Sam slid the side door open. Alex took the large winch hook in his gloved hands and attached it to his harness. Sam was pleased to see that he checked the pit pin was secure before grinning at her, nodding and then unclipping his seat belt.
‘Moving Alex to door. Clear skids.’
‘Clear skids,’ Terry confirmed.
No extra line was needed to protect Alex this time because the target was stationary. Sam operated the winch more slowly than usual as Alex came closer to the ground. He was putting himself down a little way from the jagged metal of the crushed car but the rocks were huge and slippery with sea spray. The potential for injury was probably greater than that pitching ship’s deck had been.
‘Minus ten,’ Alex said clearly via the helmet radio. ‘Nine…eight…seven…’
Sam saw his feet touch a boulder and slip. He touched again between two rocks as Sam gave him a little more slack line. He staggered but then she saw his determined, rapid movements to free himself from the hook.
‘Weight’s coming off,’ Sam told Terry.
‘Roger.’ The pilot had to make allowances for the change of weight. He moved the aircraft up and further away from the cliff as Sam retracted the hook. Then they all waited, watching and listening for the report from Alex.
He stooped first over the body they had seen on the rocks but the check was brief.
‘Status zero,’ he said, confirming that the boy had not survived. ‘There’s another one further up the beach. Frontseat passenger, I think. That door’s been ripped off, probably when it rolled.’
Seconds later they heard the verdict of another deceased victim. Sam’s heart sank. Maybe there would be no survivors and Alex would come back up without having any use for the medical supplies and nappy harness he had in his pack.
‘I can see someone moving in the car.’
For what seemed a long time Sam could hear nothing on Alex’s channel. She could listen in on what was going on above the beach as an attempt was being made to find a way down the cliff further along the shoreline. She also heard a progress report on the despatch of a second helicopter but it wasn’t going to be able to take off for at least twenty minutes.
The waves were breaking much closer to the wreck than they had been even ten minutes ago. A particularly big one sent spray that went right over the roof of the car and Sam held her breath, silently urging Alex to hurry.
‘We’ve got two patients.’ His voice finally came through her headphones, sounding astonishingly calm. ‘I think I can get one out and bring him up in the nappy harness. Got a bit of a problem with the other one. He’s trapped by his arm.’
Sam could hear the sound near Alex. A wail of pain and fear that sent a chill up her spine.
‘It’s OK, mate,’ she heard Alex say. ‘We’ll get you out, I promise.’
It took ten minutes to bring the first victim up in the nappy harness. He was covered in bruises and lacerations, the worst being a deep scalp wound.
‘This is Shane,’ Alex told her, as they manoeuvred the boy into the cabin and unhooked him from the harness. ‘He’s fourteen.’
He looked no more than twelve. As white as a sheet, he was sobbing uncontrollably. It took only a few minutes to land the helicopter near the collection of emergency service vehicles on the road and hand over his care to waiting ambulance staff.
Shane grabbed Alex’s arm from where he lay on the stretcher. He shouted to be heard over the deafening noise of the rotors that Sam and Alex had stooped to move beneath.
‘You’ve gotta help the others,’ he shouted at Alex. ‘You promised. My brother’s still in the car. He’s the one that’s stuck.’
‘I’m going to need help,’ Alex told Sam. ‘How far away is that second crew?’
‘They haven’t taken off yet. I’ll come down with you. Bryan’s qualified as a winch operator.’
Alex shook his head. ‘The guy’s trapped. His arm was out the window of the car and the roof was flattened when it rolled. I’m going to need a crowbar and some cutters and someone with a hell of lot of strength.’
‘There isn’t anyone else,’ Sam reminded him. ‘And that tide’s coming in fast. I’ll go and ask the fire crew for some gear, shall I?’
‘No, I’ll do that. I need to see what they’ve got that’s portable.’ Alex looked uncharacteristically undecided as he stared thoughtfully at Sam. Then he nodded grimly. ‘You’re right. We can’t afford to waste time. You talk to Terry and Bryan while I get some gear.’
