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Mason was already on him, kneeling by Fleet who was laying awkwardly crumpled to his side, with the EMT’s only steps behind.
“Don’t touch him,” Brian snapped, walking briskly to Mason’s position. “He may have spinal injuries. We need to stabilize him before we carry him out.”
Mason ignored the surly EMT, having done his share of rescues in his long career. “No bleeding from the head,” he stated briskly, and Talia let her shoulders relax a little. There could still be brain trauma, but if Fleet hadn’t hit hard enough to bleed, chances were it wasn’t a life threatening injury.
Despite Brian’s bluster, Mason continued to run gentle hands up and down Fleet’s limbs, and Talia found herself quickly squatting next to him, feeling uncustomarily useless as she watched. Fleet looked so pale. So still. But there was something else not quite right…
“I wonder what made him fall?” Ever said from somewhere above them.
“Stupidity,” Doug groused, standing back with a sour look on his face that matched the irritable EMT’s. “He’s an arrogant son of a bitch being here by himself. He probably tried something he shouldn’t have and suffered the consequences.”
“That’s enough, Doug,” Mason barked, clearly not liking the attitude. “Make yourself useful and start preparing the straps on the litter. We’ll all be taking turns carrying him down the mountain in a couple minutes.”
By all, Mason meant the EMT’s, Ever, and Talia’s entire squad. Besides Doug and Cisco, Jess and Azis were part of the five that comprised her unit. They were good people, and would take extreme caution with their patient.
Damn.She hated thinking of vibrant Fleet that way. And speaking of vibrant…
Talia continued to study Fleet’s face, and it suddenly occurred to her what she’d been missing. “Mase,” she barked. “Isn’t the left side of Fleet’s face droopier than the right?” Her heart seized. “Could he have had a stroke?”
Holden, the professional one of the EMT’S, quickly snapped on a pair of gloves and lifted Fleet’s eyelids, one at a time, then used his penlight to check pupil reaction.
“Good call, Talia. His left pupil is fully dilated, and non-reactive, whereas the right shows signs of response. It’s certainly one indication of a stroke, but it’s not the only thing that can point to,” he said, shaking his head to gently, with the help of Mason—not his partner—put a cervical collar in place around Fleet’s neck.
“What else can it mean?” Mason questioned.
“Well, shit. It could be a brain bleed; an aneurysm,” the guy warned. “I’m not equipped to diagnose, but… Either way, we need to get him off this mountain fast.”
That’s not what Talia wanted to hear, and more regret poured through her over how she’d treated Fleet the night before. She had so much to apologize for.
And the headaches? If she hadn’t been so self-absorbed, she might have utilized her bossy tendencies for good, rather than evil, and taken Fleet right to an urgent care center.
“I should have caught this,” she lamented huskily. “We were out last night, and he wasn’t well. He said he’d been having lots of headaches.”
Had she just received a huff from the EMT, Brian? If she did, it was probably because he agreed she’d been an idiot.
Everlee, however, came to her rescue. “Don’t beat yourself up, Talia. If anyone should have figured it out, it was me. Fleet has been complaining about the unrelenting pain behind one eye for a couple weeks now, and I’m an imbecile for having ignored it.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and her fingers flew over the screen.
“Listen to this. Stroke warnings,” she read. “Severe headache. Weakness in arms or legs. Dizziness. Nausea. Vision problems. Difficulty with balance. He’s clearly had a bunch of those, but I never made the connection.”
“And every one of those symptoms could have led to his fall,” Mason stated.
“Yeah. But now listen to this,” Ever continued. “Brain aneurysm symptoms: incapacitating headaches, vision problems, drooping eyelid, numbness in limbs, vomiting.”
“Bingo on the vomiting,” Azis confirmed, having moved closer to the face of the rock wall Fleet would have climbed. “It looks like he puked down the boulder from somewhere up top before he fell.”
Eyes turned to see a trail of vomit emanating from a spot higher up before cascading down over the rocks.
“Dammit. Strike two,” Holden snapped. “We need to get him to a hospital, fast,” Holden glanced around. “I need a few hands. We’re going to turn him slowly to his back, keeping his head, neck, and spine aligned. Then we’ll ease him onto the litter.”
Talia took a deep breath. They’d all been trained to move spinal column injury victims. She knew the drill. Why then, wasn’t she moving to help, and why were her hands trembling? “I…”
“Let me,” Ever said, kneeling down and easing into Talia’s spot while urging her to stand. “You be his emotional support. Hold his hand once we have him in position.”
“He…he won’t know,” Talia countered, feeling totally out of control, even though she was always cool under fire. “He’s…unconscious.”
“And you know as well as I do,” Ever responded gently, “that he still might be able to sense you. It happens all the time.”
Talia nodded, stood, and got out of the way while she pondered Ever’s words. In her shaken form, she didn’t want to do anything that might harm Fleet.
