‘Of course.’
15
TAYLOR
I watched as he lowered himself over the edge slowly and methodically. Randomly, I noticed how big and strong his hands were as they threaded the rope between them. It didn’t seem to take him long at all to get down, maybe ten minutes or so. Once at the bottom, he unclipped himself and picked his way across the rocks to where Casey was lying. I could see him chatting to her as he assessed her injuries, and watching him, I was struck by the thought that he looked pretty damn expert at it, more than the usual volunteer training. Jack reached for his radio clipped to his chest, and a few seconds later Dion’s radio crackled beside me.
‘Do we have an ETA on that helicopter yet?’ Jack asked.
‘I’ll call and check,’ Wendy said, heading for her truck.
‘How’s the patient’s condition?’ Dion asked.
‘Casey,’ I muttered. ‘Her name is Casey.’
‘Casey is alert,’ Jack answered. ‘Responsive to pain and my voice. She has a compound fracture to her left ankle, a large laceration to her knee, and minor lacerations and bruises to the rest of her body.’ His tone suddenly lowered. ‘She also has some bleeding from her left ear.’
‘Damn.’ Dion closed his eyes for a brief moment and winced. ‘OK, I’ll get on to the chopper crew and update them on her injuries.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked him.
‘What, the bleeding from the ear?’
I nodded.
He pulled a face. ‘Could be a number of things, none of them good.’
‘Like what?’
‘She could have a brain injury, or a skull fracture. They won’t know until they give her a CT scan at the hospital, so the sooner we get her there, the better.’
We both heard it then, a distantwhop whop whopsound. I turned my head skywards, to the west where the sound was coming from, but couldn’t see it at first. Then I noticed it, a tiny black dot against the blue of the sky, moving, slowly getting bigger.
‘Chopper’s almost here,’ Dion radioed to Jack.
A thought occurred to me. ‘Where are they going to land?’
‘They won’t,’ he replied. ‘Nearest flat ground is a good mile or two from here. They’ll have to winch her up.’
‘Won’t that hurt her even more?’
‘Not if they do it right.’ He saw my worried face and gave me a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry, these guys are the real deal. They’ll give her pain relief first. She’ll be in good hands, I promise.’
‘I just felt so helpless,’ I admitted. ‘Seeing her down there and being unable to do anything to help.’
‘Hey,’ he soothed. ‘Youdidhelp. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have got here when we did. Who knows how long she might have been down there before someone else came along and heard her. It could have been days.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
The chopper was close now, hovering fifty meters offshore. Dion directed everyone who wasn’t necessary, including myself, to stand well back, away from the powerful downwash of wind created by the rotor blades. I watched from the tree line as a man was winched down from the chopper to where Jack and Casey were, out of sight. Not long after that, a stretcher was also winched down, and about twenty minutes later Casey was lifted up by the winch, in the stretcher, to the waiting helicopter. I felt a swell of emotion as I watched her disappear inside the aircraft.
Relief, mostly, that she was now safe and would soon be in a hospital where she would have a team of medical professionals fussing over her and giving her the tests and treatment that she needed. But I wasn’t naïve enough to think she was completely out of the woods. The possibility that she had a brain injury was scary stuff, and potentially life-changing for her. All I could do was watch and hope that she would come through it all OK.
The helicopter departed,whop whop whoppingoff towards a hospital in one of the big cities on the mainland. The search and rescue team, relaxed now, started packing up the gear. I waited at the top of the cliff while Jack climbed back up, not relaxing myself until he was safely back on solid ground again. I don’t think I imagined how his eyes searched the crowd and softened when they found me, his shoulders relaxing.
‘Hey,’ he said, unclipping himself from the harnesses and taking them off. ‘You OK?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’
