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Michael held up his phone and took a picture. In the flash, he saw movement, but he couldn’t identify the source. Had something fallen into the ravine? Or was that another survivor? He sent the picture, then turned on the flashlight again.
No motion. “Are you okay?” he called out to whatever he’d seen. “Move again. I’ll try to get to you.”
Nothing.
Dirt shifted and skittered from above, and Michael put a hand out, sliding his fingers along the wall. He sent power into the earth, begging for stability. This ravine might have saved his life, but it could just as easily end it for everyone else if it collapsed.
The sliding dirt stopped.
He took a long breath. His head pounded, and he wondered if he’d been hit by something in the fall.
Another text from Hannah.
Can you send me more injury pics?
I’ll try.
We want to prep for rescue. Waiting on bomb squad. Need clearance before we can enter.
“Don’t move,” he said to Tyler.
The response was slow, but it came. “You’re funny, dickhead.”
Michael crawled through the dirt to the next body he could find. An older man, his legs bent at unnatural angles. Unconscious, but he was breathing, though it was shallow. He had a pulse. No bleeding that Michael could see.
Michael took a picture and sent it.
Another man in a T-shirt and jeans, crumpled just beside the first. The light reflected off his eyes, and Michael jumped.
Then he recognized the unnatural angle of his neck. Specks of dirt clung to the eyeballs. No breathing at all.
He took another picture and added text.
No pulse, no breathing. I think his neck is broken.
Another man, bleeding from the head. Unconscious, but breathing steadily. Good pulse. Michael took another picture, sent another message.
Water was running across the face of the next man, and Michael’s flashlight app revealed a lot of blood. At first he couldn’t find a source of the bleeding, and he used slippery fingers to send a pic with a message.
Blood everywhere. Breathing. Pulse. Help?
Head wound? Sit him up if you can.
He kept going, moving debris as he went. Some pieces were large, and it took him a while to get past them. Three more dead bodies, but then three who seemed alive. Two were moaning. Michael sent pictures with as much description as he could.
Another man was ashen in the light from the app. Something large had sliced across his thigh just above the knee.
Hannah’s response was quick.
Rip a shirt. Tie a tourniquet HERE. Elevate if you can.
She sent a picture of someone else’s leg, with a hand pointing.
He ripped a T-shirt off one of the dead bodies and tied as fast as he could.
“Tyler?” he called. “How you doing?”
No response. “Tyler!”
