The ambulance wailed as usual, background noise almost as familiar as her favorite song, but she focused on the task at hand. The blonde woman checked her bag and tucked it to the side before finishing an inventory of the remaining tools of their trade. "All set for rescue cab crew."
"Understood Anna. Be there in less than three. Prepare for Fire Department aid. The report says it's a multiple car pileup."
"In this rain it's not a surprise." Anna rubbed at her eyes. "Visibility's practically nil and we've got crazy drivers everywhere."
"Truer words." There was a pause. "You know, your shift ended ten minutes ago. You didn't have to hop on this call."
"Daisy's not seen anything like this before and I don't want a multi-car pile-up with possible multiple fatalities and gruesome injuries to be her first experience." Anna leaned her head back against the wall of the rocking ambulance. "Just get us there Gwen, let's save some lives, and then we'll be heading home like it's nothing."
"Save 'em like you love 'em."
"As long as you drive it like you stole it Gwen." Anna closed her eyes for a moment and then shoved her arms through her jacket and got her gloves on. "Ready to go."
They arrived at the scene and Anna opened the back doors of the ambulance against the thrash of driving rain. She blinked through it, pulling her hat lower in hopes the bill could block the rain but it only splattered her cheeks instead. Shouldering her bag, Anna jogged toward the outskirts of the pile-up, navigating the flares set up to sputter their pink-red light against the rain.
The Fire Marshall directed the firefighters to the cars with jammed doors and bent fronts, prying people loose and breaking windows to extract children. Anna assessed the situation from her position and caught the man's attention. "Where do you need me?"
"We've got a car over there," He pointed and Anna followed the line of his finger to see one close to the edge of the bridge. "There are two people inside. The woman needs medical attention and the man might as well, once they get him out of the car."
"Right." Anna skidded slightly on the wet asphalt and got to the side of the car where two firefighters pulled a woman from the passenger side. They laid her on the ground and Anna immediately knelt next to her, dropping her bag to unzip it as she tried to address the woman with eyes rolling in their sockets. "My name's Anna Smith. Can you hear me?"
"Yes," The woman slurred the 'S' at the end of the word and Anna whipped out a pen light to check the woman's pupils.
"Do you know what day it is?" The woman only mumbled something. "Okay, how about your name, can you tell me that?"
After her second response mumbled like the first, Anna turned into the radio on her shoulder, "Gwen, I've got one over by the blue car who needs evac. She's severely concussed and might have nerve damage."
"On my way with the wheels."
Anna turned back to the woman, "My friend, Gwen, is coming to check you for other injuries and get you where someone else can see to you. But I'm here until she arrives. Okay?" The woman did not respond, only groaned in pain as Anna continued her check.
Over the noise of the rain, Anna slipped to the side as Gwen and a man approached, wheeling a gurney. "I think she's got other injuries but all superficial. Get her on an IV and keep her conscious. Alert the A&E we've got multiple incoming and they need to hurry."
"Second and third vans are already on their way." Gwen and the man moved a plastic piece under the woman and strapped her to it before lifting her onto the gurney. "They're another minute out."
"Good." Anna turned as the two firemen called for her. "What?"
"We've almost got the door but his belt's stuck." One of them nodded to the man still strapped in the driver's side. "We need smaller hands."
"Right." Anna removed her gloves, stuffing them in a pocket as she climbed between the two men to reach around the seat. Her fingers fumbled as she tried to reach the push release button for the belt.
A screech of wheels and brakes alerted everyone to the oncoming car. Anna raised her head and, for a moment, the world stopped. It was as if she could see the individual droplets of rain as they slapped down on the bonnet of the car and the road. She endured the car, its failed brakes screeching in agony, slamming into the pile-up already in progress as speed returned to the world and the sounds shattered around her.
The firefighters threw themselves out of the way as one of the already stalled cars hit the bumper of the car holding the unconscious man. The car where her body stretched over the seat and her fingers still reached to try and release the seatbelt. The same fingers she curled around the belt to try and hold on as the force of the strike sent her back into the windshield. Momentary pain, that her body would force her to ignore until later, exploded through her back as the car tipped off the bridge and into the surging river below.
When the car struck the water, physics required a dissipation of the force and one way it reverberated was to knock Anna into the passenger seat. Her abdomen struck hard and her knees knocked against the metal of the car. Her fingers , those not still twisted in the seat belt, flailed to hold onto the man's shirt sleeve as the tear of the river's current threatened to rip her from the car. With a scream she tugged herself back inside and curled into the seat as she tried to breathe.
