by Kate James
They were in the bowels of the building and had cleared an area that must have been a coffee shop. They headed to the next space when Scout alerted, and started to dig at an area where a doorway had collapsed. This was not a passive indication. There was someone trapped on the other side. Cal shone his headlight around. They were near the center of the floor plate where the building seemed to have crumpled. The upper floors had caved in. He couldn’t see any way into the area Scout had indicated. He ordered Scout to lie down and stay, dropped onto his knees where the dog had been digging and called out. In the relative silence he listened for a response. Gave it a moment.
Nothing.
He tried again. And waited.
Scout’s agitation was obvious. The dog sprang up despite Cal’s command and started digging at the rubble again. Scout’s training was such that he would’ve kept digging until he got through, but he would have injured himself badly on the shards of glass and other sharp edges in the debris. His behavior was a sure sign that there was someone in there. Cal ordered Scout to stand down again. Just when he was about to call out once more, he heard a noise. A cough.
It was a child. A young child. He called out again. Calmly, reassuringly, despite his fear.
He heard a couple more scratchy coughs before the sound turned into hiccupping sobs.
“Can you hear me?” Cal shouted.
After some soft sniffles, he heard a hesitant, “Yes.”
“Okay. I’m with the police and I’m going to help you.”
Cal heard whimpers this time.
“What’s your name?”
There was a pause, another sniffle. “Kayla.”
“Okay, Kayla. Are you hurt?”
“I... I don’t know. But my mom...”
“Your mother is with you?” Cal felt a chill permeate his bones.
“Yes. She...she’s sleeping.”
Oh, God. “All right, Kayla, try to stay calm, and I’ll get you out.”
“When?” she asked hesitantly. “It’s dark in here. I’m scared.” Her voice quavered. “And Mommy... Mommy’s sleeping. I can’t...can’t wake her up.”
“Listen, Kayla. I’ll get you out,” he repeated. “Real soon.” Cal hoped he could keep his promise.
He yanked his radio off his belt. “I’ve got a child here. Condition unknown. With her mother. She says her mother is asleep.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “She hasn’t been able to rouse her. I’m betting unconscious.” He paused. “At best.” He flashed the light around. “It doesn’t look good down here,” he reported to Command.
“Can you get to them from where you are?” Williams asked.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“All right. We’re sending you help.”
“Make it fast. I don’t know how much time we have.” He was worried about the oxygen supply where the kid and her mother were. He had to do what he could to get some airflow in. He scanned the area around him and found a couple of metal scoops. Based on their size, he assumed they were decorative, but they could’ve been used for beans in the coffee shop. The good news was they were sturdy enough to be functional. He gave Scout another firm command when the dog started digging, then he used a scoop to clear away debris in an attempt to make an opening. All the while, he tried to keep up a conversation with Kayla.
His radio crackled, and the incident commander’s voice came on. “A firefighter is on his way down to you. Have you made any progress?”
“No.” He heard the frustration in his own voice.
“Can you get to her with help?”
He almost groaned from exertion and exasperation. He heaved away a large chunk of concrete. “I doubt it. Not from here,” he growled. He’d hardly scratched the surface.
“Do you have an update on her condition?”
Cal lowered his voice. “Alive. Other than that, I don’t know.” He moved away, just in case the girl could hear him. “Her voice is fading. I don’t know how much oxygen there is. The doorway here is sealed solid, and wouldn’t be a source of air for her and her mother.”
Cal heard some background chatter.
“Okay,” the incident commander said, “we’ve got the building plans. Let’s locate her so we can determine if there’s another way in.”
After a hurried conversation, they decided that the girl and her mother were likely trapped in an interior corridor, and the elevator shaft would be the only feasible way to get to her. The firefighter they sent in arrived while Cal was still on the radio.
“We’ll need you and your dog to help us locate her from the other end,” the commander said. “Come on out and leave Mark—” referring to the new arrival “—to keep the girl calm.”
“Ten-four.” Cal moved back to the doorway and signaled for Mark to join him. “Kayla?” he called out.
Nothing.
“Kayla,” he shouted, trying to keep the rising panic from his voice. “Can you hear me?”
“Uh-huh,” came the subdued answer. “I’m sleepy. I’m going to lie down and go to sleep with Mommy.”
Cal’s eyes locked on Mark’s momentarily, and he knew they shared the same fear. Kayla was running out of oxygen. “I know you’re tired, Kayla, but please try to stay awake for me, okay? Don’t move around but try to stay awake. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.” The words were so faint they could barely hear them. They were slurred, too, which worried Cal greatly. She was close to losing consciousness, he was certain. And that was just one step away from... A vision of his sweet Haley flashed through his mind again. He began to dig furiously. No. He would not let Kayla die. Mark rested a hand on Cal’s shoulder. “You’re needed to locate her from the other side. Leave this to me now.”
Cal didn’t want to stop, but he knew the firefighter was right. “Okay,” he said. “Kayla, I’m going to come and get you, but I have—” he glanced at the badge on the firefighter’s shirt “—Captain Eagan with me. He’ll be here if you need anything, okay?”
