Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Leah Hart (Nurse Practitioner/Counseling) in Sunrises on Risa

Posted by Lieutenant Kreed (Chief Medical Officer) in Sunrises on Risa

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Leah Hart (Nurse Practitioner/Counseling) in Sunrises on Risa
Posted by… suppressed (14) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Reems’ frown deepened. “I have no idea myself, but I promise you I’ll look in to it. I will say, and I’m not trying to make excuses, but we are a much smaller facility and we don’t have the resources of one of the full trauma centres in the cities do. But I will investigate,” she said in earnest.

“Anything else you need in the meantime?”

Downstairs in the ICU, the Sentinel’s med staff went about their orders, with Syliva leading the very careful examination of their coworker. It was unfortunate that it was so much later, and that Leah had fallen into the water. It made certain aspects of this trickier. McMahon was recording everything they did and adding it to the new copy of Leah’s admission file. The ward staff seemed to have at least gotten the message that their cooperation was in everyone’s best interest and they were not interfering and making sure the trio had the resources they needed, though for the moment Kham stood as a sentinel at the door to Leah’s room until security arrived.

~Leah Hart, NP

The monitors suddenly beeped urgently. Hunter read the screen and was on the move to Leah just as she started to have a clonic seizure. “Kham, we need you!” Sylvia said. “Call one of the nurses too.”

“You two, get her on her side and protect her airway,” Hunter told Sol and Kham. “I need a moment to work out our drug options.” The seizure wasn’t necessarily dangerous, but it was the third one since Leah’s surgery. Regardless of the risks, they needed to get the psilocin out of her system to reduce the more serious risk the seizures posed. They had no way to know if it was the hallucinogen and or the concussion, but either way, her nervous system ultimately needed less input.

One of the nurses hurried in. “What do you need?” she said, highly focused as she watched their patient seize. Sylvia held up a finger.

The challenge was that the standard seizure treatments were both stimulants and neither was ideal for Leah’s ‘high’. Ideally, they’d use a depressant. However, tricordrazine was also good for reversing hallucinogens and the alternative Sylvia had mentioned earlier wouldn’t work fast enough. Unfortunately it was also a stimulant. It was a balancing act: they could treat the seizure and the psilocin but not actively at the same time. Sylvia blew out a breath and grabbed a padd, calculating dosages of both drugs that factored in Leah’s higher metabolism.

She moved back over where Leah was still seizing. “Time?”

“Two plus,” McMahon said, watching the time on the screen.

Sylvia felt more confident that the seizure needed treatment, but they still had time. Not a lot, but some. “Okay, we need 10 ccs of impedrizine, now. Then we’ll follow up shortly after with 1.5 cc of tricordrazine.”

The nurse moved over to the secure med storage and used her access, prepped the hypos and handed the first to Hunter.

“What about her heart given everything?” Sol said.

Hunter nodded. “I know,” she said, injecting the impedrizine into Leah. It would kill the effects of the psilocin immediately. She counted to ten. “Time?”

“Coming on three minutes.”

Sylvia blew out a breath. She held out her hand and the nurse set the hypo with the tricordrazine. Hunter checked the dosage (this one was particularly potent) and then administered the drug. Within a few seconds, Leah stopped shaking and they sighed a collective breath as her vitals stabilized.

“We’ll keep a really close eye on her cardiac function and I suspect she’ll wake up anytime now,” Sylvia said, though she was in no hurry to rush the woman to consciousness. “Kham, we’re good for the moment. You can go back to waiting at the door for security.”

Kham rested a hand on Hart’s head for a moment and focused on their new friend. ” You be good, you hear?” she said softly, before moving back into the hall so security would know where to find them.

Sylvia took up a spot on the other side of Leah and finished the last bit of the exam. So far, nothing concerning as far as unnoted injuries but there was one detail that may or may not be important for Leah herself later. There were just too many variable here that made unravelling this situation clearly so much more difficult.

~Leah Hart, NP

It was in the midst of all that chaos that Lt Tracy Morgan had arrived. She’d only been told there was an issue and a crew member was unconscious in the hospital. That was all Tracy needed to be on the war path. She recognized most everyone, she made a point of it. She’d been with the Sentinel since she had been recommissioned. When Kham came to the door she was standing, back to the door, watching the corridor. She glanced over, “What do you need?” she asked kindly.

