"How the hell did it actually manage to get off the tracks in the first place?" Abby inquired loudly as she rushed along the corridor of the ER towards the trauma room, while pressing down heavily on the abdomen of a young boy who had been brought in from the crash.
"Apparently there was something on the tracks, ice or a rock I'm not sure. The fire department are still looking into it, but the fire still isn't out," one of the paramedics shouted back to her above the din of screaming patients.
She nodded and looked down at the boy. His brightly coloured parka was melted in various places onto his skin, he had a laceration to his head and a thirty centimetre rod of metal skewered through his abdomen. Abby had to admire the make shift pressure applier that had been created by someone at the scene - she would have done the same.
She pulled the jacket off and threw it to the floor as she reached the trauma room. Neela was at the head of the bed, compressing the balloon that would carry air to his already intubated lungs.
"Get Carter!" Abby shouted as she attached the child up to various machines that would tell her of his true condition.
When she had finished and she was waiting for John Carter to arrive, she looked at him again. He looked to be about seven years old. She shook her head and looked around outside the trauma room.
Where the hell was Luka?
"Every body, get out, get out now!" Luka snapped his head up from where it was bent over yet another patient who needed intubated. He looked around him and quickly inserted the tube and inserted the tube that would connect him to the balloon that would hopefully save his life.
The two fire fighters beside him began moving the gurney and he walked along beside it, his fingers compresing on the rubber. When he reached the ambulance he stepped away and said:
"Male, about thirty nine years old. Severe injuries to his neck - get them to check his c-spine. Broken both legs and his right arm, his ribs and has probably inhaled a great deal of smoke."
The paramedics nodded and pushed the gurney into the ambulance and jumped in beside it.
Luka snapped his gloves off and made to walk back into where he was needed most when a firm hand on his elbow stopped him. He turned around and saw the burly, smoke smeared face of the Chief of the fire department.
"What's going on?" Luka asked and looked around, trying to find the nurse form earlier.
"There's electricity jumping about all over the place, there's fire and it's not under control." Luka tried to pull away again, thinking that the risks were the same as they had been four hours earlier but was firmly stopped. "There's also petrol on board."
Luka snapped his ead around and stared questioningly at the man.
"Yeah," he nodded and moved away.
This wasn't an accident?
"Hey!" He called out to the Chief and he turned back towards him. "Where's the nurse?"
The Chief shrugged his shoulders, his hands splayed upwards towards the sky.
"Which one?"
Luka frowned slightly then realised that there was no difference between a medic and a nurse to this man.
"Woman, long blond hair, curly?" He described and kept his eyes looking frantically around.
"Haven't seen her," he heard the fireman say and he nodded before walking off in the other direction.
He reached his hand up to rub at his bandaged neck, the cool pack held underneath had long ceased being cool. It itched. He ran his hands through his hair and tugged at it slightly.
Then he saw her, just as she hit the floor near the upturned carriages.
Ignoring the stinging in his neck, and the angry bellows from the numerous fire fighters who were trying to evacuate the area, he ran towards her as quick as he could. His feet hit off of numerous corpses and he stumbled more than once but he persisted.
As he reached her, his feet slipped on a patch of water that had turned to ice and he fell and jarred his shoulder. Groaning, he pushed himself up with his right arm and moved more carefully towards her. Towering above her, he could see her pale skin, only made paler by the sight of the red blood that was trailing down the side of her head. He reached down and put one of his arms under her knees and the other around her shoulders.
He moaned as he lifted her and her weight pulled at his shoulder, but he kept going.
He made it two steps forward when, from somewhere behind him, he heard the thunder and felt a heat slimb through his body. He heard the yells from somehwere else but he didn't know where. He lost his balance and he dropped the slender woman onto the ground and fell on top of her as another rumble of thunder and even more heat scorched up him.
He tried to move, but he couldn't. All he could feel was darkness pulling at him.