Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 71015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Hangnail on your right finger? Call an ambulance. Oh, you’re chest has been hurting for four days, and you’ve just now decided to call 911…at three in the morning? Or…now this is my favorite…the ones where you get a call and you see the passengers of a wreck walking around, joking and playing. However, as soon as we roll up, they’re suddenly all ‘oh, my back hurts. I need to go to the ER. Do you have any dilaudid?’
Then there are the ‘oh-shit’ calls. The ones where you hear the dispatcher tell you about them and know instantly that they’re bad.
Kind of like this one.
“Fuck,” I spat, getting up and jogging to my bunker gear.
My feet slid into my boots easily. Years and years of practice putting them on had me doing it out of pure instinct. The act was like second nature.
Dallas and Sebastian did the same on one side of me, while Corbin and Kettle did the same on the other.
I was lead medic today, so once I was done, I hopped into the passenger seat of the ambulance and picked up the radio to call us in. “Medic one responding.”
I looked down at my hand and said a quick prayer as I always did before my calls.
I wasn’t a religious man, per say, but I believed in God. And any help wouldn’t be turned down right now. Not when I had a feeling in my gut that told me that this call wasn’t going to be pretty.
We arrive on scene, and my worry was confirmed.
It was a bad one.
There were two vehicles involved with the wreck. One large Ford truck was set off to the side, its entire front smashed. Its occupant was standing off to the side with a sweatshirt covering his head.
The car’s occupants were another matter entirely.
They weren’t able to get out.
Mainly because when they moved, the tiny car that’d definitely seen better days, teetered over the edge of the dam, tipping back and forth.
“We need to get some ropes to stabilize that car. Kettle, grab the straps. Dillon and Corbin, go get some weight on that back end. Torren, wait until they get the stabilization done before you hook up the wench,” Sebastian ordered.
Each man snapped too, and I walked up to the side of the car, extending my gloved-hand through the open window.
“Hi, can you tell me your name?” I said soothingly, trying to calm the frantic woman down.
“Sar-r-ah. I’ve got three kids in the back,” she pleaded.
I looked, following her line of sight to see three young children, all young enough to be in car seats.
Turning back to the woman, ran my hand along her head, checking for any injuries.
“Can you tell me where you are and what your date of birth is?” I asked calmly.
Much more calmly than how I felt.
If this thing went over, it’d be virtually impossible to get them out. I wouldn’t have been so worried if they all weren’t strapped in, confined to their seats and unable to move.
Which meant one of us would be going in there ourselves to get them out.
And since I was the smallest at 6’2 and two hundred and twenty pounds, it meant that I would be the one going in.
“The dam road. 12-22-85,” she answered with her tear filled voice.
“Alright, Torren. Go get yourself rigged up. Quickly.” Sebastian ordered.
I left the young woman to the capable hands of my captain and jogged to the truck, quickly slipping into the rigging of belts and safety harnesses next to Kettle.
Once done, I walked over with the boys, double checking my harnesses.
“Ready?” Sebastian asked.
While we were busy getting the harnesses on, another engine arrived, and started stabilizing the vehicle, connecting chains and attaching it to the front wench of their engine.
Normally, they would’ve been able to wench it all the way back, but the angle at which the car was hanging over meant that all it’d do was put the integrity of the bridge into jeopardy.
Kettle, who was attached to the front of our own engine with ropes, came up to the very edge of the bridge, threading the length of my rope through his pulley system.
Once we were attached, he moved back, giving me room to work, and keeping the line taught.
“Ready?” I asked him.
He nodded, and I started my entrance into the front of the car through the windshield.
The car rocked, making hideous groaning sounds as my weight was added to the burden.
“Steady, it’ll hold.” Sebastian said, staring into the side of the car as he kept his eye on the woman.
I nodded, punching out the rest of the windshield with a glass puncher.
The glass fell into a million tiny shards, luckily only landing on the area of space between the back glass and the seat, completely missing the woman.
My adrenaline was pumping as I moved through the opening I’d made.
The first thing I did was stabilize each child’s neck.
Seconds turned into long minutes as I went about maneuvering each kid onto a backboard.
Even worse, they’d screamed at first, unsure about me.
I was scary, of course; anything was scary after a crash like they’d sustained.
After a time, they slowly calmed as they listened to my diatribe about anything and everything I could think of.
Thirty adrenaline filled minutes later, all three kids were free of their restraints, with their mother, and on the way to the hospital.
I was riding in the back with them, running my fingers along the youngest child’s hair.
He was two months old, and the chubbiest baby I’d ever seen.
“You’re good with him,” the mother, Sarah, said to me.
I smiled. “He’s sleeping. I’d be interested to hear what you think if he was screaming.”
She smiled. “True. But you kept them all calm in the car, too. That’s true talent right there.”
I shrugged it off, but was secretly happy with the praise. It always made me feel good when there was a good ending to something that had the potential to be tragic.
***
I arrived at Cleo’s place exhausted but happy.
It’d been a long day today, and I wanted nothing more than to lay down on the couch with Tru in my arms while we watched TV.