Morgan

Relief swept over Leah’s face and then braced herself with a steadying breath. “Lieutenant Hart has had an accident and ended up in the hospital with a head injury that required surgery. The accident occurred while on a hallucinogenic drug. As best we can, the hospital staff assumed that it was some fun gone bad, but the amount still in her system suggests it was a really high dose, which would have been potentially dangerous given her metabolism and we question whether Leah would have done that intentionally. Dr. Kreed doesn’t want to assume so and thus need someone to investigate. The local constabulary were not notified when she came in as an unknown patient, but I think someone might know now and I assume someone would come by anytime now.” Not that Kham was certain about that either.

~Leah & Co.

In all the things Morgan had seen Hart do since she came aboard, over indulging in recreational drugs was not one of them. “If that is the case, and Lt. Kreed is not one to exaggerate, then we need to leave someone here. I will contact Lt. Anders to send an investigative team down, and I will stay to guard her. I will need written statements from all of you. The last time you saw her, who she was with, what she was doing, when you noticed her missing, as well as your Medical evaluations. I know you all are caring for her, but if you could start on those while the memories are still fresh.”

[O] Morgan to Anders. We need an investigative team here at the hospital on Risa. Lt. Hart was assaulted.[C]

Cpt. Asam, CO

Bump

“Potentially, Lieutenant… potentially.” the Saurian doctor said from the doorway. “We are simply not dismissing the possibility.” He walked up to the bed and looked at Hart. The horizontal lids blinked, followed by the vertical. Shifting his vision through the light spectrum, he saw the heat coming off of her as she cooled down from the previous episode, and saw the cold mark of the hypo. He turned his head and looked at Kham. “Another seizure?” he asked flatly.

Kreed, CMO

Kham nodded but Sylvia answered. “Three minute duration. Not terrible, but not ideal. Given it was her third seizure, I weighed the risks and it no longer seemed prudent to let the psilocin dissipate on its own, especially if it was potentially causing the seizures. Which we still don’t know. But I gave her impedrezine to kick the psilocin out of her system, gave it a short time before I gave her tricordrazine for the seizure. So, given the stimulants, she’ll likely wake up soon. But we do need to monitor her heart function carefully. I had to give her a fairly large dose because of her metabolism.”

Kreed nodded once in approval.

”=^= On my way Captain,” Marcus replied. Mere minutes later, the Security Chief - along with two of his junior officers, armed with phaser pistols materialised in the centre of the area surrounding the body, “How long since the assault took place?” Marcus asked, all business.

-Lieutenant Junior Grade Marcus Anders: Chief of Security-

Kreed took a breath and said “We don’t know there was an assault, Lieutenant. But the circumstances surrounding Lieutenant Hart’s injury do need to be investigated in order to eliminate that possibility.”

Kreed, CMO

One of the ICU nurses came over, looking livid. “Excuse me, you cannot bring weapons in here. This is a hospital!”

Kreed looked at her and said “Our apologies, Nurse. It is, but Star Fleet Security Officers on duty are required to be armed. We can discuss the conflicting policies after we have ensured Lieutenant Hart is stable.”

It was about time that one of the local constables arrived on the ward and approached the group, studying the various dynamics at play. The Risian woman took everyone in in turn. “I’m Constable Tai Maliia. I’ve gotten a brief version of the situation. The security officers can stay but weapons must remain unarmed and holstered at all times. Now, Let’s see if we can figure this all out, shall we?”

Kham handed the constable a PADD. “That’s everything we can collectively remember from last night and this morning. The hotel can confirm times of our coming and going.”

~Leah Hart, NP

Kreed didn’t acknowledge the Constable at all, he simply began running specific scans to either eliminate or confirm the possibility Lt. Hart had been assaulted. The thought made him grind his teeth together, although he remained nonplussed to anyone looking at him.

Kreed, CMO

Sylvia watched Kreed for a moment before tapping the padd on which she was gathering the full case history. “I went through the ER report and it matches what I’ve found so far. There’s no obvious signs of injury other than the ones she sustained from her fall. That includes some contusions and abrasions along her side when she hit the patio lounger and then the deck,” Hunter said. “I’ve seen no other signs of injury that they might have missed due to being focused on her more obvious and serious injuries.”

