[discussion] Joe Liebgott: Medic

[muccamukk]

basilone was doing up a gifset of Joe's assist when Tab gets stabbed in "Carentan," and it reminded me of how Joe would have been a stone cold bad ass of a medic.

That's actually the second time we see Joe play medic in "Carantan" the first being when Tipper is hit by a shell, which goes like this:

Joe: [yelled] Tipper! Tip!
*Tipper emerges from the smoke, Joe sees him*
Tipper: Joe?
Joe: [softly] Looking good, Tip.
*Joe puts down his rifle*
Tipper: Is that you?
Joe: You're lookin' real good. Come here, buddy, you gotta sit down. Come here. Come on.
*Joe helps Tipper sit, taking away his rifle as he does*
Joe: Easy. Easy. There ya go. There ya go.
*Joe has Tipper sitting down now, takes him into a sideways embrace that supports his head and neck, visually assess Tipper's injuries*
Joe: [to himself] Aw, Jesus. [to Tipper] You hang in there, buddy. Okay. We're gonna get you fixed up, alright? Okay. [to the others, who have been standing in shocked silence] Guys, you wanna give me a hand here? Come on.

Which frankly they could show at a first responder course for scene management. What Joe does in order is:
1. Confirm his identity and try to hold subject's attention.
2. Reduce his threat profile in face of scared guy with a gun.
3. Keep talking in an absolutely calm and reassuring voice.
4. Gets the subject sitting down in a stable position, and removes the other firearm from play.
5. Assess the subject's injuries.
6. Enlist help from bystanders.

His voice through all of this is absolutely calm and rocksteady, even in the face of a close friend with what looks like mortal injuries, in the middle of a firefight.

At no time does he indicate to Tipper how badly he's hurt, even when he's talking to the others. His focus is on securing the scene, securing the subject, and then getting help. His calmness even when he's talking to the others both reassures Tipper, and keeps the others from further panicking, in a way that yelling at them to do something would not.

Watch him do it again:

*Smith is accidentally bayoneting Tab, Joe arrives on scene as Tab falls back against a tree*
Joe: What the hell are you doing? That's Talbert!
*Joe disarms Smith and pushes him away from Tab, starts to crawl over to the tree*
Smith: I didn't know...
Joe: [mutters] Goddamn.
*Joe pulls back Tab's rain jacket to look at his wounds*
Tab: Medic!
Smith: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to! He looked like a Kraut.
*Joe wards off Smith with one hand, still holding Tab steady*
Joe: Can you breathe?
Tab: I can breathe.
Joe: Look at me. Look at me. Can you breathe?
*Roe arrives*
Tab: Yeah, I can breathe, dammit!
*Roe starts to assess Tab, who Joe is still holding steady against the tree*
Joe: Okay
Roe: Gonna put some sulfa on the wound, Floyd. You're gonna be fine.

Which again, Joe's calmly securing the scene by removing the firearm and getting the useless bystander out of the way, and is in the middle of an airway assessment and keeping the subject in a stable position as well as holding the subject's attention to reduce risk of shock, when the actual medic shows up.

In both these scenes, he's doing a lot more calm reassurance stuff than we usually see out of Roe, who tends to be a patch up and run kinda guy.

Which is all to say that I'd love to see an AU where Joe's a medic, especially if the rest of his feral "fuck as punctuation" and "trolling Web about comics" stuff is kept in play. Though he'd probably be immensely annoyed at not getting to shoot things.

(crossposted from my DW)

Comments

[ex_inklessej388]

I love how focused he is on the weapon as it comes out of his buddy in the firsy gif scene. It looks like he is assessing the damage based on how the blade looks which is super super smart. It is not a matter of whether they guy was stabbed or not but how deep the stab is to determine the severity, and a good way to quickly measure that is like a dipstick on the car to see where the line of blood starts on the blade. And in that scene it looks like he is doing that right away, before anyone else in the scene even understands what has happened yet. Joe is all over it. Super solider.

[muccamukk]

I totally didn't notice that. Good eye.

[impala_chick]

The thought of Joe as a medic never occurred to me before, but I did always appreciate his level head when real shit is going down (except for the times when he wants to get into an argument with Web). I could totally see a medic!Joe AU. I'd expect a scene where Joe gets himself into a shitty situation, gets pissed, and uses someone else's gun because they're pinned down or something.

[muccamukk]

To be fair to Joe, he's mostly only fighting with Web when real shit is not going down, and is largely capable of bickering and shooting things at the same time. Not being able to shoot things would be the big draw back.

On discord, came up with an AU where Spina is out with an injury for a bit, and Joe ends up being a temp medic.

[impala_chick]

Absolutely.

Oo I'm here for that AU!