by Cliff Hedley
He started to walk up the path as an ambulance approached the driveway, when something in his lizard brain started ringing alarm bells. Something was off. He looked around, scanning as he had so many times from the front seat of a Humvee or on foot patrol ahead of his unit. His subconscious had noticed something. He wasn’t a soldier any more and had lost his edge just a little, so it took him a moment to spot it.
People were going about their business by the main doors. An ambulance was turning in the driveway. Then he zeroed in on it. A block, more or less the same colour as the driveway, placed on the opposite side to where he was walking, against one of the pillars supporting the covered reception bay. It was bulky and stood out from the clean concrete line of the curb.
Fuck! his mind screamed. He turned to see where the ambulance was and waved his hands urgently at them. He was running towards the approaching vehicle, completely disregarding his own safety now, trying to get in front of it, yelling, “Stop! Stop!”
He got an odd look from the driver as he reached the edge of the driveway, just as the ambulance rolled past. It slowed but carried on towards the main entrance. As it passed the base of the pillar it was obliterated.
A huge explosion lifted Chase off his feet and threw him backwards into the garden hedges behind him. The roar was deafening and the blast knocked him out before he hit the ground. It was as if he was a little kid being hit by a super-heavyweight boxer. He snapped to a few moments later, his instincts screaming danger at him, telling him to get up. His ears were ringing and his vision was blurred. There were people running and screaming but all he could hear was a high-pitched whine, as though he had tinnitus turned up to eleven. His head was foggy, his reactions and thoughts seeming to take place in slow motion.
A few seconds later the sensation passed. He’d had it before. Stand too close to any explosion and the brain gets rattled. He was lying in the garden: the well-manicured hedge had probably cushioned his fall. He struggled to sit up but had lost the use of his prosthetic arms. The left was still attached but not working. It hung loose, so he clamped it awkwardly between his knees and pushed into it. After a few seconds it came to life and he breathed a small sigh of relief. He was going to need his hands for what would come next. He pushed himself up to his feet and saw his right arm lying in a flowerbed about ten feet away. He was glad that he hadn’t had to search too hard for it. He picked it up and pushed it on with his working left arm, and again the arm responded by activating and gripping into place.
He fought his way past the hedging that he had been thrown over, wading through it as it scratched at his legs. He ran up the driveway towards the ambulance. A knot was forming in his stomach and the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. When the explosion hit, the ambulance missed the turn in the curve of the driveway, crashing into the front doors of the hospital instead. Chase hoped like hell that nobody had been standing there at the time. As he rounded the front of the mangled vehicle, his worst fears were confirmed. The device he had spotted was an EFP array. It had shredded the cab of the ambulance, killing the driver instantly. Unlike a Humvee the ambulance had no reason to carry armour so the damage was far worse than anything he had seen before. As there was nothing but twisted metal left in the front, Chase ran to check if anyone was pinned underneath or near the doors but could see nobody there. He moved quickly to the back of the vehicle.
The rear compartment was largely intact, though a couple of smaller holes had been punched in the side. Chase took a breath. That couldn’t be good. He yanked on the rear door, struggling to pry it open. The explosion had compressed the entire chassis of the vehicle, jamming the doors shut but Chase was finally able to pry it open by hanging all of his body weight off the handle. He stumbled backwards as the door gave and swung open. As he regained his balance he took a step forward, ready to jump up into the rear but he stopped. He felt sick. He had a clear view of the inside now. There could be no survivors. All he saw was blood. He couldn’t even tell how many people had been back there. It was the most horrific mess he had ever seen. The EFPs had punctured the side of the ambulance and obliterated its occupants.
Chase stood for a moment, unable to move. Then he shook himself off.
He ran back towards the hospital doors to check if anybody had been hurt further inside. The windows in front of the hospital had all been shattered. All of the glass in the doors had become shrapnel at the moment of the explosion as well. In the main reception, bodies were strewn across the floor. Some were moving. Somebody was alive.
Chase ran to the first person, a nurse who was bleeding from the arms and torso. There was a lot of blood but no major arteries had been hit. She was dazed but OK.
“Just stay put,” he told her. “I’ll get you help.”
She seemed to understand but didn’t respond. He needed to triage and fast. “Help! I need help here!” he yelled as loudly as he could.
He turned to the next person, an older man lying on his back on the floor, a piece of glass protruding from between his eyes. They were glazed over and he was staring blankly at the ceiling. Chase moved on.
He heard a cough from behind the reception desk and ran over to find a young woman with a lot of blood coming from her neck. Shit. He frantically searched for something, anything, to stop the bleeding and found a jacket draped over the back of an upturned chair. He grabbed it and doubled it up, applying pressure against the gash in the woman’s neck. The bleeding slowed but he knew she didn’t have long. He also couldn’t move to anyone else now, or the girl would die. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. They were running and with them came the sound of shouting voices. As they drew nearer, a set of double doors that led to a corridor full of examination rooms burst open.
“Help!” he called. “Over here!”