His scans would show much the same. Other than the increased heart rate from the medications she had just been given and the need to check her neurological status once she woke up, Leah seemed okay. But there was one detail he would note in one of the scans that Dr. Hunter also had, which she showed him on the padd: the presence of seminal fluid with DNA corresponding to a male Ardanan. Sylvia knew it still didn’t mean anything but it was something Leah would have to reconcile and contend with once she woke up.

Which given her LOC (Level of consciousness) had been on the rise, it was not a surprised when Leah started to stir. “People coming out of a psilocin high can still have effects lingering in spurts for hours or even days after, so we should keep that in mind as people interact with her,” Sylvia said to Kreed.

Leah murmured and blinked her eyes open but then closed them for a few moments before trying to open them again. “Dios mío… my head. Hurts,” she said, keeping her eyes closed given that everything hurt so bad.

~Leah Hart, NP

Kreed set his scaled hand on hers and said “It’s Kreed. Stay still, Lieutenant. You have had an accident, but you will be fine. You suffered some head trauma, but you are in the hospital. We are with you. I need you to relax though. There will be time for questions when you feel up to it .”

Kreed, CMO

Leah nodded slowly and tried to open her eyes but squinted. Her head was pounding and it made everything in her head echo. Her heart rate was also still a little higher than was ideal.

“Hey, it’s Sylvia,” Hunter said, touching her other arm briefly. “How bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?”

“Eight,” Leah said softly.

“Okay, we can help with that, just hold on.” Slyvia moved over to the cart they still had there from earlier and grabbed an analgesic. She moved back to Leah and administered it. “Morphenolog,” she said and held up two finger to Kreed so he knew how many milligrams she had given. It was a moderate dose and they could have given her more but Slyvia didn’t want to add too much more to her system just now.

As the medication moved through her system quickly, Leah felt the pressure and pounding in her head lessen and she breathed out more easily. “Hospital. Where are we?”

~Leah Hart, NP

Bump

Bump

OOC: I guess I will just move this along then.
IC:
Slyvia rested a hand on Leah’s shoulder. “We’re on Risa still. You had an accident last night and were brought into the local hospital not far from our hotel.”

Just then, Doctor Lairso, the neurosurgeon, knocked on the doorframe and stepped in. “I hear our patient is awake,” he said, any trace of the earlier antagonism having vanished.

Leah tracked the Risian doctor, though her head was still hurting. “And you are?”

“Doctor Lairso. You came into my OR with a serious head injury that required surgery. I will give you all the details but I need to do a neuro check up first. Is that okay?”

Leah nodded but instantly regretted the action. “Yes.”

Lairso approached and Sylvia stepped out of the way, but kept a watchful eye for any signs the Risian might miss.

In many ways, Lairso was glad for the officer’s colleagues being here as they could corroborate any of Hart’s answers. “Can you tell me your full name, age, and place of birth?”

She drew in a slow and deep breath. “Evangeline Leah Hart. 34 yeas old, born in New Aberdeen on Aldebaran Three.”

Lairso smiled. “Good.”

“Evangeline? McMahon said with a grin from his place in the corner. “Really?”

Leah grinned and chuckled, but winced from the pain that shot through her head. “Yeah, why do you think I go by Leah.”

So far so good, Lairso thought. “Can you tell me what you remember from last night. The last things you can remember, in as much detail as you can.”

Leah frowned and took a deep breath. “We, my friends and I”-she gestured to Sylvia and Sol and Kham-“went out to a nightclub to go dancing and stuff. We drank a little and I was on the dance floor dancing with this gorgeous woman”-she broke into a brief smile-“when my friends said they were thinking of going and asked if I wanted to stay or go with them. I indicated I wanted to stay and so I did. The nightclub was close to our hotel so it wasn’t a big deal for me to get back. So, I danced some more and then…” Leah trailed off and frowned. “I don’t know. It’s really fuzzy after that. There was a person…” Leah shook her head. “I don’t remember anything else until waking up just now.”

Kreed stayed silent, but the taloned fingers curled into a fist.

Lairso nodded. “It’s normal to have some memory loss after a head injury, and surgery. It might be temporary, but we won’t know right away.” Then he proceeded to test her eyes ad reflexes and after he was done, nodded to Kreed. Everything was as expected.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “What happened to me?”

