He is unresponsive, not breathing. In the ten seconds it took for the group to reach the accident site, she has crawled to his side and has her index and middle fingers on his carotid artery. As the group responds to the situation, reminding them of an IED ambush in Fallujah, they move with efficiency and coordinated speed. Saunders begins CPR, moving her interlaced palms steadily up and down to the disco beat of Stayin Alive.
She hears commands somewhere outside her immediate focus, a call for triage, clear from the fire, call in coordinates, get a chopper here fast and somebody shoot that fucking dog. The unit’s EMT makes his way to where they lay in the road and takes over. Still no response.
“Are you OK?” He asks her.
“Yes, I’m fine, we need an AED.”
“No got. But I have something better.”
As she watches he pulls off his backpack finding a small black kit inside. She looks around. Old Floyd’s truck is completely engulfed in swirling flames turning from yellow, orange and red to black as the rubber and upholstery burn. There is the smell of death in the air; blood, fire and fear.
She wipes away the sweat from her eyes and sees the EMT draw what she knows must be epinephrine into a syringe and inject it into the captains neck. She hears more shouts and what sounds like the wack-wack-wack of a helicopter off in the distance, maybe a mile out.
Old Floyd has a broken arm, a concussion and enough cuts and scrapes to make Mary Shelly’s monster look like a model. He lays at the side of the road under the care of Davis and Neumann. He is calling for Earl, himself a little shook up but now calm and running towards them with a limp.
“What a fucking mess.” Neumann says to Davis as they wrap the wounds and put a temporary splint on Old Floyd’s compound fractured left arm.
Remembering his favorite line from No Country for Old Men, Davis can’t resist the opportunity to respond with a Tommy Lee Jones-like, “Well if this isn’t a mess, it’ll do to the real one shows up.” They look at each other choking back grins.
They are finishing up with Old Floyd when they hear the unmistakable sound of a helicopter about to set down. Very close. Davis puts Newmann in charge, quickly packs his gear and runs ahead, his hand on his hat, towards the landing location. He gets there to see the EMT pulling the second dose of epinephrine from the captain’s neck.
He looks at Saunders recognizing the ‘face’. It is half-fear and half-hope. An extreme dedication to duty in the line of fire. She looks up at him expecting a damage report and he sees her struggling to stay upright from her kneeling position alongside the captain and the EMT. As they access each other, she sways way right, and then overcorrects, finally falling left, face first into the dirt. It is only then as Davis sees her blood-soaked side, that the mystery unfolds. The truck, the old man, the two at the point down, the blind corner. Did somebody shout a warning?
Davis moves to assist and as he does the captain springs bolt upright with the look of someone snapping out of a nightmare. The chopper has landed and two paramedics are hustling towards them with an opened gurney. Old Floyd's golf ball finally melts releasing the remaining gas into the mix with a concussive blast of flame. Everyone including Earl instinctively duck.
But the cavalry has arrived. And not a moment too soon.
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