by Gail Sattler
She searched his face. He didn’t appear to have suffered any blows to the head. At least he had been wearing his seat belt. For a split second, it registered that he was about her age. Even through the suffering in his face, she could see his handsome features.
“Listen to me. I’m going to check you now. I have to see if there’s anything I can do to help you. Keep listening, and keep your eyes open.”
She could see he was trying to focus on her but couldn’t.
“I’m going to run my hands down your legs. Try and keep still and tell me where it hurts.”
She wiggled inside the mangled passenger compartment as best she could, squeezing in through the remaining narrow opening until she was fully inside. She ran her hands down his legs, trying not to be self-conscious as her fingers pushed through the coarse hair on her search for injuries that she could do something about. When her hand was past where she could see, she felt more blood, hot and wet, and sticky. His body jerked.
“Your leg is broken, and it’s bad, but there’s nothing I can do. I have no room to work here. Your legs are pinned. I can’t move you.”
Cindy next examined where the pole had imbedded in the car seat and pierced his side. She expected broken ribs, plus internal injuries, but her biggest concern was the heavy bleeding. Fortunately, he was able to breathe with his chest pinned tightly against the steering wheel.
“I’m going to have to use my hands to try to slow the bleeding. I’m going to apply pressure, and I can guarantee this will hurt. But if it makes you feel any better, my hands are clean,” she said brightly, trying to distract him from what she knew was about to happen.
She grabbed a wad of rolled gauze from her bag. When she looked up into his face for a second, she thought he almost smiled at her little comment, but as she started to apply sufficient pressure, his expression jolted to extreme agony. His eyes squeezed shut and he clenched his teeth tightly.
“Look at me, please!” She had to keep him conscious and keep him from going into shock. With such injuries, shock was most likely to be followed by death.
His head sagged back against the seat, but his eyes were open, if only halfway. She could tell he was about to pass out. “Stay with me. Please. . .”
The movement of something touching her made Cindy jump. He had moved his arm, and his fingers brushed her hip.
Terrified that he was going to die, she changed her position until she could press his wound with only one hand. With the other blood-covered hand, she squeezed his outstretched hand, which had fallen after his feeble attempt to touch her. She thought she felt a faint return squeeze.
She examined his face. “You’re going to make it,” she croaked hoarsely. “I know you’re going to make it.” Cindy squeezed her eyes shut. She prayed he was going to make it. Clearing her throat and trying to focus her thoughts, she knew she had to continue talking so he would try harder to stay conscious. She started to babble, saying whatever came into her mind in order to help him focus his attention on anything but his agony.
By the time she heard the ambulance and detected the flashing red lights in the distance, she wasn’t even aware of what she was saying.
Finally, a head appeared through the opening of what used to be the windshield as one of the rescue squad surveyed her and the nameless young man. “Keep applying pressure. We’re going to have to cut him out.”
“Affirmative,” she replied, grateful that she could now take instructions from the experts. Looking at the young man, she saw his eyes starting to close. “Open your eyes. Only a few minutes longer. You did it! Come on, stay with me!” Cindy squeezed his fingers.
Between the Jaws of Life and the creaking sound of strained metal, she knew he’d never hear her over all the noise, so she quit trying to talk. The young man’s eyes drifted shut, his entire body went limp, and he passed out. Cindy did the only thing she could. She prayed over him.
Dear God, please, I beg You to save this man. Please give him strength, courage, and the will to carry on. Please, use Your divine power to save his life, to heal him, and carry him through this. I pray for wisdom and skill for the hospital staff, the doctors, the nurses. Please spare his life. I pray Your never-ending mercy upon him. Amen.
Cindy’s eyes sprang open as the car door was yanked off the hinges. Following procedure, the medical team applied a C-spine collar around his neck to hold his head steady and started an IV. The steering wheel began to lift, easing the pressure off his chest.
A hydraulic jack was inserted and lifted the wreckage off his legs. At last, he was free.
“All together, on three. Lady, keep up the pressure. One. Two. Three.”
She awkwardly disengaged herself from the wreckage and stumbled along, trying to maintain enough pressure as they lifted his limp and broken body out of the car and onto a waiting stretcher. One of the attendants changed positions with her, finally leaving her hands unoccupied. Quickly, they lifted the stretcher into the waiting ambulance, the doors closed, and the ambulance roared off into the dark night, siren blaring and red lights flashing.
Cindy backed away from the wreckage. Every muscle in her body began to protest as the time spent in the awkward position inside the cramped car caught up with her. Across the street, police gave the driver of the older-model car a few basic roadside sobriety tests, then handcuffed him. The tow truck driver and another man, presumably the driver of the pickup truck, cleared the scattered poles and machinery parts.
Her hands started to shake as she bent to recover her shoes that she’d kicked off earlier. All the gory movies she’d seen in class had not adequately prepared her for this. Even with all her first aid training, she couldn’t imagine facing what she had just been through without the unexpected strength and presence of mind that God had given her.