She was coherent and asking, so Sylvia crouched at the side of the bed. “Here’s what we know,” she said calmly, and then proceeded to walk her through events as far as they knew them, including the psilocin and seizures.

Hart was wide-eyed her chest started to heave. “I want to go back to the ship, now!” she said forcefully.

Kreed set his hand on her shoulder and pressed gently. “You will. Soon. I promise.”

Hunter rested a hand on her shoulder, making sure she didn’t get up. “Soon, Leah, but not yet. There are some things that have to happen first.”

Leah shook her head and looked away from them, fixing her gaze on the far wall.

Lairso stood and spoke to Kreed. “I’d like her to be monitored awhile longer, and the constable outside said she wants to speak with the lieutenant as soon as she was able. After that, it’s up to you if you feel she should be transferred to your ship.”

~Leah Hart, NP

Kreed nodded and said “Bring the Constable in now.” He looked at Leah and said “Answer what questions you can.”

Kreed, CMO

Leah didn’t really have a choice, now did she? If she wanted to know what happened, she’d have to cooperate. This whole thing was an investigation now. Uggh. She’d been a medical care provider during numerous of them, but never on the other side of it this way.

Having permission now to enter, the constable stepped in wearing a look of concern. She moved slower and gone was the no-nonsense attitude from a few minutes ago. She had a padd with her and took over the stool that Lairso had vacated. Leah watched her attentively, her training and habits taking over. “Hello, Lieutenant Hart, I’m Constable Tai Maliia. I’d like to collect your statement if you’re up for it,” she said gently. “It shouldn’t take too long, and I have the statements from your shipmates. We’ll figure this out together, okay?” Leah nodded. “May I call you Leah?” Leah nodded again and Tai gave her a soft smile. “Okay then, Leah, can you tell me what happened? And I’d like to record this so I can focus on your recollection. Would that be okay?”

“Yes,” Hart said. Closing her eyes for a moment, she gathered herself. When she opened her brown eyes, Leah sighed and repeated the same story to the constable that she had told the neurologist.

“Do you remember the name of the woman you were dancing with?”

She had the stretch her mind to think that clearly but then it came to her. “Alaria. Didn’t get a last name.”

Maliia nodded. “You said things get fuzzy, but sometimes that means we get glimpses. And you said there was a person with you at some point. Was this during or after the dancing?”

“After,” Leah said with more certainty than she expected.

“Any impressions about where you were? Were you still at the night club?”

It was hard to think! But some of the fuzziness was going away as the pain medications really tamped down on the pain. “Umm, I was there awhile longer I think. I sort of remember talking more with Alaria, but then it gets all distorted. But then, later, I was somewhere else.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to let her brain find the info she desperately needed. What she got was more than she expected! Suddenly everything washed over her in a strange haze of colours and sounds. It was like she was spinning.

Her heart rate spiked, triggering an alert. Sylvia was right there. “Leah, what’s happening?”

“Colours, brightness. everything is moving weird,” Hart said, panicking.

Slyvia held up a finger to Kreed and the constable. She knew what was happening. Doctor Hunter took her friend’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Leah, I need you to open your eyes and focus on me. You’re having a flashback from the psilocin. They can happen for hours or days after, even after it’s out of your system. It’ll pass but you need to open your eyes and focus on me.”

Breathing hard, Leah opened her eyes and looked up at her friend in slight terror. But the longer she focused on Hunter the calmer everything got until it began to pass and she breathed more evenly.

Constable Maliia waited till Leah was fully calm again before she continued. “Do you remember taking anything?”

Leah shook her head. “No, I was definitely drinking but I don’t like to drink too much. I don’t like overindulging in public. With friends in the safety of our quarters or something, perhaps, but not with strangers.” But the thing was that she couldn’t entirely rule out that she had taken something and that bothered her right now.

“Okay. Can you recall who else might have been around last night? Any detail at all could be helpful.”

Leah couldn’t come up with anything. Except… “There was someone humming. They weren’t in the room with me, but close by. A man?” She sighed. “I can’t be sure.”

