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“What are you doing?” Cody asked from the ladder.
“I’m going to throw her to you! Get in the bucket!” I yelled.
I could see Cody’s eyes dancing in his head as he realized I was dead serious and this was the worst idea in history. But I had no choice. This was truly the only thing we could do if we had any chance at saving this child’s life.
Cody scrambled up the ladder until he was standing in the bucket with his arms outstretched. I had never seen him look more frightened.
I crawled to the edge of the overhang and carefully stood up on my feet. They felt slick and unsteady. The roof was sloping like crazy and with the heat burning up under it, I could practically feel the platform starting to burn to cinder right under me. I had seconds left. I had to act fast.
I pulled the girl from my chest as she tried desperately to hold on. Then I held her with both hands out from my body. The poor child was screaming hysterically, but this couldn’t be helped.
“Are you ready?” I yelled to Cody.
He shook his head violently. “YES!”
I reared back and threw the girl like a sack of potatoes through the air. As I watched her fly about twenty feet abov
e ground through the air I held my breath, just waiting for something to go horribly wrong. I thought about Shelly, and I wondered what she would be thinking if I didn’t make it out of this, or worse yet, if the child died anyway. I didn’t want to cause her pain. I didn’t want the child and her mother to go through any more pain. I wanted all of this to be over and the world to become a little bit more joyous than it was yesterday. That’s all I’d ever wanted.
The girl landed perfectly in Cody’s arms and he held onto her. The impact shook him a bit and he almost fell down, but he managed to hold on. The girl was safe. Yes!
I could see the relief washing over his eyes. But it only lasted a second.
The platform beneath my feet was starting to sway. It was being burned underneath by flames that were eating through the house and spreading outside. I almost fell right then. Somehow I managed to maintain my position and stay on my feet.
There was no way Cody was going to catch me on the ladder. And I wasn’t sure I could jump that far. Throwing a fifty pound child was one thing, but jumping my whole two hundred pounds through the air and hitting a target that small was a whole other animal.
But the ground was giving way beneath me. I was about to plummet straight down through the flames to the hard concrete porch below me. I had to do it now.
“Get out of the way!” I yelled.
Cody grabbed the girl and vacated the bucket as he scurried down the ladder.
I took one step and leapt as far as I could with my arms outstretched, I was flying momentarily through the air. This was going to hurt in so many ways, but I was trying to mentally prepare myself.
Would I make it? Did I jump far enough? Those were the main questions screaming in my mind as I came closer to the edge of the bucket. I was not going to land in it. I knew that. All I could do was hope that I got close enough to grab the edge and keep from falling to the ground below which might have broken several bones, possibly killing me depending on just how messed up my landing might be.
And there it was. The bucket was right in front of me. But I was falling short of it. I was short! Shit!
I flailed out with my hands and stretched my reach as far as I could. My fingers were grasping air repeatedly. I was going to fall. I was going down. No… was this it? Was this the way it ended for me? I couldn’t let it go down like that.
My fingers touched metal. And my hand gripped around it tightly. My weight pulled hard on my grip and my digits threatened to give way at any second, but I gritted through the pain. The weight snapped into my wrist hard as if I’d landed on it. The pain was surreal. I felt that I was barely hanging on, like I was about to fall at any moment.
But I didn’t. Being tall had paid off for me. I had a long reach with long fingers. My right hand barely made it, but I was alive. I was safe for the moment.
I reached up and grabbed the rail of the bucket with my other hand. My weight was swaying back and forth creating tension on my sore wrist. I gritted my teeth and pulled down hard to bring my weight back up towards the bucket.
I was almost there when Cody showed back up to lend assistance. He grabbed my hands and helped me pull my body up into the bucket. There I slumped to the bottom and rested comfortably. I felt worn out, exhausted. My skin was hot as could be and I thought some of the smoke might have gotten through the protective mask, but I was alive. I was going to be ok.
“The girl,” I said. “How is the girl?”
“The medic thinks she will be fine,” he said. “It’s a miracle, but thanks to you, she is going to be ok.”
I smiled and he gave me a high five. I rested there in the bucket for a few minutes while it was being lowered back down. When I finally found the strength in my legs to stand up, I started to come back down to earth a bit. The adrenaline rush was crazy and my whole body felt a bit wobbly.
That was close. It was damn close. I had come close to dying. I knew that. That was the most sobering and mind numbing thought a man could have. It was a reality for all of us. And this was not the first time a close call had happened.
And it definitely would not be the last.
