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A tear rolled down my face as I wished that I’d done things differently. If I had my time over, I would have told them everything. I would have been honest.
The rain hammered down as if the sky was angry that we’d let her leave. “Come on, Sugar. Don’t go. Stay. We need you.” She replied with the faintest of heartbeats. “Good girl. That’s all I need, Lea. I just need you to keep fighting. I promise we’ve got you and we’re never letting you go again.”
Fox and Dawson appeared next to me.
“Is she—” Dawson asked as he wiped the rain from his face.
“Alive. Barely, but she’s alive.” The cries and screams of other people punctuated our moment, and I knew what I had to do.
“Okay.” I turned, seeing Lenny was there too. “I need you all to listen and do what I ask.” I took the emergency kit bag from Dawson that Matt had put in every car since finding out what I used to do for a living. I opened it pulling out what I needed.
“Dawson, I need you to stay here. Keep your fingers on Lea’s pulse and your hand on her chest. I want you to count her breaths out loud. I want you to shout them, so I can hear you, but if you feel like they are slowing, I want you to hit the horn three times so I know. Same if her pulse stops.”
I took his fingers and pressed them where they needed to go. “Feel that?”
“Yes.”
I handed a sticky notepad to Fox along with a pen and then the same to Lenny. “I need you to triage everyone involved. Their name, age, injuries. If they can’t tell you, write down anything obvious you can see. Check their pulse. If you can’t find one, write that on the note too. Stick it to the dash of the vehicle. Got it.”
“Got it,” Lenny replied.
“Stay close to each other. I can’t worry about you, Fox.” I cupped his cheek. “I need to know you’re safe.” I didn’t have time to note his reaction as I continued, “When you’re done, come back and tell me what we’re dealing with. Anyone who can walk, get them out and move them to the roadside over there by those trees.” I pointed to a patch that was a safe enough distance if any of the cars blew up. “And check for blankets, first aid kits, water, alcohol—we need spirits.”
“And what are you going to do?” Fox asked.
“I’m going to start with him.” I pointed up at the driver of the truck. The huge eighteen-wheeler with the hazard warning signs on the side about its flammable contents; the truck that still had its engine running; the truck that I guessed was a ticking time bomb. “Both of you go.”
Just then, the driver of Lea’s car stumbled out, groaning and holding his head. “God, I couldn’t stop. It came out of nowhere. Lea?”
“Alive,” I replied. “You need to get off the road. Can you phone for help?”
He nodded.
“I’m going to give you some information. Can you remember it?”
“Yes,” he said with more confidence.
“Okay. You’re going to tell them they need to instigate their major trauma protocol. We have at least ten vehicles, including a lorry with hazardous cargo. Currently, we have zero walking wounded, so to presume amber or red level trauma. Tell them we have one medical professional on scene but no others so far, so they need to be quick.”
Pulling his phone from his pocket, the driver limped away as he made the call.
Turning to Dawson, his face was panicked as he stared between Lea and then me. I cupped his face too, trying to reassure him. “Hey, you’re my eyes and ears right now. Count out loud.”
“What if—”
“No. I can’t do what ifs right now. I need to go and turn off that engine and check on the driver, and I need you to take care of our girl.”
His head dipped once as he started counting loudly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Be careful,” he whispered.
Fox looked harrowed as he found me. Lenny close behind him. “Six dead. One car we can’t get to, as it’s under the back of the lorry. Two drivers trapped, bones poking out of their thigh and the other the shin. Two unconscious, one car we can’t get into because the doors have been hit on both sides and we got four people to safety.”
“You good,” I checked. His face paled even more as he turned, vomiting violently onto the road.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was a lot.”
“You’re doing great. Traffic is backed up for miles, so the emergency services are struggling to get through. They have an ETA of six minutes.” I knew this because I’d just called to let them know about the highly flammable, toxic substance the lorry was carrying.
“Shit, why is she making that noise? Marshall, she sounds like she’s drowning. Her lips are going blue.”