Fortunately, no one had come to talk to her yet. Her knees started to wobble so badly, she didn’t know if she could stand much longer, so she ran to the smashed-up car, retrieved her scattered first-aid supplies, ran back to her own car, and drove away.
She had no idea how she got home or how long she took to get there. Both her mind and body were numb. After parking the car, she leaned against the door for a few seconds before she touched the doorknob.
The second she entered, both Troy and Erin jumped to their feet.
“Cindy!” Erin called out. “Where were you? We were worried sick. You. . .”
She stood, frozen, staring back at them as they stared at her, first at her face, then her blood-splattered clothes. In the back of her mind, she wondered how much of her leg was showing since she ripped her skirt, but she really didn’t care. Troy stepped forward but halted when she sagged backward against the wall.
“Cindy?!” Erin squeaked out from behind him. “What happened?”
Cindy dropped her purse and first-aid bag to the floor and hugged herself with both arms as she tried to piece everything together. “There was an accident beside me on the way home. The driver was badly hurt. And. . . And. . .” She gulped for breath as the backs of her eyes started to burn and her lower lip started to quiver. She felt the shock starting to take effect, but even knowing what was happening, she couldn’t stop. Her voice caught, trembling as she spoke. “I don’t think he’s going to pull through.”
Tears burst in a river down her cheeks. In a flash, Troy circled his arms around her as she started to sob, holding her tight and stroking her back as she cried herself out.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “I know you did your best, more than anyone else could have done. You always say God has a reason for everything. I think He put you there to give him a better chance.”
For a moment, she stilled. “Do you really think so?”
He gently tipped up her chin. “Tell you what,” he said softly. “Let’s phone the hospital. If you tell them you helped at the scene, they’ll probably tell you his status.”
Cindy glanced up at Troy and swiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m sorry for getting so hysterical. I’ve neve
r seen the man before in my life, yet I feel like I’ve lost a friend.” She sniffled and blew her nose while Erin looked up the hospital’s phone number.
Wanting to make the call in private, Cindy left Troy and Erin in the living room and made the call from her bedroom using her cell phone.
She returned to the living room as soon as she finished her call. “He’s in surgery right now, and they won’t have word on his prognosis until he’s out—which they say may not be till morning. But, I’m glad to know he made it at least this far.”
Troy stood and hugged Cindy again. “I’m really proud of you. It’s not everyone who would jump in like that to help a stranger.”
Cindy leaned into him. “I couldn’t live with myself if I stood aside and did nothing while someone died for lack of attention.” Her lower lip started to quiver again. “My parents died like that.” She drew a shuddering breath, then turned away. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to have a bath and go to bed.”
“And I think it’s time for me to leave.” Troy smiled, nodded, gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder, and left.
While Cindy readied herself for bed, her thoughts returned to the scene of the accident. As she had so often heard, the drunk driver who caused the accident appeared not to have sustained any injuries. She’d seen him walking around, staggering.
She wondered about the injured man. Did he have a wife and children who would be worrying about him? If he lived, and she prayed he would, did he have friends who would visit him in the hospital in what would surely be a long recovery? Would he still be able to do his job, or would his injuries change his life forever? Cindy struggled not to cry again.
When she crawled into bed, she prayed intently, first pleading for the recovery of the accident victim’s life, and next, giving thanks for her first aid training. She fell into an exhausted sleep and dreamed of a nameless young man in a crumpled yellow sports car.
Two
Cindy awoke feeling like she had just run a marathon. Overnight, she had relived the accident scene a hundred times, interspersed with nightmares that hadn’t reoccurred since childhood.
Since she had slept in, she phoned the hospital from her car on the way to work. The nurse wasn’t supposed to give out details, but Cindy managed to find out that he’d been in surgery all night, he had not yet regained consciousness, and his condition was regarded as serious.
Cindy couldn’t tell if his prognosis was good, but she left a message to tell him that God loved him, and then she prayed for him the rest of the way to work.
Troy was waiting for the elevator down as she was waiting for one going up. He wanted to talk, but as the door opened, she quickly assured him she was fine, then she ran into the elevator. All the way up to her office floor, she thought of how Troy, an alleged nonbeliever, had suggested it was God’s intervention for her to be in the right place last night. By helping someone she would never see again, she had ministered to Troy.
Cindy quickly grabbed a coffee and delved into Robert’s newest collection of correspondence and other assorted duties for the day. She hadn’t been working for five minutes when Robert barked at her through the intercom, “I need a coffee. Bad.”
She doubted her job description included the duty of waitress and she often told Robert so. However, she had recently badgered Robert into giving up cigarettes and he hadn’t yet managed to control his irritation, not that he normally did, anyway. Over the past month, she learned that once she managed to get beyond Robert’s rough exterior, he wasn’t as bad to work with as everyone thought.
