15. MEDICAL TRIAGE dundun medical triage song

[dogbane]

CHARACTERS: Anyone/OPEN
LOCATION: Triage Tree, eventually appropriate shelter
WARNINGS: Up to R for injury/gore
SUMMARY: Wound care, pain management, crazy crewmember restraint, beside-manner/other excuses for CR, and all manner of survival/technological/architectural/medical MacGuyvering.
NOTES: I have the permission of a few people to namedrop, and will likely edit to add more. But please start your own threads-- do anything you think could be in the scope of this log! I may NPC some psychotic crewmember attacks.



Days 1-5

Rain comes down in hard, cold needles, every now and again. In between, the sunshine is oppressively fierce.

The first iteration of the triage tent is crude. Overlapping medical tarps have been thrown up on the branches of the nearest tree to create a roof that leaks irregularly at the corners. For walls, other sheets have been fastened over crude grids of tree branches, stopping the worst of the wind. It's not great work, but Kate, William, and the other well-meaning amateurs who start it are nearly always on-hand to repair what the weather peels away. Others are in and out, running supplies, and carrying their wounded.

Within, there's enough space to contain twelve gurneys comfortably; twenty uncomfortably. Neither the tiny wheels and electrical hover functions are suitable to the environment, where mud sinks and outlets are nowhere. The personnel are left to wedge the legs between tree roots or over rocks, dead branches. It smells perpetually of mud; a pleasant backdrop for the crewmembers screaming or passed out in their restraints, and the dispirited mix of lucid natives and varyingly fantastical interdimensional travelers that pass through for treatment. Look anywhere, and someone will try and help you get to the triage center. Natasi appears like an erratic ghost, with more damaged passengers or concussed crewmembers over her shoulder. Every lunatic brought in for restraint is one less to attack the shabby tent in a fit of paranoid pique. It's a little totalitarian, but safer than nothing.

But Leo and Tadashi pull apart a few unformatted prosthesis for their power converters and rig some stuttering lights powered by kinetic energy. There's a lever to feed it, rather than a human hamsterwheel.

Some of the old Medbay staff remember enough to help, and volunteers are welcome. Emergency surgery, bandaging, antibiotics, cleaning, cauterization and medical prescription. The plasma is doled out rather than budgeted, for now; they don't know how long the Tranquility will keep supplies refrigerated for, or what will be stolen without the nanites to secure them.

Days 6+

No doubt, other construction and shelter projects are going on elsewhere-- but the medical triage tent hasn't been forgotten. Ailanne, England, and the still-mysterious man formerly-from-level-x update the shelter to something far more hospitable. In a few days, there's a broad, low tent with a peaked roof. Water only gets in sideways, at about knee level, and the wooden frame holds up under the friendly mauling of the wind. The gurneys now rest on stable footing of compressed layers of rushes, beaten scrap metal, and slightly drier ground, accompanied by a few beds that were unbolted and hoisted up out of the ship.

The lighting is better, feeding off wind and into a battery; they're even working on a turbine-turned fan for ventilation. They've gotten enough handheld scanners out of the gut of the Tranquility that everyone who wants can get a technologically-assisted once-over, but the devices are powered off between uses, for conservation. They're keeping notes on paper-- mostly the dangerous medications, surgeries, contaminants, IVs and other single-use items... laundry. What the fuck are they going to do about laundry. Inevitably, the crewmembers who remain of questionably lucid disposition are observed with skepticism and intrigue, but all bulky equipment like MRIs are still nailed to the ship. Research there is going to be creative.

More and more Medbay personnel are getting memories back. Clarke is on deck now, too. Granny Weatherwax and Dr. McCoy-- or "Bones" as the case may be-- have long since been in the thick of it.

As the first week draws to a close, the worst of the medical crises are over-- leaving them with the slower deaths that challenge survival on this planet. No doubt, other minds are on that, too.