Minor Medical Mishap

Posted on Mon May 13th, 2024 @ 11:30pm by Commander Victor Delling MD & Petty Officer 2nd Class Mai Ichihara

635 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Junichi Koyama
Location: Sickbay

The quiet day in sickbay was interrupted by the door opening and a first aid officer from engineering coming in with a patient, one wincing with an obvious burn on his arm.

“Doctor Delling!” called out Nurse Mai Ichihara. She adjusted her eyepiece and helped the patient to a biobed and started scanning with a tricorder.

The tone brought him out of his office, where he had been just reading reports. "What have we got?"

“Human male, looks like second degree plasma burns,” Mai explained. She passed the Doctor the tricorder and started cutting the sleeve off the uniform.

“He was replacing a relay when it discharged,” the first aid engineer explained. “We thought it was safe to handle.”

"Clearly not." Victor murmered, his lips tightening in thought. "Aside from extinguishing the fire, what care did you provide?". He asked the First aid officer, watching Ichihara cut away the fabric.

"We used a spray lidocaine from the first aid kit once the plasma flame was extinguished," the engineer answered. "And gave 5cc bicaridine by neck hypo for the pain."

"The funny thing about burns, is that they don't stop burning when we extinguish the flames. And tissue damage progresses at the cellular level, even when we don't see it continuing."

"Yes, Doctor," Mai said as she finished exposing the wound. It looked bad. She turned to the first aid officer. "We'll take it from here."

There was the telltale flicker of an ongoing reaction in the arm, and while bicaridine was good, it wouldn't last much longer. Victor found and pressed a small patch to the man's neck, and activated it with a wave of his scanner.
"So first, we must extinguish the cellular plasmic reaction, before we can do any debridement and healing of the burned tissue. What do you suggest Nurse Ichihara?"

"Local application of kelotane to stop the reaction," Mai suggested. "Possible re-application during debridement if we find more localized reactions."

He nodded to her to begin, and himself prepared another analgesic for the man.

The nurse did as instructed. The kelotane was dispensed from the pharmaceutical replicator in the form of a small aerosol can, with a small sterile nozzle capable of getting very close to the injured flesh. As she administered it, it came out as a fine foam, coating the injury and stopping any plasma reaction instantly while applying a comforting cooling feeling.

Between that and the block his pain should be well managed. Not like ancient times where burns were scraped and peeled every day in a technique known as debriding. The most hightech burn units used collagenase and other enzymatic debriders to eat the dead tissue and every day scrape it away to promote healing.

It took some time, but between Doctor Delling and Nurse Ichihara, the burn was stopped, the wound cleaned, and the hi-tech debridement medication applied. The patient would heal, and probably not lose any functionality in his arm.

After making sure the patient was comfortable and able to sleep, Mai stepped back and let out a sigh. "Well handled, Doctor."

"You as well Mai. You know you are allowed to call me Victor, aye?"

She gave him a small smile. "Victor, then. How do you think his recovery will go?"

"Well enough, though I expect that he might have some psychological issues as he heals and goes back to work. Things exploding in one's face tend to cause psychological trauma. Remind me in the morning to bring Dr. Scott in on this case."

"Will do," Mai said, nodding. It had been tricky, but they had done a good job. A badly injured Starfleet Officer would not die today. And that made it a good day.


END

Dr Victor Delling
Chief medical officer
USS myogi

Petty Officer 2nd Class Mai Ichihara
Nurse, USS Myogi

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