Carter:
To surviving
Coop:
To surviving
The chat goes silent for a moment until my phone buzzes again and I check to see what it says. If Carter were here, I’d deck him.
Carter has changed the group name to: The Lost Boys
The alarm soundsthroughout the station and my body immediately goes into response mode. After five years on the job, my mind doesn’t even have to think about what to do when the sirens go off, my body simply reacts on instinct. It’s early Sunday morning and the start of my twenty-four hours before my day off tomorrow. The emergency sirens going off is never a good start to a shift.
Running towards the engine bay, I can hear the footsteps of the other men and women on my shift running towards it too. When we reach the bay, King steps into the driver’s seat as our engine driver and starts the truck while the rest of us suit up for the call.
“Multi-car accident on the interstate over the bridge, no casualties reported but severe trauma on site. EMT and PD being called in to assist,” he calls out through the window while we pile in.
Outside of fires, traffic accidents are our most frequent calls. I don’t know what it is about this city but the people here don’t seem to really know how to go more than a day or two without getting in some sort of car related trouble.
We take off out of the firehouse with the sirens on the truck blaring loudly. Cars pull off to the side as we go flying down the road at them and before long, I hear additional sirens on the street. The firehouse isn’t far from the university hospital downtown and most times, the paramedics we work with on the scene come from there. King drives us through the narrow downtown streets with ease before turning onto the interstate and towards the bridge. One thing about Charleston is you can’t get very far beforegoing over a bridge. And because of this, the scene of the accident is currently being cut off by the morning rush hour traffic.
With persistent honking and a lot of patience, we finally reach the scene of the accident.
“Sweet lord Jesus,” Cater says under his breath as he jumps out of the truck.
My eyes scan the scene and understand his sentiment. I’m not sure what the hell happened but at first glance, two cars had collided head on and a third one seemed to have rammed into the first. Smoke billows out of one which makes my brain conjure up a litany of things to worry about and look out for. I can hear a woman crying from one of the cars but I can’t make out which one she’s in. A man, assumingly one of the drivers, is sitting on the curb holding his head with a bloodied hand.
“Alright, eyes up and stay alert. June, you go with EMS to check on him. Try to get any details you can from him while we wait for police to assist. Trevor, you and Wilson go and check on the driver in car three. Carter, you’re with me,” I bark out orders to my team and they all nod before rushing towards their respective postings.
Jogging up the second car, I find the source of the crying. A woman who seems to be in her early thirties is strapped into the front seat, blood running down her cheek from her temple mixes with fresh tears. The spider web fracture in the windshield tells me that she more than likely has a concussion and needs to be stabilized quickly for any kind of possible head trauma.
Seeing the same thing I do, Carter steps in front of me to take a closer look. “Ma’am, my name is Carter, I’m with Fire and Rescue. I’m here to help you today. Can you tell me your name?”
“Rose, my name is Rose,” she answers through her cries. “Is he—is he okay?” Her voice breaks.
“Who ma’am? The other driver? He’s out of his car and seems okay. I’m more worried about you right now,” Carter says as he wraps a brace around her neck. Another member of our company uses a fire extinguisher on the hood of the car to dispel some of the smoke that’s billowing out from under it.
“No—my son. In the back. He’s in the back.” She tries to turn her head but Carter stops her.
Flashing his eyes to me, I frantically peer through the back window and see a small body slumped over in the back seat. A child-sized dinosaur backpack and matching lunchbox are thrown to the floor.I hate when kids are involved.My hand yanks the door open and I bend over to get inside the car. I gently reach for the boy and lay a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to get him to respond. One of his arms appears to be broken which makes sense given the size of the collision he was in.
“Tucker? Tucker!” his mother cries out in panic, fighting Carter with everything she has to get into the backseat with me.
“Ma’am, please, you need to stay still until EMS can take a look at you,” he says calmly. “My friend is going to make sure he’s okay, I promise.”
“Tucker, Tucker, can you hear me buddy?” I give him a gentle nudge, bracing his arm with my hand. When he starts to stir, I exhale a sigh of relief. Finally, he opens his eyes and the boy who can’t be more than eight or nine years old looks at me with tears in his eyes. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. My name is Miles, I’m here to help you. You’re going to be okay. Can you tell me your name?”
“T–Tucker,” he hiccups. The more he comes too themore he takes in where he is. When his mother hears his voice she bursts into more sobs.
“Mommy?” he calls out, more panicked than before.
“I’m here, I’m okay, sweetie. These nice men are going to help us. We’re going to be okay.”
“That’s right, Tucker,” I say, looking from the woman to her son. “You’re going to be just fine. Now, can you be really brave and come with me? I have more friends I want you to meet while my brother, Carter, helps your mommy.”
Tucker looks between us with wide, wet eyes. His eyebrows press together. “Is he really your brother?” he asks, pointing a finger towards where Carter is crouched next to the driver’s seat.
“He sure is. I’m sure once we get you and your mom out of this car he can tell you some pretty embarrassing stories about me when we were your age,” I reply with a tinge of humor in my voice. This gets the boy to smile the smallest bit.
