Page 52 of Keeping It Professional

“No, his leg.”

I squinted down and saw his pant leg was torn, the flesh underneath it filleted like a fish. I caught a brief glimpse of bone, then Sophie’s gloved hands, pressing down hard to control the bleeding.

“Tourniquet’s loose,” she said. “Could you?—”

“One sec.”

Someone had tied off his shredded leg, but they’d done it hastily, too far from the wound. Blood was still oozing, too much, too fast. I pulled out a fresh tourniquet and set to work, cutting his pants away. Clearing the site.

I was fixing the tourniquet when Sophie lunged past me. She screamed, or I thought she did, a high, gobbling cry. Then the patient’s leg jerked and I understood. He screamed again and his body arched, then fell back with a thud. His good leg jackknifed, his knee in my face. I flung my head back, but he still clipped my chin. My teeth clacked together. I bit my tongue. Sophie was coughing and shoutinghold him, and leaning to pin him under her weight. She had one of his arms down, but the other was flailing. Beating at Sophie to get at the pipe.

“Calm down,” I yelled.

The patient screamed, breathless. He kicked out again.

“You need tostop!” Sophie grabbed his free hand and pinned it to his chest, and lay across his arms to hold them in place. “Listen, can you hear me? Hey, can you—Ah!” She jumped back, grabbed her head, then circled back in. He fought her harder this time, clawing her face. He’d bitten her ear, and she was bleeding. The pipe wagged with his thrashing and sank deeper in.

“The pipe!” I swiped for it. “Hold it in place!”

Sophie caught it and held it, her glove slick with blood. The patient bucked one more time, and then he lay still.

“You need to stay calm.” Sophie stretched out his arms. “Miles, strap him down. Where are his straps?”

I got the patient restrained, legs, chest, and arms. His breathing was fast at first, ragged with panic. Then he passed out, and wesecured him for transport. I got him intubated and checked him for bleeders. Sophie hit the siren, and we were off. I couldn’t tell if her driving was more erratic than normal, or if it only seemed that way with the pipe through our patient. It shook with the roughness of the fresh-gritted road. Every turn we took, that shaking got worse. It spread to our patient, and his abdomen tensed, and his feet drummed and twitched till the shudder died down.

We screamed into the bay and the doctors came running. I barked out his injuries and what we’d done so far.

“Get him to CT— No, watch for that pipe!”

“His oxygen line?—”

“I know, I’ve got it.”

One of the doctors turned to me. “You headed back out there?”

“Yeah. It’s all-hands.”

He pursed his lips. “Well, best of luck. From what I heard, you got the last live one. They’re saying at this point?—”

“We need to get going.” I slammed the back doors so hard they bounced and ran to join Sophie in the front seat. The last thing I needed was that toxic mindset, going in thinking it was too late. People lived every day, through the worst gruesome shit. Wehelpedthem survive. That was our job.

“What?” Sophie glanced at me as she sped off.

I pushed my mask up. “Didn’t say anything.”

“I thought you were muttering.”

“That doctor back there…” I scrubbed at my face. Black grit streaked my palms and I wiped it on my pants.

“What about him?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Let me look at your ear.”

“Not while I’m driving.” She flinched away. Our radio crackled with apocalyptic updates, two bodies recovered. An arm. A foot.

“It was a gas explosion,” said Sophie, leaning into a turn. “In that condo complex next to the florist. Some car going by got tossed by the blast, and came down on another car, then five more piled on. They’re saying the firefighters couldn’t get through.”

“They’re in now, though, aren’t they?”

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