Moments later, a hand was on his shoulder and with it the sound of a woman’s voice. It was urgent but not panicked and sounded familiar. Jane.
“What have you got?”
“A gash to the neck. It’s arterial. She’s bleeding out. We need to get her help!”
“OK. You’re doing a good job. Keep the pressure on and I’ll get her to surgery.”
She stood and barked orders. “I need a gurney here and an OR!”
Behind Chase there was now a cacophony of voices, all running and shouting. He could hear the clatter of gurneys being rolled about and the moans and screams of the victims who were still alive started to add to the din. As their collective shock wore off, the agony of their injuries was beginning to set in. From behind the counter he couldn’t see what was going on but it was reassuring to him to hear that help was there somewhere.
He kept the pressure on the woman’s neck, not daring to move. It seemed like an age before Jane’s hand was back on his shoulder.
“Is she still alive?”
“She’s breathing but only just. I can’t check her pulse.” He nodded at his hands.
“You’re doing great. Listen to me. Here’s what’s going to happen. I have help to lift her onto this gurney. You are going to keep that pressure on. If you lift off, she dies. I need constant pressure. Don’t lift off until I say so. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Chase focused on keeping the pressure on. Someone began to lift the woman from either side. A young male nurse to his right took the woman’s upper body while Jane lifted her legs. They shuffled sideways out into the main reception area where a gurney was waiting. Without a word, they had her on the trolley while Chase followed alongside.
“Chase. I need you to keep that pressure on while we get her to surgery. You still good?”
“Still good.” He hustled alongside as they steered the trolley back through the double-doors and down the corridor.
“Here. We’re prepped!” A young nurse was waving at them from an operating room, and Jane steered the gurney in.
Chase shuffled sideways, getting just enough clearance to fit alongside the trolley as it squeezed through the doorway. There was a doctor already in surgical scrubs waiting for them.
“One last lift, Chase.”
He moved around them so he could hold the woman’s neck from the head end of the bed without getting in the way.
“On three. One. Two. Three.” Jane and the male nurse heaved the woman onto the operating table. Chase looked down to his battery indicators: both were moving into the red. He should have enough power left to keep the pressure constant but hoped like hell they would hurry.
Jane and the nurse pulled the gurney away and the doctor moved in. “Clamps!” He commanded.
Even though he had slowed the bleeding, Chase knew that she would have lost a good deal of blood already. This was going to be close.
“OK. Chase, is it?” the doctor said. “When I say go, you slip your hand out. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Right.” The doctor placed his hand firmly on top of Chase’s. “Go!”
Chase slipped his hand back as the doctor maintained the pressure. He went straight to work, wasting no time. Chase stood helpless for a moment but then felt Jane’s hand back on his shoulder.
“All right, Chase. Good job. You ready to help me with more?”
“Yes, ma’am. Let’s go.”
Jane pushed out of the operating room and started running back down the hall, with Chase right behind her. As he ran, he noticed a strange kind of heightened awareness radiate from him. It had begun outside when he first noticed the EFP but now his combat instincts were returning and the edges of his senses were sharpening. He noticed it in Jane too. There was no way that she had always been a prosthetics specialist. Chase had no doubt that she had seen combat and run battlefield triage.
As they burst back into the main reception area, there was blood everywhere, and people still running and shouting. Sirens blared from outside as blue and red flashing lights filled the driveway. If there had been any survivors left, they had already been taken care of by the swarm of hospital staff. Jane looked around, assessing the scene.
“This is all under control. How about we take a look at you now?”
“Me?”
“You’re covered in blood. You seem to have a few cuts and scrapes, so I’m not sure how much of it is yours but we need to check you out.”
Chase looked down at his clothes — there were cuts on his legs where blood had seeped out and stained his sweat pants, as well as some tears in his T-shirt. He felt something on his face as well — partially caked ooze that felt like blood. He let out a sigh as the adrenalin started to drain away and his heart rate started to slow.
“Lead on, Nurse Harris,” he said. He had to admit, he was a little in awe of how she had taken charge.
She pushed back into the hallway and found an empty room. “Sit on the edge of the bed for me, will you?” She gathered up a pile of bandages, swabs and antiseptics, and dumped them on the bed beside Chase. “I’m going to need you to lose the pants and shirt.”
“How very forward of you.”
“Hurry up, smartass.”
He lifted his shirt off, noting the scrapes to his torso, then stood to push his track pants down. He kicked them to the side and saw more gashes to his legs. He sat back on the bed in his underwear and Jane went about cleaning away some of the blood, checking the wounds as she went. She was still operating with the same level of efficiency he had witnessed outside.
“You’ve been in combat before, haven’t you,” he said. It was more of a statement than a question.
“Iraq. I spent a tour patching up Marines. Once I got back, there was no demand for combat triage but I could see a whole lot of need for long-term care for the wounded. That’s how I began with prosthetics and how I met Rob.”
“It was impressive the way you handled yourself out there. You went straight into action.”