Instead of taking her chances by putting the steaming cup on the desk among the flow charts, contracts, proposals, and other assorted papers littering Robert’s desk, Cindy handed the cup to him. She would never forget what happened on the first day on the job when Robert had spilled his coffee all over everything she’d struggled to get done. She’d been so overwhelmed by everything, in addition to being irritated by Robert’s miserable disposition, that she’d lost control and snapped at him. Cindy Martins, a temporary replacement from the assembly line, proceeded to lecture the senior vice president on bad manners and being more careful.
Nothing was said, but she was positive her first day would also be her last. However, when she reported for work the next day, Robert greeted her with a smile on his face and a heavy-duty ceramic coffee mug in his hand. She still didn’t understand, but she wasn’t going to argue.
“Do you need anything else?”
He grunted, but smiled for a second when Cindy grunted back, although he still didn’t take her not-so-subtle hint about grunting in the first place.
Cindy returned to her desk and continued her work and thought about the recent changes in her life. Somehow, despite her inexperience and all her mistakes in dealing with Robert—both on a personal and professional level, she managed to earn his respect and deal with the workload. After her first week on the job, she had nearly fainted when Robert not only offered her the job on a permanent basis but also offered to double her salary if she would stay. Of course she accepted. God had met her needs—and then some.
First, she went out and bought more clothes. Up until that point, she only owned a couple of good mix-and-match outfits she wore to church, which she’d sewn herself to save money. After her first shopping spree, she decided to put some money aside each payday into an education fund. In the fall, she wanted to enroll in a college night course and improve her business skills without having to take out a student loan. The increase in her pay also meant she could live on something better than macaroni and wieners.
The phone rang. “Mr. Blackmore’s office.”
A male voice spoke roughly. “I need to speak to Robby.”
Cindy pulled out her notepad. “I’m sorry, Mr. Blackmore is tied up. Would you care to leave a message?”
His voice dropped to an annoyed growl. “I know he’s there. I want to talk to him.”
She recalled Robert’s latest gruntfest. “I’m sorry, he’s unable to take your call. Is there a message?”
“I don’t have time to leave a message. I want to talk to him.”
Cindy held her breath to control herself, suspecting that this man had learned his manners from the same place as her boss. Both of them needed a refresher course.
Her voice lowered and, trying to remember to be polite, she ground out her response between clenched teeth. “I’m very sorry, but I have to take a message.”
“This is Glen Evans. I want to talk to him.”
Cindy held the phone away from her face, stuck out her tongue, and then balanced the phone on her shoulder while she reached for her pen. “Let me see. Hmmm. . .Glen Evans,” she drawled, writing his name down very slowly, mumbling every letter singly so he could hear she was taking her time in payback for his rudeness. “And your phone number, please?”
Glen Evans sighed loudly. “He has my number.”
She knew the state of Robert’s address book. “I’d prefer to write it down.”
A loud laugh echoed on the other end of the line. “You must be the new secretary. 555-2974.”
Cindy wrote the number quickly, mumbled a good-bye, and whacked the button sharply with her finger to disconnect, although it would have felt much better to slam the receiver down in his ear.
The light clicking of the other secretaries’ computers was noticeably absent. Cindy raised her head to see that none of them were working and all of them were staring at her.
“What?” she snapped.
“Glen Evans?” Ann gulped. “You spoke like that to Glen Evans?”
Cindy dragged her free hand over her face. “Why do I have the feeling I’ve done something really wrong?”
“You’ve got guts,” Melinda said, shaking her head. “No one else could ever get away with something like that—or half the things you do. How do you get away with it?”
She shrugged her shoulders, then ripped the message off the notepad. “Just lucky, I guess.” Every day as a secretary fo
r Robert Blackmore was an adventure. Although Cindy wished that she could learn some of these lessons the easy way.
❧
Cindy cringed as she noted the date circled on her desk calendar. Officially six months since she started her new job, today was the day of her salary and performance review. Today, Robert Blackmore would see her personnel file. Up until now, Troy had taken the liberty of “accidentally” losing it every time Robert asked for it. Thus far, they had gotten away with the ploy.
Robert called her in to his office as she returned from her coffee break, preventing her from making any excuses. He sat behind his large desk, leaning back in his oversized chair with his arms crossed over his belly.
He pushed a piece of paper across the desk. “I’d like you to read this before I comment.”
Cindy swallowed hard, gathering the courage she needed. Surprisingly, all the expected categories of general performance skills were checked as “very good” or “excellent.” Under the “general comments” he had written such a glowing report that she actually blushed.
When she raised her head, he leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk. Cindy held her breath and stared at the floor. “Thank you,” she mumbled. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Let me be candid with you.” Robert cleared his throat and his voice deepened in pitch as he continued. “When you first got here, I thought you were someone’s best attempt at getting back at me for something.”
She couldn’t help it. She hunched her shoulders and shrank back in her chair. She would never forget her conversation with Troy the day the position came open or his attitude toward Robert, which had not improved. Because of the confidential nature of her position, the only thing she could tell Troy was that she and Robert had developed a mutual respect for each other. Until that happened, she’d spent many nights deep in prayer, begging God for strength, patience, peace of mind, and whatever it took to get the job done. She had real proof that God answered prayers.
