Page 15 of Fire & Ice

“Marley,” Leander warns.

“But—”

Whatever Marley’s going to say is miraculously interrupted by the house system activating above their heads.Claxons blare, tones drop over pagers, and a staticky voice comes across the building’s speakers as well as every device attached to belts and slung around shoulders in the vicinity. The feedback from his and Marley’s pagers catches on the house system and makes Leander cringe. He misses the beginning of the dispatch, at least until they both get fingers on the squelch buttons, quieting their mobile devices and making it possible to hear the overhead.

“...an MVA with entrapment, multiple victims, possible Class 5…”

That’s all Leander needs to hear before he’s off of the couch like a shot, followed closely behind by Marley as he charges into the ambulance bay, mind already working overtime. On a scene like this, Leander has to manage so many things—responding units, prioritization of patients by severity, allocation of resources—the list goes on and the situation is, by nature, constantly evolving. Should he have a helicopter on standby? Should he try to resuscitate a pulseless, entrapped person when two other human beings need his attention? Are there enough medical providers to go around?

Nature of the beast—none of those questions can be answered, not yet. Not until they arrive on the scene, or if a cop gets there first and provides a radio update.

As he and Marley make their way across the bay, Zosia pops out from the back of their truck and slams the doors behind her. “Drugs are good. Put your narcs back, didn’t have time to switch ‘em before the call came in. They’re expiring today, so use ‘em if you can! You wanna lead?”

“Yes,” Leander replies shortly, squeezing his Lieutenant’s arm in thanks as he moves past her towards the cab. “Echo?”

“Already in the truck.”

Of course,Leander realizes, internally facepalming. Both bay doors are open and Zosia’s truck engine is running. Marley fires theirs as Leander hops into the passenger seat and clocks Echo, buckled and ready to drive the other truck. She shifts into gear as Zosia climbs in beside her, flashing him a smile and a wave, and then they’re off. Echo’s face disappears swiftly from Leander’s peripheral vision as Marley pulls their ambulance forward.

On the way to the scene, Leander communicates with dispatch and learns that there are two victims already out of their vehicles, both up and walking, and an additional one who is reportedly unresponsive in the driver’s seat. While the police officer on scene doesn’t say so outright, Leander suspects from reading in-between the lines that the driver will not be a candidate for resuscitation. Based on that, he decides not to call for a third ambulance to join them.

It’s not yet seven in the evening on what turned out to be a rather temperate spring day. One that successfully tempted a fair number of locals out and about, called to enjoy the sustained respite from the cold winter still chasing them. It’s the same weather that had Tripp forgoing his long-sleeve tee at work the other night, and vaguely, Leander wonders if he made a better choice this evening.

Leander himself is wearing a sweatshirt with the City EMS logo on the breast, monochromatic navy from head-to-toe—it’s all navy, all the time here, minus the white lettering—and the same color t-shirt underneath. In a few hours, even that may not be warm enough.

The thing about spring days and the increased outdoor activity they bring, is that trauma inevitably comes with them. People—lay people—tend to view rain and snow and sleet as the harbingers of terrible motor vehicle accidents, but no, it’s thesun. The sun brings everyone out in force, crowds the roads, makes people feel innately safe and therefore act recklessly. The first nice days after a long, cold spell nearlyalwaysspell disaster on the roads and work for EMS. Motorcycles ripping carelessly around curves for the first time since fall. Elderly couples out for leisurely drives. Teenagers who earned their brand-new licenses over the winter and have been begging their mothers to let them borrow the car formonths,finally cruising with the windows down and music up, laughing with friends, not paying attention.

As his ambulance pulls up to the scene and Leander registers the wreckage, he can almostfeelthe crash happening, replaying automatically in his mind’s eye. It’s not difficult to put the pieces together, not with how many vehicle accidents he’s seen in his career, and honestly, Leander isn’t sure that’s a good thing. It certainly doesn’t help him to sleep at night, when everything is said and done and the accident he wasn’t eveninrepeats over and over behind his eyelids.

