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Yet Carter’s tense expression, the grimness around his mouth as he spoke tersely into the radio, told her things weren’t good. How could anyone see through all the smoke in the house? The upper level smoke was now mostly black, too. An ache was tightening around her chest, shards of metal in her belly, her thighs numb. This was worse than anything she’d ever felt. Even the night she lost Llanzo.
This can’t happen. It can’t. Please.
They were halfway across the yard when the chief spun toward them. He made a hand gesture, a rotating motion followed by an emphatic stab of his finger toward the house. “They need you in the back,” he shouted.
Les bolted into motion, Stacie and Doyle with her, rolling the gurney over the sparse grass. They moved fast, but though Stacie had been a high school track star, Les still beat her to their destination.
Her heart did a triple gainer when she saw three firefighters, all of them still on their feet, including one particularly tall and broad one. Her gaze latched onto him like a dart hitting a center target.
Brick carried one child, a Fairhope firefighter carrying the other. They laid their precious cargo on the ground as she and Stacie reached them.
Brick was smeared with ash and soot. The residual heat of the inferno the house had become was coming off his gear. But he was alive and seemingly unhurt, so her training snapped toward the most critical patients.
The firefighters, Brick included, moved back as she, Doyle and Stacie evaluated the children. They worked together, handing equipment back and forth.
Neither child was breathing.
Josie was in the worst shape, extensive burns on her back torso and limbs, most of her clothing gone. First step was establishing the airway. While Doyle handled that with Marty, Stacie did it for Josie. Les determined the scope of burn damage.
Rule of nines had to be adjusted for a child, and Les made those calculations quickly in her head. She did it twice to be sure. The third-degree burns were too extensive, and Stacie was having no success with an airway or getting any vital signs. She touched Stacie’s hand.
The EMT sat back on her heels and nodded, doing a quick knuckling of her red-rimmed eyes. “The airway is entirely occluded,” she said.
Marty’s burn coverage was far less, but they still needed a stable airway. “Do you have the equipment to intubate?” Les asked. She was relieved to see Doyle nod.
“We’re an ALS unit, and I have the certification, but I’ve never done it on a kid. I have the right sized tube for it, though.”
“I’ve done it,” Les said.
He handed the tube to her. Stacie held Marty’s head and neck steady as Les positioned the laryngoscope. Fucking hell, the inflammation was already bad. Really bad.
She felt a hand on her back and recognized it as Brick’s, because of the calming strength in it. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. Shut it all out. The sounds of fire, firefighters, the doubts in her mind, the worries, all of it. She thought of the section in the book, the way she’d practiced it on the rubber simulation mannequin, both adult and child. And on Rick, her cadaver.
Her Pediatrics resident had let her do it once, and Dr. Jack had her do it several times in the ER, once to a six-year-old. Always under supervision. But Marty needed an airway, or he wouldn’t make it, not even to the clinic. She opened her eyes, used the light that the scope provided, and found the clearance. She guided the tube in, feeling her way to avoid getting into a lung. Inflated the tube and pulled out the guide. She already had her other hand out for the stethoscope. Someone put it there.
Doyle was there to attach the bag. As he squeezed it, they watched the chest as Les listened. To both lungs for the sounds of air flow, and the stomach for an absence of sounds, so she’d know it wasn’t inserted too far.
Both were as they should be.
“All right,” Les said. Stacie put sterile dressings on Marty’s burns while Doyle drew the gurney closer. He and Stacie lifted the boy onto it as Les stood up. Brick’s supporting hand was under her elbow.
“Thanks, Les.” Stacie wiped her face with a slightly shaky hand. “Tough with kids.”
“Yeah. It is.”
Doyle had stepped away to speak on his radio, and now returned to them. “Dr. Spring said to head for the county hospital. He’ll meet us at the highway turnoff and ride with us.”
“Okay. Do a saline IV—”
“To get him fluids on the ride. Got it.” Stacie flashed Les a grim smile, but it faded as her gaze went to Josie.
“I asked Dr. Spring to pronounce her over the radio.” Doyle touched her arm. “I told him Les was here. They’re sending a transport to take her to the county morgue.”
“We’ll watch over her,” Les told her. Doyle was holding the folded-up body bag, and she took it from him. “Marty’s your priority now.”
“Okay. Dr. Spring has the other kids with him.” Doyle called that out to her as they started to move away, the gurney bumping over the uneven ground. “Marcus and Thomas are riding with them. They’ll take over driving the kids once Dr. Spring gets in the ambulance with us. Alice’s manager at Walmart is bringing her to the hospital.”
“Oh, shit. Almost forgot.” Brick removed a plastic tennis ball can from beneath his bulky coat. A brown and white ball of fur inside it came alive with frantic, shifting eyes. As he moved to catch up with Doyle and Stacie, Brick took out a pocketknife and made a couple notches in the rubber lid, allowing air. He handed Doyle the can.
