The Nature of the Emergency (Evan 'Buck' Buckley X OC)

Breaking point

It has been a few days since then and I am nervous. Buck and I settled on a date which then allowed me to invite Buck's parents to the wedding. I am worried that Buck is going to be annoyed about going behind his back but as I said before I am not convinced that he was going to invite them. Right now I am trying my best to focus on restocking the ambulance. We had a couple of calls already. I'm starting to think someone said the Q word.

"Hey, whatever is bothering you won't for long," Howie is trying his best to reassure me.

"Well I need to tell Buck that I invited his parents to the wedding but I'm not sure how he will react," I explain the situation to him. Howie gives me a curious head tilt.

"But I thought Buck was repairing his relationship with his parents," Howie echoes what Eddie said to me a few days ago.

"Yeah I thought so too, however when I asked about it he never gave me a straight answer," I used the same response I gave Eddie. The thing is I knew we were going to have dramas with the in-laws but I didn't realise that I'd be overthinking it.

"Before you can ask I did invite them myself. I just have to tell Buck," I add for good measure. Before Howie has the chance to answer the signal bell goes. I will have to continue this later. After ten minutes of driving, we made it to the scene. Apparently, a flight attendant went berserk after a long flight. I can't blame her though. The scene that greets us can only be described as chaos.

"Let me get a collar on her then I will assess whether-,"

"She's not the real emergency. Over here," The baggage handler that called it in draws our attention to his colleague.

"Ella, Chim, I need you guys over here now. Eddie, Buck you two deal with the flight attendant," Bobby gives us his orders.

"He's having trouble breathing. I thought about pulling it out but-,"

"You made the right call," Bobby gets to work on reassuring the man as we get to work on treating him. There is one thing that is a little confusing.

"A champagne cork?" I know I'm being Captain obvious but I have never seen a penetrating injury as bizarre as this and I have seen a lot in my four years as an LAFD paramedic.

"I've seen them take out an eye but this is in there pretty good," Howie remarks as we check on our victim. I quickly assess the victim's breathing. Of course, it is shallow.

"I'm barely getting any air. The cork is blocking his airways," I announce.

"The good thing is I'm not getting fluid in his lungs and the fact that he is not coughing up blood, which means it probably hasn't pierced his windpipe," Howie gives me the good news. Well, that makes life easier. With a few remarks from Buck, we come to the conclusion that we have to pull the cork out as carefully as possible. It is because the cork is in a location that has all but made a tracheostomy impossible. Tension soon flares between the flight attendant and the ground crew.

"Oh, god. It's all rainbows and unicorns on the ground. Try flying the unfriendly skies," The flight attendant snaps.

"You don't know Darrell, lady," The other ground crew member snaps back.

"Shut up. I need to focus," I counter. I am the only one keeping the man from death. After some encouragement from Howie, I managed to get the wires out. As soon as I do, Howie carefully pulls the rest of the cork out. As soon as it is out I pack the wound. To my surprise, the blood isn't gushing out in the way that it would if the artery was nicked.

"Cheers," Howie jokes as we add the finishing touches.

It is the night after and Buck and I decided to help Eddie look after Christopher while he went on a date with Ana. Right now we are trying to convince him to go to bed. At least we are getting somewhere. Luckily for us his demands are simple. He wants me to tell him a story while we wait for Eddie to return.