It all seemed to take too much time.
Alex was winched down first, with the heavy bag containing what was probably going to be inadequate gear for cutting someone free from crushed metal.
Sam had complete faith in Bryan’s ability to operate the winch safely, but it still had to be one of the scariest missions she had ever undertaken. The worst bit was the foam that washed over her boots, sending icy sea water in to soak her toes. The tide was progressing inexorably towards the cliff.
Leaving a young boy to drown in a car was too horrible a scenario to contemplate.
Alex was already working on what had been the side rear window of the car. He’d found a small gap into which he’d inserted the flat end of a crowbar. Sam could see the effort he was putting in to try and bend the metal, but the gap only widened a minuscule amount.
The scream from within the vehicle was blood-curdling.
‘Get me out! There’s water coming in here. He-e-lp!’
‘Get inside with him, Sam,’ Alex ordered. ‘Talk to him. Try and get some pain relief on board.’
Sam clambered over boulders slick with sea water and clumps of kelp. A wave crashed nearby and she was momentarily blinded by the spray. The front passenger door had been ripped off its hinges. The boy who’d been sitting in that seat was lying near the base of the cliff. The gap he’d left in the vehicle was big enough for Sam to squeeze into quite easily.
‘It’s OK,’ she told the terrified boy in the back seat. ‘I’m Sam. What’s your name?’
‘Darren.’
‘You’re Shane’s brother, right?’
‘Yeah. Arrrgh!’
‘Take it easy, Darren. I’m just going to try and get into the back seat with you so I can help.’
‘You can’t help. I can’t get out. I’ve tried and tried. The water’s coming in and I’m going to die.’
He was pulling desperately at the arm sandwiched between layers of crushed metal. The skin was lacerated and bleeding heavily. Sam could hear Alex hammering on the outside of the car and could feel the whole wreck vibrating.
‘It’s OK, Darren. We’re going to get you out.’
Sam had to climb upwards over the handbrake. The driver’s seat had been pushed back and was covering Darren’s legs. Sam twisted forward again, felt for the tilt control lever on the other side of the seat and pulled hard. The back of the seat lifted a little and Darren shrieked again.
‘I’m just making some space,’ Sam reassured him. She turned to get the tiny oxygen cylinder from the trauma pack she had brought down with her. ‘I’m going to put some oxygen on you, Darren, and then check you out and give you something for that pain. Are you having any trouble breathing?’
‘No. It just hurts.’
‘What hurts? Your chest?’
‘No. My arm.’
‘What about your neck?’
Darren twisted his head. ‘It hurts, too.’
‘OK. Don’t try and move it. I’m going to get a collar on you.’
It was incredibly awkward, working in the confines of the tilted and squashed car, but Sam persevered until she had Darren’s neck protected with a cervical collar and had checked his blood pressure so she could be confident it was safe to give him some pain relief.
‘I’m going to put a needle in your hand so I can give you some morphine. Are you allergic to any drugs that you know of?’
‘No.’
Worrying about side effects or titrating the dose could soon become irrelevant, anyway,
with the lack of progress Alex was making. As Sam taped the cannula to secure it in a vein on Darren’s free arm, a new wave broke and rolled up the bonnet of the car to hiss through the missing windscreen and wash over the dashboard.
Water lapped at Sam’s knees. She drew up the dose of narcotic and had to wonder what they would do if the water level rose too far and too fast for them to free Darren. Knock him out with a combination of sedatives and narcotics so he wouldn’t be aware of drowning?
There would come a point when it was too dangerous for any rescuers. They could escape the tide by moving along the beach to a point where the cliff could be climbed, but if they left it too long, they could be caught by a wave, dragged out to sea and then pounded back against those punishing rocks.
There was no need for Sam to remind Alex of the urgency of their situation. He was trying every point he could on the wreck, using both the crowbar and a pair of metal shears, but the only places he could affect were too far to help free Darren’s arm.