The car sitting smashed and totaled, leaking fluids like a sieve into the middle of the roadway, would have been turning left. From the angle it’s pointed now, it had to have been coming out from a side street—there,Leander finds it—onto the main thoroughfare. This intersection (if you can call it that) is notorious—people have been lobbying for a stoplight here for years, to no avail. It’s at the bottom of a steep hill, one that has nowhere convenient for police to sit astride and monitor speed, and as such, people fly down it traveling up to twice the legal limit.

Inside his head, Leander imagines the car pulling out, driver looking left and then right, waiting patiently for a fast-moving vehicle to finish blowing down the hill. It’s probable thatthey forgot to recheck their left before ultimately pulling out into traffic.

The impact of the Ford F-150 that hit them would have been head-on, slamming directly into the totaled car’s driver-side door. Whoever was operating the truck would have had no time to react, no chance to brake or swerve. His mind supplies the sensory details as Leander’s eyes fall closed: the sickening crunch of metal-on-metal, the screeching of rubber tires against unmoving asphalt, thepopof airbags deploying violently—and itisviolent.

Clouds of powder would have exploded over the car’s interior, coating the upholstery and invading the mouths and nostrils of any passengers unlucky enough to be riding along. The sharp scent of gasoline and the burning smell of the destroyed engine would have mixed with the copper tang of blood in the air and on tongues, bitter as it pooled with saliva and God knows what other bodily fluids.

The car would have spun, the people inside would have been jerked and jolted from side to side, thrown about like rag dolls even with their seatbelts on. Leander’s fingers tighten on his own thighs, envisioning—almost against his will—the force of the impact, the sound of glass shattering, the feel of it raining down over his face.

The smell he doesn’t have to imagine at all: it’s still lingering in the air. Stale and burning, a unique combination of oil and gas, smoke and fear. Most vehicle accidents smell exactly the same, just like this, and that produces a strange sense of deja vu each and every time Leander arrives at one.

Marley eases the truck’s brakes to a full stop just shy of the edge of the scene, not wanting to drive into the middle of the mess. For practical reasons, but also, should the event actually produce a fatality, the immediate area will require the statepolice to conduct accident reconstruction—best not to disturb the evidence telling the story, if possible.

Produce a fatality.What an odd, detached way to refer to the violent snuffing out of someone’s life. It’s so cold, so callous, and yet, that’s exactly what Leander has to be right now, so it’s apt. He has a job to do.

“Dispatch, Medic Three and Medic Four are on location.”

Fire is already here as well, an engine and a heavy rescue unit from two different stations, no Chief’s vehicle yet. Both of their trucks are parked so as to create a barrier between the accident scene and approaching traffic, shielding both the first responders and the victims. From memory, Leander knows that there are two firehouses close by in opposite directions down the road, and that one of them is Tripp’s. Despite that, Leander isn’t looking for him, not right now.

The responding fire units beat EMS by several minutes, and consequently, there are a handful of bunker-gear-wearing firefighters distractedly milling around. Two are peering into the totaled car and yelling for something—Leander can’t quite discern what that is over the ambient noise of trucks idling and traffic being redirected. Two more are crouched near the curb on the other side of the street, their helmets and gear blocking Leander’s view of what must be the ambulatory victims.

There’s a familiar face walking brusquely his way as he approaches the crash site. A petite blonde police officer who’s normally sporting an unshakeable smile and a terminally-sunny attitude, something Leander would welcome immensely on a scene like this. She’s likely come to give him report.

“Darla,” he greets her warmly, but Darla’s face remains taut and grim. Of all the ominous signs this scene boasts, that might be the most sobering.

“Captain,” she replies formally, and Leander’s stomach knots up in his abdomen. “Car full of teenagers, older brother taking his girlfriend and his sister on a ride to the mall.” She points over to where the two firefighters are crouched by the curb and jerks her chin. “Driver of the truck is fine, doesn’t want EMS to touch him. I have the girlfriend and the sister sitting down, they were both wandering around when I pulled up. Both are pretty shaken and bruised, younger one might be confused, hard to tell. Figured I’d leave that up to the professionals to decide.”

“And the brother?” Leander asks, already dreading the answer but still not entirely prepared for Darla to shake her head and pull her uniform hat off, placing it over her heart. “God bless him—I’m no medical professional,” she starts, “but even I know you don’t survive your head exploding all over the window like that.”

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