“Is he conscious?”
“Corey!” I yelled. “Corey?” I yelled again, wiping soot and dust from the beam off his face mask. His eyes were closed. I moved my hand lower to feel for a pulse. I sent up a quick thank you when I felt his heartbeat in his carotid artery.
“Shit! Don, we gotta get him out of here,” I yelled to Don. The flames were crackling even more and another piece of the roof fell. I dove on top of Corey to keep him covered from anymore falling debris. When I pulled back I realized what bad shape he was in. Though he was alive now, he might not make it much longer.
Don rounded Corey’s body and attempted to push the beam from off him. A painful grunt came from Corey, revealing that he was in and out of consciousness.
“You lift, while I’ll pull him out,” I instructed to Don.
He nodded and on my count he began lifting while I pulled Corey from under the beam. It felt like it took fucking forever to get it done, but somehow we managed to pull him free from the beam. That was only half of the task we had to accomplish.
“Shit!” Don growled when he looked down. “He’s bleeding all over the place. Beam must’ve been putting pressure on that wound.”
“Fuck! We gotta get the fuck outta here.” I didn’t have time to relay the message back to the captain outside. Corey’s life still hung dangerously in the balance. Somehow a portion of the beam had penetrated the fire resistant uniform he wore and ripped right through Corey’s right leg.
“I’ll grab his upper body, you grab the lower half,” I directed Don who didn’t need me to finish before he was hoisting Corey’s lower half in his arms. Carefully, but as quickly as possible, we made our way down the hallway, backtracking to the stairs. We descended the stairs with me going down backwards, keeping an eye on the flames. It felt like it took hours just for us to reach the front door.
“Medic!” I yelled at the top of my lungs once we reached the bottom stair. Seconds later, two paramedics were by our side with their gurney. Don and I raised Corey’s body onto the gurney. By then, he was moaning but his eyes were still closed. It wasn’t until the paramedics rushed off, wheeling him to the ambulance, did I look down and see both my and Don’s gear were covered in blood. We realized it at the same time, our eyes meeting one another’s in horror as the knowledge that we were soaked in Corey’s blood.
“What the hell happened?” Captain Waverly asked, looking between us.
I didn’t pay him any attention. “We gotta get to the hospital,” I stated, feeling numb. We had to find out what was going on with Corey.
“Not yet.” Captain stopped me with a hand on my chest.
I went to slap his hand away.
“Corey is being helped by the people who can help him. We have a job to do here still,” Captain’s firm voice stated, penetrating my numbness.
My eyes collided with his. I could see the tension in the tightness around his eyes. He wanted to check on Corey just as badly as I did but he was right. The house we’d just come out of was still in flames and threatened the surrounding homes. We had a job to do.
I turned back to Don, who nodded at me and was again lifting the hose, preparing to enter the house. I followed, grabbing the hose behind him. Another fire squad arrived and moved a second hose line in. Together we put out the flames. The whole time I wondered why other beams weren’t falling. If one had been weakened to the point that it’d fallen on Corey, surely more were just as weak. But the rest of the roof held firm, as we put out the fire.
Once it was put out, we had to do a quick inspection and to my surprise there was no one else in the house. It was completely empty. As we stood examining the room where Corey had been injured, I looked over at Don to see him taking pictures of both the roof and the beam on the floor with his phone.
“We gotta go,” I told him. I was anxious to get to the hospital.
“Let’s go,” He moved past me out of the room, leaving me to trail behind him.
I took one last look at the room, and that same nagging feeling that’d been riding me since we arrived at this scene continued to gnaw at my gut.
~ Chapter Twenty ~
Carter
It took too long to get the hospital. After the fire was put out, the captain insisted that we head back to the fire station. There, we met up with Eric and Sean who’d had the day off but heard through the grapevine what happened.
“Any word on his condition?” I asked as soon as I saw them when I jumped out of the rig.
Eric lowered his head and Sean shook his.
“Nothing’s been confirmed, yet. But they’re saying it doesn’t look good.”
“He’s still alive though, right?” My voice rose two octaves.
“Yes, he’s alive.”
“Get changed. Next shift is starting early. We need to get down to Central,” Eric stated.