Darren was much quieter now. Sam had administered a dose of morphine intended to remove the pain and stop his attempts to free himself, which were only doing further damage and stimulating greater blood loss. She put up some fluids to counteract the blood loss and potential shock and then used the time to give the teenager as thorough a secondary survey as the conditions allowed.
‘He’s got a fractured left ankle,’ she relayed to Alex. ‘Possible rib fractures as well, but no respiratory distress. Pelvis appears stable. Darren?’ Sam pinched his earlobe and the boy’s eyes opened readily. ‘How’re you doing there, mate?’
‘OK, I guess.’
‘How’s the pain now?’
‘Gone.’
‘I’m getting nowhere fast,’ Alex admitted a minute or two later. ‘Have a good look at his arm, would you, Sam?’
Sam examined what she could see of the crushed limb.
‘Radius and ulna are both fractured and I think Darren’s pulled on it hard enough to displace the bones. I can feel the end of the radius on this side of the metal anyway.’
Another wave rolled in and this time Sam felt the water hit her helmet and roll down the neck of her boilersuit.
Alex swore rather vehemently. ‘We’re not going to make it this way,’ he warned. ‘That wave nearly pulled me out.’
‘Abort the mission.’ Terry’s voice cut in. ‘You have to get yourselves out of there.’
‘Not yet.’ Alex moved and his head and shoulders filled the gap of the front passenger seat as he leaned over the trauma kit. ‘You ready to call it a day, Sam?’
Darren’s eyes flickered open again at the sound of Alex’s voice and the flash of panic made Sam squeeze the hand she was holding.
‘No,’ she told Alex.
Never mind that she was kneeling in six inches of water and that the next wave actually rocked the car. Sam turned to catch Alex’s gaze and she saw the same determination in his eyes. No way could he just abandon this mission and leave a boy barely out of childhood to drown.
‘Right.’Alex smiled at Sam. A brief twist of his lips that acknowledged her courage and applauded her decision. And more—or was it Sam’s imagination that gave her the impression that he knew he was more likely to succeed if he had Sam by his side?
Maybe she was just seeing a reflection of what Alex was giving her. Much of her own courage, which had been ebbing into the icy water she was kneeling in, was somehow restored to Sam with that smile. Alex wouldn’t allow her to stay in there if he thought it was impossible for them to succeed.
He might choose to stay and endanger himself, though, and part of Sam’s determination to see this through was to do with protecting Alex. The bond was way too strong. They could do this, but only if they did it together.
‘Get me a patch through to an orthopaedic surgeon via the emergency department,’ Alex instructed Terry. ‘The only way we’re going to get this lad out alive is to amputate that hand.’
The opinion was shocking but Sam knew it was balanced. The hand was most likely crushed beyond any chance of repair anyway, and it would be far better to lose a hand than a life. This was a challenge she hadn’t expected to face. It was also one she was determined to handle with the kind of professional and calm approach she knew Alex would take.
The radio link took several minutes to set up but there was no way the SERT members could go ahead with such a procedure without permission from a higher medical authority. By the time they had received that permission, Sam had topped up the medications Darren was being given intravenously and had infiltrated his arm with as much local anaesthetic as they carried. She had a tourniquet ready to tighten just below his elbow.
The lapse in time had also been enough for the waves to catch and drag away the body of Darren’s mate from the rocks in front of the car. Each time the sea water surged in, it came higher. Sam was up to her waist at times.
‘Want to change places?’Alex queried. He pulled a scalpel from the trauma kit supplies. ‘Want me to do the cutting?’
‘It would take too long.’ Sam pulled the tourniquet tight and reached for the scalpel. ‘I can do this. I just hope those bones have separated completely.’
They had. In fact, the amount of skin and muscle that had kept Darren’s arm so firmly trapped seemed insignificant. Slicing through a tendon was more of a challenge, both physically and emotionally, and Sam had to take in a deep breath. It was just as well she did. With an extra gasp she shut her eyes and held that breath as a new wave broke right over her. At the same time she cut down hard on the structure her scalpel was resting against.
