I reach through the window and clean the cut with an alcohol wipe. She flinches but doesn't pull away. I cover it with a band aid with small images of puppies dancing across them. I bought them a year ago for a friend's kid and never used them. Emma looks at me with her big, wet eyes and says, very seriously, "Thank you."
"You're welcome, baby. I’m going to help your mom now, okay?" I’m moving fast, but steady, trying to keep Emma calm while I turn to her mom.
“Do you know your mom’s birthday, hon?” I ask, and Emma shakes her head no. “What about her name?”
“Christina.” Emma’s little voice is starting to bubble with the beginning strains of crying, so I give her a gentle smile.
“Hey, Emma, what’s your favorite song?”
She sniffles, but manages to tell me a song name I’ve never heard of.
“Oh wow! I bet your mom loves that one too, huh?”
Emma bobs her head, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her red cardigan.
“Can you sing it for her?” I ask, praying it will distract her from crying and also help her mom wake up.
Christina’s pulse is thready but present. BP low but stable. I write the numbers on her forearm in black Sharpie, along with the time: BP 90/60, P 118, unconscious, no visible bleeding, 2:37 PM. So, the paramedics don't have to guess or waste the minutes.
“I’m going to help someone else now, Babygirl. Help is on its way. You keep singing, Emma, your mom will be so proud of you.”
I reluctantly move on. Part of me not wanting to leave the scared little girl, but knowing I have to help others.
The man in the pickup is conscious, clutching his dislocated shoulder. I tell him not to move, help is coming. An older couple in a minivan, both shaken, both fine. I take their vitals anyway, writing them on their arms. My hands have stopped shaking. My hands always stop shaking when there's work to do. It's the only thing my body has ever been good at.
The last car is a black sedan.
It's long and low and expensive, the kind of car you don't see every day, and the back end is crumpled inward like a soda can. The driver's-side window is spiderwebbed. I can see a man slumped against it, blood on his temple.
I pull at the door but it doesn’t open. I try the back door. It opens, revealing another unconscious man behind the front passenger seat. I climb through to the front and deal with the driver first.
He has a weak pulse. Obvious head injury, which I clean and tape a wad of gauze to. I write his vitals on his arm and climb between the seats to the back.
This man is huge. That's the first thing I notice, because even folded against the door he takes up too much space. Dark hair. Dark suit, the jacket open over a white shirt that's soaked red on the left side near his shoulder. His head is tipped back against the headrest and his eyes are closed.
"Sir?" I say. "Can you hear me?"
Nothing.
I press two fingers to his throat. His pulse is there, stronger than the drivers, and something in my chest unclenches.
"Sir, I'm going to check your injury. Can you hear me? I need you to stay still."
Still nothing.
I take the trauma shears from my kit and start cutting along his jacket sleeve, carefully, peeling back the fabric to see the wound. It's a laceration, deep but not arterial, running along the outside of his bicep. A glass cut, probably. I can work with this. I press gauze against it.
A hand shoots up and closes around my jaw. Hard.
Hard enough that I feel every one of his fingers against my skin, and when I look up, his eyes are open, and they are the coldest thing I have ever seen.
Gray. Not blue. Gray like weather in winter. He's looking at me the way a wolf looks at something it hasn't decided about yet,and his hand is steady even though he's bleeding and concussed and should barely be able to sit up, let alone grip.
My pulse kicks hard against my ribs.
I don't move.
"Sir," I say, and my voice comes out even, calm, the voice I use with patients who are frightened. "My name is Sadie. You've been in a car accident. I'm helping you. I need you to let go of my face so I can dress the wound on your arm and take some observations."