“Yes.” She’d clearly worn herself out or was already losing consciousness. She didn’t have the energy to cry anymore.
In hushed tones, Cal explained the situation to Mark. “You have to create an opening,” Cal said. “I doubt she has enough time for us to get her from the other side.”
Mark had both a pick and a shovel with him and continued where Cal had left off.
Cal signaled to Scout, and they went back in the direction they’d come. Outside, he met up with two more firefighters and a building engineer, and was directed to where they could access the elevator shaft. The elevator had failed in its normal mode with the counterweight plummeting, meaning the elevator itself was at the top of its trajectory, so the shaft was clear. The two firefighters entered the building with him, and he, Scout and one of them were lowered down the shaft to the ground floor. With the firefighter’s key and some effort, they were able to open the elevator landing doors.
Cal could immediately see what had happened. As he’d suspected, when the floors of the building had collapsed, they’d blocked off the entrance to both corridors leading off the lobby. The entrance to the corridor where Kayla and her mother were trapped looked even less accessible from this side.
Cal feared that if the corridor was the only way to get to Kayla, they wouldn’t reach her before she ran out of oxygen. He had to believe that with the tools Mark had, he’d be able to create an opening sufficiently large for air to get in. When Cal gave Scout the hand signal to locate the girl, Scout bypassed the corridor entrance altogether. The rubble must have masked Kayla’s scent. In seconds, he was barking and scratching along what would’ve been a side wall.
Hope surged through Cal as he and the firefighter rushed over to where Scout was digging. They might still have a chance. He instructed Scout to move back and wait, and squatted to ge
t a better look. A structural column had collapsed, and the beam it was supporting had tumbled down on top of it, but there was a small triangular opening at its base. The gap was filled with crushed concrete and other debris, but it appeared to be loosely packed. Cal and the firefighter worked feverishly to open up the space. If the little girl had depleted the available oxygen, every second counted.
The time seemed interminable, but it actually took them less than a minute to create an opening under the column. The good news was that air was now flowing freely into the space. Cal hoped fervently it wasn’t too late.
Crouching down by the opening, he shouted, “Kayla, it’s Cal. Can you hear me?”
There was no response. No sound of movement.
He called out again, then asked the firefighter to radio Mark Eagan on the other side to see if Kayla was still communicating with him. Lowering himself to his stomach, he tried to crawl into the gap. He could aim his flashlight in, but there was no way his shoulders were going to fit.
The firefighter reported that Kayla had been non-communicative for nearly five minutes.
That sent a chill up his spine but, he wouldn’t give up on her.
He considered the small opening. It would be tight, but Scout should be able to crawl through, he decided. Before giving the dog commands, he shouted, “Kayla! I’m here and I’m going to get you out, like I promised. I’m sending my dog in to get you. His name is Scout and he won’t hurt you. Don’t be afraid, okay?”
Still no response. The firefighter shook his head dejectedly, but Cal refused to accept that they were too late.
Although search-and-rescue dogs generally didn’t perform extractions, Cal had made it a game with Scout during training. He wasn’t sure it would work, but it was Kayla’s only chance right now and worth a try.
He removed Scout’s collar; he didn’t want to risk having it get caught on something in the tight space. If that happened, both Kayla and Scout would be trapped. He gave Scout the play signal, and pretended to throw a toy into the opening. The shepherd cocked his head and looked at Cal questioningly. Cal pointed to the opening. “Go get her, Scout,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could. “Go on. Go get her.”
Scout obviously understood there was no toy involved, but crawled into the void on his belly. Down on one knee, Cal continued to aim the flashlight into the space and listened intently. He heard scrambling as Scout must have reached the cavity on the other side. A series of staccato barks indicated to Cal that Scout had located his target. He heard more scrambling, then Scout was backing out through the opening. From the way he was laboring, Cal knew he had the little girl. If only the child was still alive.
As soon as Scout’s back end cleared the opening, Cal gave him the command “out” to release. The dog been dragging the girl by the hood of her sweater, which luckily had been buttoned up in the air-conditioned cool of the building.
Cal handed the flashlight to the firefighter and wriggled in as far as he could to get hold of the little girl under her armpits, gently pulling her out. Once she was clear of the opening, the firefighter checked her for vital signs. Nodding to Cal, letting him know she was still alive, he started rescue breathing.
Cal felt an immediate sense of relief. His next priority was to locate Kayla’s mother—or anyone else who might’ve been trapped with them. He signaled to Scout again, and said silent thanks when he heard the little girl cough behind him. He knew the firefighter would take care of Kayla and have her lifted out. His focus was now on the mother.
Cal illuminated the cavity with his flashlight. From his vantage point, he couldn’t see anyone, or anything of significance. But he assumed from what Kayla had told him that her mother was in there somewhere, unconscious. He tried again to get his shoulders to fit through the opening. It was a no-go.
“Palmer,” the firefighter called to him.