“Actually, we might be able to help fill in that gap,” Sylvia said. This was hard because they had no context and she really didn’t want to embarrass Leah in any way. Her private life was her private life. Simple. Except that right now they had so little to work on and it was important they help their friend figure out what happened last night. “Leah, in your workup we have evidence that you were intimate with an Ardanan male.”

Leah’s deep brown eyes went wide and her face paled. “An Ardanan male?” Her heart rate spiked again and she was filled with a whole host of questions she wasn’t even sure where to start asking.

~Leah Hart, NP

Kreed moved closer. His reptilian features stood out in stark contrast to everyone else, and he looked wholly unmoved. But to Leah, his friend, even in her current state she could see something she hadn’t seen in him before.

He was all but hovering over her and that made Leah turn her head to meet his gaze.

Kreed was actually upset… maybe even angry. He hadn’t shown anger or frustration even after being almost crushed to death. But here, in a hospital room listening to his friend try piece together a night that ended up so precariously… here he was showing more concern and anger than he ever had before.

None of that didn’t show easily, of course. But the flexing of his clawed fingers and the cadence of his voice was plain to her. “Lieutenant, you said ‘humming’. Can you try to repeat it? Sometimes those little things can trigger recall.”

Kreed, CMO

Did his anger make her feel better or worse? Leah wasn’t entirely sure, but his suggestion was a practical one and something she could focus on. Glancing breifly at Sylvia and mindful of not trying to trigger whatever the hell of a hallucinogenic flashback that was, Leah simply unfixed her gaze and tried to recall the sounds she had heard.

Meanwhile, Constable Maliia was suddenly distracted by her earpiece and stood up, moving to the corner, though she watched Leah as she listened to whomever was contacting her.

Leah began to hum a little, but it wasn’t anything remarkable or distinctive. But she repeated it nonetheless. If was a brief couple lines of a tune, if one could even call it that. “It feels familiar somehow, but I don’t know why.”

Tai returned to Leah’s bedside. “Leah, that was my detachment commander. We have a gentleman who seems worried about your whereabouts, saying you went missing last night. Does the name Daro Kelreden sounds familiar.”

Her breath caught in her throat and for a few moments Leah said nothing. She let out a shaky breath. The dots were connected, her suspicions confirmed, and now she wasn’t even sure what to think. What she did have were a ton more questions though! “Yes,” she said in a small voice, so unlike the feisty nurse. “Daro is my ex-boyfriend from when I was on Earth. We broke up three months before I joined the Sentinel. And… he’s Ardanan,” she said with a sigh.

The constable nodded slowly. “I have some more questions about that, and he will be questioned, but given the situation, I think it could be very helpful to see what he says about last night. Just to see how he reacts to you, and see if we can’t glean some of the truth. IF you’re not comfortable with seeing him, you don’t have to and we’ll keep him at the station, but if you do agree to him coming here, I promise every precaution will be taken and you will never be left alone with him. I promise you will be safe,” Tai said.

Her colleagues might think she was out of her mind but Leah had to know what went down last night and Daro might be the only one who could tell her. Besides, there was one indisputable fact. “I want to hear what he has to say. If he’s lying about anything, I’ll probably know.” She didn’t guarantee it, because it was Daro, but still, she was a trained observer of peope and she knew Daro. “I’ll see him,” she said, sounding a tiny bit more like herself. It was something within her control, after all.

Maliia nodded and moved away from her bed. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

Kham was still waiting at the door, but in the room. She moved over and took in everyone in turn before focusing on Leah. “Is he the ex you were talking about? The one you had to have removed from Starfleet Medical because he was harassing the reception staff to see you?”

Leah blew out a breath. “Yes,” she said impatiently and then held up a warning finger and looked at all her friends, especially Kreed. “I’m scared and confused and he might be the only one who can help me figure this all out. I get that we’re all jumping to the worst case scenario here, but now that I know Daro is likely involved, it changes things. So you all have to keep your cool, understood?” she said, her brown eyes turning fierce, despite how tired she still felt.

~Leah Hart, NP

“Saurians are cold-blooded, Lieutenant. I’m not sure I could not… ‘keep my cool’, as it were.” Kreed said flatly. He then looked at his assembled Medical team. “When this… gentleman… arrives, I want you all to step outside. I and the Constable will remain with the Lieutenant for her interview.”

Kreed, CMO