"Autopsy"

[Kevin Anderson 0]

"Autopsy"

A joint log by Ensign Atrian Waterford and Ensign Kevin Anderson

 

Kevin was back in Sickbay, he was spending quite a lot of time there lately he thought, fortunately not all of it as a patient. Right now he was looking for Doctor Waterford once again because they were to perform autopsies on the bodies that had been found during the last away mission. So he sat on a biobed and assured the nurse that inquired whether he was in need for a doctor that the doctor he was waiting for would be with him shortly. He also noticed that SB could do with some decorations, it looked rather bleak.

 

Atrian stepped out of the morgue into sickbay. The pockets of his medical smock were filled with the equipment he'd need to complete today's procedure. A slight smile was on his face as he searched sickbay for the member of the science department who'd be joining him. Although autopsies made most people feel uneasy, he had always seemed to be comfortable performing them. Finding cause of death was a puzzle to be solved, and even though the two bodies in sickbay would probably have a rather mundane story to tell, Atrian looked forward to the opportunity of returning to the one facet of medicine he performed the best in - forensics.

 

A door swooshed open somewhere and as he was expecting Atrian Kevin looked up. He mustered Atrian in the outfit he wore for the autopsy. It looked rather uncomfortable, but ah well, a couple of hours and he'd be out of the morgue. It didn't really bother him that he was to assist an autopsy and find out the cause of death, he just hoped he wouldn't screw anything up, as this was going to be his first time working on humanoids. At least he knew the basics from the innumerous animals he had worked on.

 

Atrian didn't approach the biobed Kevin was sitting on, clinging to the few feet of carpet in front of the entrance to the morgue instead. He waved him over, "Come on. You're ready to get started, right?"

 

"As ready as I'm ever going to be. Well, maybe you show me where to change, you can go ahead then and I'll be with you in a jiffy."

 

Kevin nodded. "As ready as I'm ever going to be. Lead the way Doc. He jumped off the biobed and walked over to Atrian waiting to be shown the way to the morgue.

 

Waterford flipped around, making his way back into the morgue. Two bodies, already prepped for the autopsy, rested on separate biobeds. Two bright lights shown over each corpse, providing the only illumination in the otherwise dimly lit room. "Right, let's begin."

 

"Right, let's. You know what you're doing, right? Because I don't, well at least not 100%." Kevin followed the Doc and walked over to the brightly illuminated bodies. "We start with the outside, right?"

 

Atrian returned with a quick nod. "Computer, begin recording." He glanced at the first victim. "Subject 1 is a Tamarian male, appearing to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He's six foot one. He had brown hair, cut short. His eyes are a similar brown. There are no apparent identifying features." He glanced over to Kevin, with a look that suggested, "Your turn."

 

Kevin stood in front of the other body. "Wonder what they use that thumb for." He coughed. "Sorry. Subject 2 is a male in his mid thirties, five foot nine tall. Typical Tamarian physiological features, light brown skin with red markings. There is a... wait a second..." Kevin had found a scar on the man's abdomen and made to measure it. ".. a 6.4 cm long scar on his lower right abdomen which is well healed and looks like it was medically treated. Other there are mutiple trauma injuries likely from the crash which will be recorded in detail during the autopsy." He turned around to Atrian. "Well, how was that for a first?"

 

Trying to spare the recording from sideline banter, Atrian simply smirked at Kevin. "Bruises and lacerations cover Subject 1's body. It appears as if he suffered a moderate to severe concussion." He flipped open his tricorder, running the instrument over the entire length of the body for a minute or two before speaking again, "Scans indicate that the probably cause of death was internal bleeding, caused by the rupture of the femoral artery. I will perform an internal examination to confirm this conclusion."

 

Kevin focused on the work at hand and started scanning the dead man in front of him. He had prepared and learned about Tamarian anatomy. The scans showed multiple bruises, he made sure they were all minutely recorded. He was sure the man had died of internal bleeding, there was substantial injury to his spleen. Kevin would leave the internal examination to Doctor Waterford though. He wasn't a doctor after all and he didn't want to destroy evidence. "Doctor Waterford, I think I'm done here, the scans indicate he bled to death due to a ruptured spleen, will you confirm that?"

 

It took Atrian an hour to perform an internal exam on both of the subjects, with nothing of much interest to report. The tricorders had been correct. These people had died of internal bleeding as a result of trauma. He sighed, somewhat disappointed by the normality of the procedure, "Were we supposed to expect anything different?"

 

Kevin had assisted Atrian and was glad that it was over now. It had been interesting enough but in the end not much had been revealed. "Well, we performed an autopsy on two people having died in a shuttle accident, I think that's exactly what we were supposed to expect. I'd say we write reports for our chiefs and call it a day. I need a shower now."

 

"Alright," he nodded, replacing the coverings for both bodies. "I'll get started then. Thanks for your help."

 

"Anytime. You don't seem your chipper self today though. I hope that wasn't my fault." He'd understood that Atrian hadn't talked much during the procedure but now that he thought's about it the doc had hardly said anything at all today.

 

Atrian shrugged, "No. Just...trying to focus I guess." What was he supposed to say? That he was disappointed that the subjects hadn't died in more interesting, mysterious ways so he'd have a puzzle to work on for the next few days? No. Detective Waterford had to get a hold of himself. He offered a grin as consolation for his silence.

 

Kevin grinned. "Tell you something, we'll clean ourselves up a bit and meet again in an hour at Drankum's. There I can tell you something about detective work and how boring that can get. And if you want to I'll take you to that shuttle that was attacked by the Breen which we tractored here. I played detective there for days and it was most disappointing." He knew how Atrian felt, he had felt the same when he had spent days crawling over the floor of the shuttle finding nothing only sustaining severe carpet burns on his elbows.

 

Atrian blinked, surprised how well Kevin picked up on his somewhat shameful disappointment. "Heh. Which one of is the empath here?"

 

Kevin laughed. "That has nothing to do with mind reading, just with scientific curiosity. Anyway, will I see you at Drankum's later?" He made his way to the doors as he felt the desperate need to get clean.

 

"Alright. Drankum's. One hour."

 

"Only one hour? I won't have time for the make up." Chuckling he left sickbay and headed for his quarters to finally get that shower.