Page 13 of How to Walk Away

“I think I’m really fine,” I said. “Just wedged.”

But now she was pulling out an oxygen mask and cupping it over my face. “We’re going to give you some vitamin O. Just to help you breathe easier.”

Vitamin O. Cute. “I’m really fine.”

“Just to be safe,” she said, winking. “Just procedure. You don’t want me to get in trouble, do you?”

I didn’t. Lady firefighters probably had the deck stacked against them anyway.

And so I held still, breathing in cool vitamin O while she attached me strap by painstaking strap into a state of snug immobilization. She also put me in a C-collar, even though it seemed perfectly clear to me that I didn’t need one. The last step, once I was secure, was also the longest: prying apart the crumpled front of the plane to free my legs. This project involved three different firefighters—who took their sweet time.

I was grateful for their care, though. Nobody took shortcuts. Nobody seemed eager to get off shift. They did things right. My nameless lady firefighter stayed right by me the whole time, asking me over and over to wiggle my fingers and toes and making chitchat to keep me calm. She told me if this had been a jet crash, they’d be calling in heavy rescue—but “these little planes are like tin foil.”

Before they had me out, I heard a helicopter. “There’s your ride,” my new friend said.

“I’m really fine,” I tried again.

“You’ll like it. It’s fun.”

“Where is Chip?” I asked.

“Is that your boyfriend?”

“Fiancé,” I said, for the first time ever.

“He’s back by the truck.”

“Is he hurt?”

“They’re doing an evaluation,” she said. “But I’d say there’s not a scratch on him.”

Once they finally had me out, and had loaded me onto a rolling stretcher, they wheeled me to an ambulance, where they cut off all my clothes with shears (“Life Flight likes ’em naked”) and started an IV with morphine.

The storm had blown off in another direction, and now the sky was remarkably cloudless. I could see a million stars up above, and I thanked them all. I thanked them for luck, and firefighters, and sirens, and flame retardant, and ditches, and bolt cutters, and good timing, and vitamin O, and hope, and miracles, and not being burned to a crisp.

The paramedics worked hard. Every time I told them I was fine, they shrugged and said, “Procedure.”

Another procedure: I had to ride in the ambulance two hundred feet to the Life Flight chopper. They wouldn’t let Chip come with me, either, even though there was plenty of room.

“I need you to stay with me,” I told him, as they rolled me away.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Do it anyway!”

“I’ll meet you there,” he called after us, arms at his sides.

If we were flying and he was driving, I thought, he was going to have to hurry up. But he didn’t hurry up. I grabbed one last glance of him as the team hustled my gurney into the chopper. He was still in the same spot, standing like a statue.

I could not believe all this fuss. Honestly. Over nothing.

Well, maybe not nothing. A brush with death. A worst nightmare come true. The crash, the rain, the fire. I might never stop shaking.

But we’d survived.

By the time I was loaded, I was pretty sleepy, though. I wondered if being afraid could do that. Or maybe it was the morphine. Or maybejust too much vitamin O. The last thing I remember before conking out was wondering if I’d have to spend the night in the hospital. I hoped not. If I could get out early enough, maybe Chip and I could still make it to a late dinner.

Crash or no crash, we still had a lot to celebrate.

---