The blast was deafening. Picked up like a matchstick by the shockwave, he was hurled through the air and slammed against the perimeter wall. Struggling to his feet in the direction of the fire service guys (not that he could tell where anything was), he swayed for a minute. The smoke from the burning fuel rolled over him, burning, thick and sooty. Dragged the breath from his lungs, the water from his eyes.
He blinked, grittily, noticing a flash of red in his peripheral vision. Took a step, then plunged into the darkness.
It was Jan who noticed first.
The explosion from the crash site had caught them all off guard, and a thought struck her: Iain had been stabilising Bekka with Ruby, who had come to get some kit from the PO car...through the safety cordon.
She barely had time to register horror when, out of the corner of her eye, two firemen ran up, a long streak of green hanging limp between them.
Iain.
"Right, get him on here, get his helmet off. Iain?"
Ruby's stricken face hovered at his other side.
"Iain? It's Ruby. Can you hear me?"
His breathing sounded terrible, rasping in his chest like he was breathing sand, accessory muscles heaving with the effort.
And no wonder. When she looked down his throat, it had almost swollen shut, scalded by the rolling tide of thick black smoke.
Dylan was at her side, the third person to notice.
"Severe burns to the upper airway, throat's swelling shut."
"Sats are 89 and dropping!"
"Right, he needs a surgical airway. Ruby, can you get me the kit please?"
Ruby ran, pulled the purple bag from the back of the car, and sprinted back.
Jan tilted Iain's head back, exposing the smudged white of his throat. Dylan traced the scalpel in a tight circle with practiced ease, cutting through the skin and muscle to open the windpipe. He slid the tube in, Ruby quickly taping it in place.
Almost immediately, Iain's chest rose, gasping in a massive breath.
The relief was short-lived.
The immediate threat taken care of, they started a primary survey which revealed what looked like a depressed skull fracture above his left ear, a fractured left collarbone, multiple broken ribs and what Dylan muttered tersely was "probably a nasty laceration to the spleen". Cutting away his uniform exposed livid purple bruising stretching down his entire left side, and what looked suspiciously like a bullet scar, stark and granular over his left hip. Grazes crisscrossed his palms.
So he'd been thrown by the blast, dazed, forced himself to get up and move...
These army boys. Never had known the meaning of the word 'stop'.
Then again, it was often easier to keep a cool head on a ship.
Despite his shock (and hers), she managed to get a line in and push the fluids, Dylan nodding with something approaching approval. As they wrapped him up, heading into the ambo, Iain's eyes began to flicker open in the bright light.