determine abdominal damage. The shoulder injury will also need looking at but as it's not actively hemorrhaging, that's lower on the list of priorities..." She looked down to the leg wound that was still oozing but at least was no longer pumping out blood. "The leg too...odds are survival are questionable." Switching gears, Iria looked over to the two other medical providers. "What others need surgical intervention?"

"I've got a few people that need surgery, but they're not in life or death situations at the moment. This guy look like he took a step right on a Romulan mine or something. Do we have time to get him into an operating theater or are we doing this down here?" Coleman asked, taking a moment to hand over some equipment to Major Iria.

She heard Coleman's inquiry and looked again to the patient's condition. Vitals were still lowering, even with the fluid bolus and initiation of pressors. Performing surgery here, was less than ideal, but she postulated that the crewman wouldn't make it to surgery if they were to adhere to 'proper' procedures. It was not ideal. She nodded once, her decision made. "It does not appear that we have the luxury of time. Would either of you care to assist in an emergency exploratory laparotomy and arterial repair?"

"I'd love to help out, even if it has been quite some time since I've performed one," Coleman responded.

Amelia nodded, "I'll keep up with triage, and take the next urgent case," she said briskly before rushing off.

"The last time that I performed one of these was back during my time in medical school, so it'd be good to brush up. Even if it's in the field," Coleman continued as he pointed to a crewman that was running around, handing out medical equipment. As Coleman pointed to him, he said, "We're going to need everything for an exploratory laparotomy and arterial repair on the double!"

T'Ria dipped her head in a version of a nod. "Good. I will require assistance. That you have some, if remote, experience regarding this procedure is preferable. I expect that you will not have to be told what to do...for the most part?" She watched as the crewman began bringing over equipment necessary. "This is a less than ideal locale to perform this. I have concerns regarding the potential of post-operative infection. However, we do not have the luxury of awaiting a properly appointed OR." She reached down into one of the crates the crewman brought and pulled out caps and masks and donned a set for herself. T'Ria then reached down to her sleeves and began rolling them up to her elbows and grabbed a sanitizer kit and began scrubbing her hands and forearms.

The soldier was groaning in pain and began coughing and choking. A medic came up with a handful of supplies including an oxygen mask. "It's okay, Beth, just hang on. The doctors are here right now, they got you." The medic tried to comfort the wounded patient.

Coleman grabbed some more of the sanitizer and began scrubbing his own hands and arms as quickly as he could as he replied to T'Ria. He said, "The only direction that I'll need is when you need help with something. I just don't want to bump into each other when seconds and moments truly matter for saving a patient's life."

As ready as they were going to get in this far less than ideal situation, T'Ria got to work. Once the patient was suitably anesthetized, she used the laser scalpel, she precisely cut into her patient's abdomen, and began pointing out things for Coleman to cauterize as she moved through the layers into the cavity that housed her abdominal organs. A piece of shrapnel was lodged near the spine, and it had nicked the aorta - which appeared to be the source of bleeding. "I need you to get a hemostat and clamp the aorta above the shrapnel, Dr. Coleman. Then I will extract it and repair the damage. Then we can move onto the leg."

Looking into the bag of various tools, Coleman found the hemostat and leaned over to clamp the aorta before the patient started bleeding out. It was slightly above the debris that had nicked the aorta and once it had stopped the bleeding, Coleman said, "Looks like we are closed off and ready for us to get the debris out of the patient. If you want to start removing the debris from the patient, I can start repairing the damage right behind you. Unless you need something else from me?"

"Logical. Please proceed." T'Ria responded on a cool, clipped manner that was all business. She began the process of pulling out the shards of shrapnel while observing quite closely for any other signs of oozing that would indicate the patient would continue to bleed. Thus far it was looking promising. It wasn't an eloquent surgery, to be sure, but the crewman's odds of survival was improving with every suture.

Coleman followed behind T'Ria with every movement and made sure that nothing bad would happen to the patient and helping to make sure that the sutures were put into place with care. He helped to make sure that all the debris was taken out as well, making sure that nothing was left behind to cause any sort of infection. While it wasn't a pretty picture, the crewman would survive to live another day.

She tilted her head, inspecting their joint work and found that it was satisfactory in the moment. The damage had been mitigated; the patient currently stabilized. There might be more to do but this was a future problem. "I am satisfied with our surgical intervention. I propose closure and allow the patient time to recover."

"Do you have something to give him after he's closed up, so that he doesn't get any post surgical infections?" Coleman asked as he got out everything that they would need to close the patient up. He handed some of it over to Iria as he waited to see if she had the stuff for sterilization.

"Of course. They will need intravenous antibiotics for now - and close monitoring for infection." She took some of the pieces of shrapnel that Coleman offered her and looked down at it. "The patient will also require a booster for tetanus given the metal fragmentation."

"You wouldn't happen to have a tetanus booster in your kit, would you Doctor?" Coleman asked as he started to go through his own and realized that he hadn't packed for such an occasion. While shrapnel was on the list of something that might've happened, it never occurred to Coleman that tetanus would still be something that he would still need to medicate for.

"I do. Normally it would not be necessary; but with as much metallic shrapnel in this patient's abdominal cavity, it would be prudent to administer a booster." T'Ria replied. "It is in the other left compartment; the contents are alphabetized."

Coleman grabbed it out of the compartment and administered it to the patient. He put it back where he found it and said to Major Iria, "I think he should be good for now. Sleep would be good for him. Think we're ready to get out of here?"

T'Ria glanced up and nodded as she finished up her work on the patient. "He certainly has much better odds of survival since our intervention. What is next, Commander?"

Alexander got up from where they were as they were taking away the man as Alexander looked around for a moment. He looked back at Iria and said, "I guess we find something for ourselves. I'm sure there are plenty more for us to do."

======

A Post By:

Major T'Ria
ACMO
Unicorn NX-151

&

Lieutenant Commander Alexander Coleman
Chief Medical Officer
Unicorn, NX-151

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