Name: Dr. Tom Abbot
Age: 35
Sex: Male
Nationality: British
Appearance:
Tom presents an orthodox study of an East End working-class male. The rugged man stands at a fair 180 cm height and is of a good and stocky build. His muscles lie undefined, yet he is solid and strong, years of towing patients, comrades, and heavy supplies lending itself to his innate strength. He is privy to thick, windswept light brown hair and a short beard of the same fair quality. Thin lips and a pointed beak of a nose peek out from among the hairs. His medium, unkempt eyebrows are typically drawn together in a constant appearance of somber study. Below this are perhaps his most compelling features: his eyes are warm pools of gentle brown. While not particularly attractive, they are comforting and kind and best reflect the inherent compassion buried underneath much of his stoicism.Tom’s last memorable feature is his sole outward flaw. His left ear is missing a chunk of flesh from the apex thanks to a ricochet bullet. While otherwise largely intact, he has lost much of his hearing in that ear. Those in the community know to speak up when presented with his left side.
Character:
Even before the wars and its horrors, Tom was a perpetually serious individual. The Brit smiles little, and laughs even less. Though not a sour man by any means, his commonly reticent attitude leaves much to be desired for those seeking fun and witty entertainment. With enough drink in him, he can be quite funny - for those who can manage the desert dry of his jokes. Other than that, the English male can best be described as mellowed. Older folk would say he had an “old soul” - in a sense, he did. The war and life after has aged him prematurely, and much of the passionate emotions that define younger men has all but shriveled up in him. With a long-suffering patience he has weathered every storm. Anger is not becoming to him, and so he very rarely expresses it. What defines the man most is his kindness. Even in the face of constant trials and tribulations, Tom has not lost the love he has for his fellow man, and it is in that sense of compassion that Tom has managed to find the will to keep living on.
Brief Backstory:
Tom was never meant to stay in the East End of London. He writhed for most of his youth in the seedy poverty that so pervaded his family and escaped in a way many of his day often did: it was straight to the military for him once leaving secondary school. When he finished his tour at 22, he went back home to London to enroll in medical school and endeavored as broad an education as possible, focusing primarily on traumatic surgery and care. He emerged as a general hospitalist and was soon hired at a public hospital to help man their booming emergency department.
Somewhere, somehow in the chaos of school and work, Tom found time to fall in love with a magazine columnist named Darla. The two made the rather rash decision to get married in 1979 after only three months of dating.
It was an ill-fated match. Darla was a woman filled with life: vibrant, vivacious, and frankly much too young for Tom's aged spirit. She craved love and companionship that Tom was too distant to give. He loved her more than anything in the world but did not know how to show it. Consumed by his medical residency, Tom was unaware of the rift growing between him and his wife. It proved to be a fatal oversight.
At age 31 his service was reinstated to help supplement the bulk of fighters stationed near the Fulda Gap. His advance was ultimately halted to treat the wounded in Cologne, and it was there that Tom’s world was torn asunder twice: first in the form of a divorce notice levied over the phone by his wife, and second by the encroaching bombs that rent the city in two. In the ensuing chaos, he and his remaining fellow soldiers made his way to Hanover - soon to be New Hanover. There they have remained, he in particular unable to turn away from the sweeping number of sick and wounded desperately needing care.
Joining Ranger One was one of the recent bright spots in his life. While it is unquestionable that his craft in New Hanover has benefited a great many, he felt a dull stagnation of his skills. He is, after all, bound to two codes: both to that of a doctor and that of a soldier, and he is quite honored to employ the solemn duties of the latter.
Skills:
The predominant value of Tom’s life lies in his invaluable skill to
save lives. As a hospital and field-trained traumatic surgeon, Tom has a significant wealth of knowledge and expertise when it comes to treating conditions stemming from (but not limited to): hemorrhage, broken bones, GSWs, wound evisceration, shock, stroke, heart attacks, and acute seizures. His patients range from a waddling toddler to a laboring mother to a elderly man in dire need of palliative care. In the face of medical supply shortage, he has been forced to adapt in order to keep his patients well and alive. The sterile O.R. of old has had to make way for the cleanest room one could find, and aseptic technique has conformed to the age-old dogma of traumatic surgery: “Save the life first, treat the infection later.”
The flipside of Tom’s medical prowess extends to mental afflictions in various cases. The man does not profess to be a psychiatrist nor a psychologist. But empathy is a powerful tool when utilized properly. The term “patient-doctor privilege” is one he exercises faithfully even in the absence of civil laws. Compassion to listen, to placate, to
understand. Patience is a virtue of his, and his steady calmness and willingness to bend a listening ear at all times has mollified even the most violent spell of psychosis. Coaxing one to peace is something he is frightfully used to, even before the war. The negative side to this is that many a villager has felt comfortable confiding a secret in him, and while Tom is not necessarily opposed to this, some things he would have much rather preferred living his life not knowing.
While not necessarily his main scope of practice, Tom has begrudgingly tended to the needs of Hanover’s furrier companions. Some things remain the same no matter human or animal, and Tom doesn’t mind setting the occasional broken bone or stitching the odd cut of a much needed beast of burden. Family pets remain a sore point of contention to him. No amount of needling or crocodile tears will make him expend any amount of energy to treat a useless pet, and it is one of the few times the man becomes cross over anything.
Much to his and his teammate’s benefit, Tom possesses an uncanny eye for detail. Not just in surgery - in the field, in a gunfight, where every second of every moment counts, and one wrong move has you staring down the barrel of a gun. Tom can’t
help but notice things. It is the soldier’s instinct in him ever-present. It is not so much paranoia as it is a constant state of preparedness. He is forced to be on guard at all times. After all - the last time he let down his guard was when a bullet took the top of his left ear clean off. One can never be too careful.
Relationships:
- Richard “Dickie” Pearson, aged 32: While most of their company splintered soon after the bombs ceased, Dickie remained at Tom’s side. The fellow Brit is a shining example of optimism persisting in the face of tragedy, smiling in spite of his own trials and the loss of his left forearm. He remains one of Tom’s few lifelines to the living. He is a brother forged by fire, and the younger man looks after Tom’s well-being diligently despite resistance.
- Sofia Berkhalter, age 27: A warm body to hold when the nights get cold and lonely. He will never replace her beloved Jon, nor she his Darla, but they both accept one another as a passable substitute. In addition to her nightly “assistance”, Sofia also works under him as a nurse from one occasion to another, particularly aiding him with female patients who may feel uncomfortable with his sole presence.
- Franz and Mika Fischer, aged 10 and 9 respectively: Orphaned siblings he’s more or less taken into his care. The little scamps are prone to following him about his day to day, and he has taken to giving them menial tasks and off-the-cuff lessons throughout their encounters. He does not think of himself as impacting their lives any, but in fact has become a pseudo father figure. Purely for their amusement, he acts as if it is a great bother to have them hanging about.
Equipment:
Primary weapon - SPAS 12 with foregrip and extended capacity
Secondary weapon - M1911 pistol
Supplies kept excluding ammunition are held within his pack so long as they do not exceed a certain weight. Staples of his bag include mostly medical supplies: a suture kit, a free needle, free ties, gauze, betadine, rubbing alcohol, strips of clean cloth, a disposable #10 scalpel, and a half-full bottle of chloroform tightly sealed about the cap. Tom is always on the look-out for pharmaceuticals to pilfer from homes and vehicles; thus, a compartment on the back of the bag is reserved for such items. A small flask of a mystery liquid also sits nestled in a side pocket. Tom calls it his “emergency sedative”, yet the flask smells suspiciously of gin.