“Thank you. You did pretty well yourself. That girl has a chance at living because of you.”
“Yeah.” Chase hung his head. “But I was rusty. If I had been on the ball right away, I could have stopped it.”
“You saw what did this?”
“Yes. An EFP placed in the driveway. I tried to stop the ambulance from setting it off but I saw it too late.”
“Are you sure? This wasn’t an accident?”
“Not a chance. When the police get here I’ll need to talk to them and give them as much intel as I can. Think you can patch me up and help me find them?”
“Absolutely. How are your arms?”
“Working. One flew off in the blast and the other one deactivated but stayed on. Maybe it got loose when I hit the ground but I got them both on and working again.”
“Give me a sec. I’ll get Rob up here.”
She went to a phone on the wall, and hit a few buttons. “It’s Jane. I’m in exam room four. Chase is with me and he’s OK but a little beat up. Can you come up and look him over?” She paused. “Thanks.”
She hung the phone back on its cradle and went back to swabbing Chase.
“Ow!”
“I thought so. That one’s going to need stitches.”
Chase looked down at a deeper cut in his side. Maybe from one of the branches in the centre of the hedge.
Jane jabbed him with a needle and the area was numb moments later. “You can look away if you don’t want to see this.”
“Are you kidding?” He moved his arms slightly. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Point taken.”
She set about stitching the gash in his side, about halfway up his ribcage. Her stiches were expertly done. She was quick and efficient. It didn’t take her long to complete a neat row, sealing the wound. She applied a gauze and taped it to him.
“Nice job. You’ve clearly done this before.”
“Once or twice,” she sighed.
She continued to look over the rest of his injuries, swabbing and applying butterfly stiches and the occasional gauze patch as she went. When she seemed to have found and treated all of the damage, she set about clearing up her pile of first-aid gear. Carlton pushed through the doors as she was washing her hands. “Jane! Chase! Are you OK?”
“Just fine,” Chase offered. “Jane just finished patching me up.”
Carlton looked at her. “Jane! You’re covered in blood! Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. It’s not mine. Most of it came from one of the girls on reception. Chase saved her life.”
Carlton swung his dumbfounded gaze back towards Chase. “What the hell happened?”
“I believe this was a bomb, like the roadside ones I saw in Afghanistan designed to take out armoured Humvees. It hit an ambulance and they didn’t stand a chance. The blast and the ambulance crashing sent glass flying through the reception area, which is how everyone inside got hurt.”
“Holy shit. And you?”
“I got thrown into a hedge.”
Carlton sat in stunned silence for a moment. “How about we take a look at the arms.”
Chase held them forward and Carlton wheeled his way to the edge of the bed where Chase was sitting, bloodied and still in his underwear. Carlton depressed the buttons in the elbow joints and after five seconds, both prosthetics had powered down and released the straps holding them to Chase’s arms. He picked them up, one by one, examining them closely.
“The right one came off completely and the left came loose but they both worked when I reattached them,” Chase offered.
“I can’t see any serious damage. We should plug them in and run diagnostics as soon as we can.”
“You’ve scratched up your right arm,” Jane noted. “Show me your left.”
Chase lifted his left arm for her to inspect. “OK, that one’s good. Let me just put something on your other arm.”
“Will that affect the prosthetic?” Chase asked. “I hadn’t even noticed any blood before I put the arm back on.”
“The injury would have been too fresh. I don’t think it will affect your nerve endings or add any scar tissue around that area, so don’t worry about that,” Carlton assured him. “Maybe just let Jane put on a thin bandage over that scrape and you can leave the right off for now. We can see if that affects the connection after we’ve run some tests.”
Chase sat obediently while Jane added a final slice of gauze to his right arm. It was just a surface graze, so he figured it wouldn’t take too long to heal. Mostly, he hoped that the prosthetic could slide over it but he kept the right off as Carlton suggested and reactivated his left.
“Thanks,” Chase smiled at Jane. “Can I ask a favour?”
“Sure?”
“Would you mind finding the police when they arrive and bringing them down to the lab while the doc runs those tests? I figure they’ll want a statement. From both of us, I suspect.”
“I was thinking the same thing. You two go ahead and I’ll see you there.” With that, she pushed out the door, holding it for Carlton. Carlton followed her, while Chase picked up his right prosthetic using the left. He glanced down at his bloodied pile of clothes on the floor. “Uh, any chance I can ask another favour?”
“I’ll bring you some fresh clothes as well Chase,” she responded. With that, she turned and walked back towards the hospital reception.
***
On her way back towards reception Jane first took a detour to the operating room that she and Chase had left the receptionist in. She went in through the scrub room and peered through the glass to the operating theatre. The doctor was still bending over her working but it looked as though he was closing the young woman up. The nurse gave her a nod: Yes, she’ll live. Jane smiled thanks in return and pushed her way back out of the scrub room. As she opened the doors she saw a mass of police swarming the area. There were armed SWAT teams moving around the reception and the Bomb Squad had arrived in addition to regular uniformed police.