Darren fell back as he was cut free. His cry of pain and possibly horror made him take in water and he was coughing and spluttering as Sam felt Alex’s hands reach in to take charge. Together they somehow managed to pull the teenager clear of the wreck and they got him onto the stretcher before hastily covering the stump of his arm.
Alex sent Sam up with the stretcher hooked in front of her.
‘I’ll come up next,’ he said.
Sam saw Alex knocked over by the wave that came just as her feet cleared the biggest rocks. She saw him get dragged back several feet before he caught and held a pointed piece of rock.
‘On second thoughts,’ he said rather breathlessly, having pushed his helmet back into place, ‘I might go along the beach a bit.’
Bryan helped pull the stretcher in-board and then Sam was safely back inside the helicopter.
‘Do we send the winch down again?’
Sam peered beneath them through the still open side door. Alex was moving at speed as he negotiated boulders along the shoreline. A team of rescuers had reached the other end of the beach so there would probably be ropes in place to help ascend the steeper sections of the cliff. Maybe they were planning to attempt retrieval of the remaining body before it, too, got claimed by the incoming tide.
‘Let’s land,’ Sam advised Terry. ‘I think Alex will reach the top on his own pretty quickly.’
Sam put a pressure bandage on Darren’s arm and released the tourniquet. She checked his vital signs and replaced the IV fluid pack.
The back-up helicopter landed as Alex cleared the cliff. By the time he reached the impromptu helipad on the tarmac, Sam could tell him what their instructions from Control were.
‘Tom and Angus are going to do the hospital transfer. We’re to go back to Base in the other chopper.’
‘Why?’ Alex was clearly reluctant to hand over their patient.
‘Look at you, mate.’ Tom shook his head. ‘You’re soaked and probably hypothermic. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of him.’ He gave Alex a friendly punch on the arm. ‘Good save, from what we’ve heard. We’ll look forward to hearing all the gory details later.’
‘You’ll have to ask Sam for them. I was just along for the ride.’
It was Sam’s turn to shake her head. There was no way on earth she would have attempted what they’d just done if she’d been with anyone else. They were a team. Neither
of them was ever just ‘along for the ride’.
The blast of air from Terry taking off with their patient and his temporary crew cut through Sam’s clothing like a knife and made her realise how right Tom had been. They were both soaked and frozen even if their adrenaline level from the job was still high enough for them not to feel it. The sooner they got back to Base for a hot shower and a change of clothes the better.
There was only one bathroom on the base. With Sam being the only female, she hadn’t expected anyone to go to the expense of setting up separate facilities.
‘You go first,’ Alex suggested generously, as they entered the hangar. ‘You’re colder than me.’
Sam’s teeth were certainly chattering, despite the blanket she had wrapped around her. Her fingers were strangely numb but she still didn’t feel cold.
‘I can’t undo my boots.’
‘Here, let me.’ Alex crouched and undid the zip between the double lacing of Sam’s army-style boots.
She fumbled with the zip at the top of her boilersuit when he had eased her boots off and had to laugh at her incompetence.
‘Don’t take that off out here. It’s too cold.’ Alex steered her towards the internal door of the hangar. ‘Look, I’ll turn the shower on and make sure you can get that zip undone, OK?’
‘Sure.’ That was more than fine as far as Sam was concerned. A good level of adrenaline had to be still circulating after one of the most dangerous missions she had ever experienced. Why else would her pulse be racing and her breath coming in shallow gasps? And why else would she be feeling such a strong need to stick so close to her partner?
He looked like a seal, she thought, with his dark hair plastered against his head and odd drops of water still rolling down to catch in the tangle of the dark lashes framing his eyes. Then Sam caught sight of herself in the mirror over the handbasins. Her hair was just as flat—not a spike to be seen and no amount of ruffling was going to improve it.
‘I’m so wet!’ she exclaimed. ‘I look like a drowned rat!’
‘You look great.’ Alex turned on the shower and then reached for the zip at the top of Sam’s overalls. ‘You always do.’
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