Coughing and choking as the water rushed into the car through its damaged windows and gaping door, Anna crawled toward the man in the seat. The car jarred again, the current taking it along as if it were no more than an errant tree branch, and her head knocked against the support for the driver side window. It sent white spots through her vision and Anna blinked them away as she forced herself to focus on freeing the man from his seat belt. …And then maybe get them both out of the car without drowning.
Another jerk of the car had her straddling his lap. Anna shook her head, the blur in her vision alerting the rational part of her brain to the likelihood of a concussion to match the extraordinary bruising, and possibly brokenness, of her ribs. She struggled with the buckle in the water and growled when it failed to open for her. Another attempt did nothing to free him and Anna sacrificed her hold on his shirt to dig furiously in her pocket for a knife. She flicked it open and sawed through the two parts of the man's seatbelt.
They released and she flicked her knife back in place. With the water rising, Anna put one hand under the man's chin to keep it above water as his chest rose and fell. A release of the straps left Anna struggling to tug the man over the passenger side seat. Given how the car continued to sink as water filled it, she could find no leverage as her feet continued to slip and flail in her struggle.
Switching her tactic, Anna wrapped an arm around his chest and tugged. With her hand holding around the doorway of the car, she dragged him toward her but his leg caught. The car jarred again and Anna only just stopped herself from going under water and taking him with her. Choking on the water as she forced air into her lungs, Anna jammed her feet in place between the gear box and the seat and yanked at the man's chest. But he still would not move. All she could do was keep his head above water until she noticed his leg jammed in a crumpled turn of the door on his side.
Turning her head toward the river, Anna barely missed being struck by a large branch aimed toward the car like a spear. She adjusted in her seat but noted the river's unpredictability sent the branch spinning toward the windshield. Crunching her eyes closed as she clapped a hand over the man's face, Anna heard the branch crush through the window, barely missing stabbing through the man.
But the miracles stopped there as the force of the strike upset the car to send it further down the river. The rush of the car knocked Anna's head into the doorway and the blurring to her vision only worsened as black spots now dotted everything. Her fingers loosened on the car and only her grip on the man's chest kept her in the car until she could regain her footing.
"Come on." She blinked furiously, shaking her head to try and focus past the pain. "Come on. I just need a break."
Another branch hit the car and the door on the driver's side whined and screeched as it bent under the weight of the branch. Bent away from the man's leg so it released and physics finally worked in Anna's favor. Worked so well, in fact, it caught her off balance and they both tumbled out of the car into the gushing river. The river that rushed them downstream in less than a second.
Anna struggled to hold to the man, keeping his head above water and fighting to keep her own up as well. Despite the dead weight, Anna turned them in the current, pointed their feet downstream, and flailed to steer them toward one of the riverbanks. A bank where she could drag them back to solid earth despite the overflowing of the bounds of the water.
A dip in the river forced water into Anna's mouth. She coughed and choked, spitting to clear her mouth and breathe. She tugged on the man, his weight in the water dragging her down as the weight of her own sodden clothes sapped at her energy. Energy she needed to fight the impending concussion and threatening blackness of a faint. Energy that, if she allowed her mind to acknowledge it, was already empty.
But she struggled all the same.
Gained a little ground with each and every thrust of her arm as she moved forward. Each stroke brought the shore a fraction more within reach and Anna grabbed for whatever she could find. Her fingers wrapped around a root and she tugged, struggling to pull both of their weights with her flagging strength. A bend of her arm brought her closer to the shore and Anna cried out with all her strength as she hauled them both onto dry ground, fighting past the suck of mud to gain higher ground.
Her feet hit and she crawled on her knees, still dragging the man with her, until they were out of the line of the river's rushing course. His body lay prone, still breathing, and Anna collapsed onto her hands and knees next to him, her arms shaking as a prelude to the convulsions running through her body. When her arms gave out, she collapsed sideways and smiled to herself when she saw his chest still rising and falling.
"Save 'em like you love 'em." Anna sighed and blacked out.
Someone pulled her from the water.
Hands wrapped around her arms and the surf lost its clinging hold on her. Her lungs finally filled with air and she inhaled harshly against the raw scrape of her lungs. It sent her chest into spasms as her body accustomed itself to breathing when it had nearly given up on the effort. But as each breath allowed her mind to clear she opened her eyes.
Seeing only darkness and rain confused her as hands moved over her until she registered her body lifting from the ground. Part of her wanted to fight but the struggle to remain conscious sapped her already taxed energy and she hung limp in the grasp of whomever had her. At the stranger she did not know.
A turn of her head, a blink of her eyes, and she saw the man holding her. She frowned, the man seeming familiar to her, and her hand raised weakly to try and touch his face. But whatever flagging strength she had finally failed and her arm dropped.
He looked down, noticing her open eyes. "It's alright. I've got you."
"You…" She frowned, "You look familiar."
And then she passed out.