Chapter 10 #3
You do not think about wives or husbands or someone waiting for a phone call.
You cannot.
Not yet.
When we reach the road, the first thing I see is the car.
It is on its side at the edge of the lane, half in the ditch, one wheel still spinning slowly as if it hasn’t understood the crash is over.
Broken glass scatters across the tarmac.
A hedge has taken part of the impact. There is a smear of mud along the roof, a strange bright flash of a shopping bag caught against the passenger window, and someone’s walking stick lying several feet away near the verge.
An older woman is inside, shocked and pale, trapped awkwardly but speaking.
An older man is behind the wheel.
Not speaking.
I take in the scene in pieces.
Position. Stability. Hazards. Access. Casualties. Crew. Road.
Then I start giving instructions.
The world becomes work.
Mish and Kev go to stabilisation. Dan moves with equipment. I speak to the woman first because she is conscious and frightened and trying to turn her head towards her husband even though she can barely move.
“My name is Pippa,” I tell her, crouching where she can see me. “We’re from the fire service. What’s your name?”
“Margaret,” she says. Her voice trembles. “My husband. Brian. Is he—”
“We’re going to look after both of you.”
“Is he all right?”
“We’re with him too. I need you to keep looking at me for a moment.”
Her eyes fill, but she tries.
Brave woman.
Terrified, trapped, and still trying.
The ambulance arrives while we are working to get her out. Police shortly after, blocking the road, moving people back, managing the traffic that has already begun to gather with that horrible magnetic pull accidents have.
AJ is next to the appliance.
Standing back. Still. Watching.
I register it and then let him go from my mind because Margaret needs us and Brian needs us more.
The first extrication is quick.
Not easy. Nothing is easy with a vehicle on its side and a casualty who is elderly, shaken and possibly injured in ways that adrenaline is hiding. But it is straightforward enough. Access. Protection. Careful movement. Clear instructions. Ambulance ready.
Margaret grips my sleeve when we free her.
“My husband,” she says again. “Please. I can’t see him.”
“I know. We’re working on him.”
“Don’t let them take me away.”
“Let the ambulance crew check you.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“I understand.”
And I do.
But understanding does not change what has to happen.
The paramedics guide her towards the ambulance, talking gently, firmly. She keeps twisting back, fighting the blanket around her shoulders, trying to see past us to the car.
Brian takes longer.
Much longer.
He is badly trapped. The angle is poor, his leg caught, chest injury likely, blood where I don’t want blood, breathing shallow enough that every second counts and too fast to be safe.
The paramedics work with us, one inside as far as access allows, one talking through what they need, what we can move, what we can’t.
The car is stable, then not quite stable enough, then stable again after Kev adjusts support.
Tools come out.
Glass management.
Metal.
Noise.
The shriek of cutting equipment bites through the air, and the smell of hot metal mixes with mud, oil and crushed hedge.
I give instructions.
I check positions.
I speak to Brian even though I don’t know how much he can hear.
“Brian, we’re getting you out. Stay with us. You’re doing well.”
His eyelids flicker once.
It is enough.
It has to be enough.
Time changes during an extrication like that. It stops being minutes and becomes tasks. Hold. Cut. Check. Wait. Again. Move that. Not yet. Mind the edge. Paramedic in. Paramedic out. Pressure there. Good. Again. Slow. Stop.
My body knows what to do.
My voice stays steady.
My mind does what it always does, holding the map of the scene while refusing to look too hard at the human centre of it.
Because if I look too hard, I see Brian’s hand. Old skin. Gold wedding ring. Blood at the cuff of his shirt. The ordinary intimacy of a man who probably put that shirt on this morning without once imagining strangers would cut him out of a car before lunch.
I do not look too hard.
I look enough.
There is a difference.
“Nearly there,” Dan says from the other side, not to me, not exactly. To all of us.
“Not rushed,” I say.
“Not rushed.”
We free the last section.
The paramedic gives the nod.
Then it is all hands and careful movement, controlled lift, Brian’s body finally coming clear of the wreckage and onto the board. He is grey, too still, but he is out. Ambulance takes over fully then, the way they always do, their urgency wrapping around ours and pulling it forward.
The air changes.
Not calmer. Never calm.
But the worst of our part loosens.
Brian is moved. Oxygen. Lines. Voices. Doors. The ambulance crew work fast, tight, focused.
For the first time since we started cutting, I realise I do not know exactly where AJ is.
My eyes go to the place I last saw him.
He's not there.
A cold, sharp panic hits me so hard I almost step wrong.
Not huge. Not visible, I hope. But there. Sudden and vicious.
Because he is not trained. Because this is not his world. Because we told him where to stay. Because scenes shift and bystanders move and vehicles arrive and equipment goes everywhere and one untrained person in the wrong place can become another problem in half a second.
Because I cannot see him.
“AJ?” I say, louder than I intend.
Dan looks up. “What?”
“Where’s AJ?”
“Was over there.”
He points, but I am already moving, scanning past the police car, the verge, the ambulance, the small knot of responders, the road beyond.
Then I see him.
He is standing beside Margaret near the open ambulance door.
She is wrapped in a blanket, one hand pressed to her mouth, the other gripping his like it is the only thing keeping her upright.
AJ stands slightly turned towards her, his body between her and the worst view of the car without blocking her completely.
He is pale. Very pale. But his voice is low and steady, and he is nodding as she speaks.
I slow.
The panic drains so quickly it leaves me light-headed for a second.
Then I hear Margaret.
“He hates hospitals,” she is saying. “Always has. Says they smell like boiled cabbage. I told him that’s not a reason to avoid them, but he never listens. Never has. Fifty-two years and he still thinks not listening is a personality.”
AJ’s thumb moves gently over the back of her hand.
“Fifty-two years?” he says.
“Married. Fifty-two in September.”
“That’s a lot of practice at not listening.”
Margaret makes a sound that might be a laugh if it had more strength behind it.
“Oh, he’s very good at it.”
“What’s he good at when he does listen?”
She looks towards the other ambulance, but AJ’s voice brings her back before she can spiral.
“Margaret?”
She swallows. “Gardening. Terrible at houseplants, but the garden, yes. Roses. He grows roses. Talks to them when he thinks I can’t hear.”
“What does he say?”
“That depends if they’re behaving.”
AJ smiles, and it is not charming.
It is kind.
There is a difference, and for some reason that difference is harder to watch.
“Sounds like the roses have a strong union,” he says.
Margaret’s grip tightens on his hand. “Is he out?”
“Yes,” AJ says. “They’ve got him out.”
“But they won’t let me go to him.”
“They’re working on him now. That’s good. That means the right people are with him.”
“I should be with him.”
“I know.”
“I’m his wife.”