He backed out of the opening. “Yeah. What?” he snapped in frustration.
“We need you here.”
Cal’s irritated gaze met the other man’s.
The firefighter gestured to Kayla. “She needs you.”
Cal glanced at the girl with her long black hair and huge dark brown eyes, and everything in him softened. The kid couldn’t have been more than four or five. It was obvious that she was making a heroic effort not to cry.
Cal squatted down in front of her.
“Mommy...?” she croaked, tears shimmering in her eyes and spilling over to trail through the grime on her cheeks.
“Kayla, your mother was with you?” He pointed toward the opening. “In there?” She’d already said so, but Cal hadn’t been able to see anything, nor had he heard any further noise from inside.
The child swiped the back of her hand under her nose. “Uh-huh,” she said before she started to cough once more.
The firefighter offered her some water from his flask. She took a sip, gagged, then coughed again as Cal patted her back. “You’re okay,” he reassured her. “I’m going to look for your mother. We need to get you out of here.”
“No!” The word exploded from her and she grasped his wrist with her small hand. “I want my mommy.”
“We’re going to get her next, but you have to go out of the building.”
“No. I don’t want to. I want Mommy.” She thrust out her lower lip.
“You have to. Your mother would want you to be safe. This man will take you out and I’ll look for your mother.”
“Can’t the other man get Mommy?” Her chest was heaving and she clutched Cal’s arm harder. She was obviously near her breaking point.
Cal glanced up at the firefighter, who shrugged.
“That’s why I called you. She wouldn’t leave. She wanted you.”
Cal gripped Kayla’s shoulders and stared into her tear-drenched eyes. “I’m going to look for your mother now.”
She started to sob and threw herself in Cal’s arms. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to go without Mommy. Or you.”
Cal held tight, clasping one hand over the back of the child’s head, smoothing down the tangled, matted mass of dark hair. He assessed the circumstances quickly and decided the extra couple of minutes it would take him to lift the girl out would likely make no difference to her mother. Air was getting in. If the woman was unconscious, she wouldn’t run out of oxygen. And if it was worse...well, he didn’t want to think about it.
A loud grinding noise reverberated around them—metal abrading against metal—as if the building was settling. Cal and the firefighter froze, waiting for the noise and the vibrations to cease.
“I’ll take you out, but after that you’ll stay with this man, so I can come back for your mother.”
She sniffled a bit, then nodded, her head resting against his shoulder. “Okay.”
Cal rose, with Kayla in his arms. They made their way over to the hoist and the firefighter radioed to let them know up top what was happening. They decided the firefighter should go first. He would take Kayla to the triage area once Cal got her out. Cal ordered Scout to wait. The firefighter was lifted out, then the harness was lowered again. Cal strapped himself in. Holding Kayla firmly against his chest, he wrapped the final harness strap around both of them. He signaled for the crew to start the extraction.
As they began to move, the little girl held on tight, her arms wound around his neck, her face still buried in the crook of his neck. They ascended slowly and cleared the building. He blinked rapidly to adjust his eyes to the late-evening sunshine, blinding after the darkness inside.
He wondered fleetingly how the sun could shine so intensely with all the destruction below, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it. They were swung away from the opening and Cal unfastened them, handing Kayla to the firefighter.
Just as Cal was strapping himself back in, he felt a strong breeze and spread his legs to brace himse
lf. Even so, when the building beneath him shook, he was nearly knocked off his feet.
“An aftershock,” he heard someone yell, and the building shifted, then tilted perilously.
This time Cal did lose his balance. Landing on his backside, he was catapulted down the inclined rooftop headfirst. The harness he hadn’t fully secured snapped free. He tried to twist around as the edge of the rooftop rushed toward him. He managed to turn enough so that he wasn’t leading with his head when he hit the parapet wall. He lay still for a few moments to catch his breath. His left shoulder screamed but he didn’t think it was broken. He hoped it wasn’t dislocated, either. Nothing else seemed to hurt enough to worry about.
People on the rooftop and at street level were shouting and rushing about. Cal unfolded himself and, bracing against the parapet wall, he rose to stand on the steeply sloping rooftop. He took one quick glance over the edge and knew that if the parapet wall hadn’t been there or hadn’t held, it would have been game over for him.
He pushed that thought aside and turned to search the area for the firefighter and Kayla. They were huddled together against the railing by the rooftop stairwell and looked unharmed. His next thought was of Kayla’s mother and Scout. He had to get back into the building. Massaging his shoulder, he walked at an angle along the steeply sloping roof toward the elevator shaft opening and the hoisting mechanism.
“Let’s get this done,” he said to the firefighter operating the hoist as he strapped himself back into the harness.
“You aren’t going down there.”
“Darn right I am.” He gestured toward Kayla. “Her mother is down there, and so is my dog.”
“I don’t have permission to let anyone back in.”
“Then get it,” Cal snarled, forestalling any further argument.
The firefighter had a hurried conversation on his radio with the incident commander, and shook his head. “No go. The building might be unstable now and they’re worried about another aftershock.”
