“I’m okay. Just please, please, look after Brayden.”
Jackie wasn’t convinced. The woman had the beginnings of a bruise on her forehead. But she was conscious and talking and able to move. That made the son the priority right now.
The door jammed. She put a foot against the car and tugged with all her might. To her amazement, the door fell to the road. She leaned in for a closer look at the boy. His respirations were rapid and shallow.
“Hi there, Brayden. That’s quite a nasty cut you have.” She was glad to see his eyelids flutter when she spoke to him. Pulling off her cardigan, she used it to stem the flow of blood. His mother was at Jackie’s side now, having extracted herself from the car.
“Is he going to be okay?”
“I think so.” She hadn’t had a chance to inspect for other injuries yet. She had thick absorbent pads and bandages in her kit and did her best to dress the wound. As she worked, she spoke calmly to the mother.
“We need to stop the flow of blood until help arrives.” The matronly woman stared at her blankly, probably in mild shock.
“Here.” Jackie took one of the woman’s hands and placed it over the bandaged wound. “You need to apply firm, direct pressure right here. Can you do that?”
The woman nodded.
“Good. Help will be here soon and your son will be fine. Be strong.” She clasped a hand on the woman’s shoulder, then slipped on her stethoscope to continue her examination.
The boy’s pulse was fast, but thready. She took one of his hands and squeezed it gently. “Can you hear me, Brayden? If you’re too tired to talk, then squeeze my fingers.”
Nothing. He was probably in shock, too.
“Do you have anything warm in your van?” she asked the mother.
“A sleeping bag from my son’s sleep-over last weekend.”
“Great. Can you get it?” She kept pressure on the wound and managed to recline the boy’s seat to a supine position while the mother found the sleeping bag.
“Here it is.”
“Keep him warm,” she told the woman, then, noticing that she had started to shake, added, “Actually, why don’t you crawl under that sleeping bag with him?”
Moving on, she saw several people with minor injuries: a man with an obviously fractured arm, a woman with superficial abrasions on her face. They could wait.
The motorcycle cop who’d let her go earlier had cordoned off the accident site and was trying to clear a lane for the emergency vehicles, without much success. She saw him glance her way and nod. She nodded back, then tore off her soiled gloves and replaced them with a clean pair.
A male driver in his fifties moaned for help from his badly damaged Volvo. He’d managed to open his door and now he was crying, “Oh, my God. It hurts so bad. I know I’m going to die!”
Eyeing his pallor and noting the way he was clutching his left shoulder with his right hand, Jackie was immediately concerned. “Sir, I’m a nurse. Maybe I can help. Can you tell me what the problem is?”
“The pressure…” he gasped. “I can hardly breathe.”
“In your chest?”
He nodded.
“And your arm?”
He nodded again.
“Any history of heart disease, sir?”
“Yeah. I have angina. About five years ago I had a heart attack. It was just like this. Oh, God, I’m going to die this time, I know it.”
“Do you have your nitro spray?”
“In the glove compartment. I can’t—”
“That’s okay. I’ll get it.” She ran to the other door and quickly found the spray. “Here. Take this.”
He eagerly sprayed two shots under his tongue. Almost immediately he showed improvement. As an added precaution, Jackie gave him an aspirin to chew, then she flagged down an uninjured accident victim and asked her to sit with the man until the paramedics arrived. She scribbled quickly on a Post-It note from her kit and handed it to the quiet young woman.
“Give this to the paramedics when they arrive so they’ll know what I’ve done.” She patted the man’s hand reassuringly, then moved on again.
This time she could hear a woman calling for help. “Get me out of here! Get me out!”
She was in the front seat of a small two-door car and several people were trying to open one of the doors without success. Jackie rushed over.
When they saw her first-aid kit and the stethoscope strung around her neck, the group of people stepped aside to allow Jackie access to the driver’s side of the totaled vehicle. The damage to the car was so severe, it seemed impossible the woman inside could still be alive. But she was alive, and conscious, too, though frantic with fear, pain or probably both.
“My legs are trapped. I can’t move them!”
The woman was strapped in her seat and her air bag had deployed, saving her from massive head and neck injuries. But Jackie didn’t discount the possibility that there could be injury to the spinal cord.
“I know you must be in terrible pain, miss, but we’d better not move you until the paramedics show up. Can you wiggle your toes?” she asked hopefully.
“Nothing! Am I going to be paralyzed?”
She was good-looking, probably in her mid-twenties. “Perhaps you’ve lost feeling due to a lack of circulation,” Jackie said, offering hope. She glanced around at the crowd. “Anyone got any thick jackets, towels or blankets?”
“I have some towels. They’re a little damp…” A woman in a sundress, who’d obviously spent the day on the beach, offered two striped towels from a wicker bag.
“That’s fine.” Jackie took them gratefully and did her best to immobilize the young woman’s neck.
The reassuring sounds of sirens were all around them now. But how were the ambulances going to be able to transport these people to the hospital with any speed? The traffic snarl continued on both sides of the highway for as far as she could see. She wondered if her brother Nate was on duty today. Boy, she could sure use his help out here.
Jackie stood, pressing a hand firmly to the side of her neck where the muscles were throbbing now. She’d worked her way right up to the tractor-trailer unit. The driver seemed to be okay. He was upright in the sideways cab, free of his seat belt and talking to two men who’d emerged from their wrecked vehicles to give him a blast.
Over on the far left, she watched as the paramedics spilled from two ambulances. Jackie almost cried with relief when she saw her tall, dark-haired younger brother emerge from the first vehicle, dressed in his navy uniform.
“Nate!”
Somehow, above all the noise and commotion, he heard her. She saw him frown.
“Jackie? What the hell…?”
She wound her way through the maze of demolished cars and accident victims. “I was here when it happened, Nate. My car is probably totaled, but I’m fine.”
Her brother engulfed her in a hug and she winced at the pain that shot from her neck down her shoulder. She pulled away gently. “I’ve been around to most of the serious victims.” She told him about the bleeding boy who was in shock, the man who was almost for sure having a heart attack, the trapped young woman who couldn’t feel her legs.
“Good work, Jackie.” Nate patted her shoulder, already signaling the other paramedics