Page 13 of Five Alarm Love
Another.
He could see ghostlike flashes of emergency lights throwing shadows across the flickering flame- and smoke-filled room.
On his third step, the right leg buckled, and he landed hard on his knees, the girl tumbling onto the floor.
No.Damn it.
Heat buffeted him, even through his layered gear.
He staggered to his feet and bent to pick her up.The right leg didn’t hold, and he went down hard on his hip.
Timbers creaked behind him.
He glanced up and around.
The ceiling above the hallway cracked and collapsed.
Chapter Five
Lou whipped herhead up at a loud snap of wood in the burning structure.Her hands were full, bandaging Wayne Beck’s burned arm, but she glanced over at Mav, who met her eyes with a jaw-clenched stare of his own.
“Hunter and Tuli are in there,” he said.
Her heart twisted.No emergency call was ever routine in first responders’ line of work.
Tuli was Tuli.
Hunter was a relative.
“I have to help!”Wayne tried to get up from where he sat on the back of the rig.
She rested her hand on his shoulder to keep him still.“Let the firefighters do their work.”Her heart squeezed as Wayne’s wife, Natalie, stood at his side, tears running down her soot-covered face.
Lieutenant Kate and another trooper hovered nearby, and the trooper offered a blanket to the Becks.
Flashing lights competed with the brightness of the flames leaping out of the structure.
Lou couldn’t breathe.How long had Tuli and Hunter been in there?She taped the bandage in place and walked over to the other two ambulances.Luckily, the call had come in at shift change when she and Mav were wrapping up a run to the ER.Mav and another EMS team member, Moose, took one rig to the fire.Paramedic Hilda took another rig, with one of the ER nurses, Amberlyn, who was also a former EMT.Lou had driven the recently repaired backup ambulance to the scene.
As Mav and Hilda were the trained paramedics, they would treat the most critical patients.Lou, an EMT, was assigned the less severe injuries.Even more reason for her to get her paramedic license.She studied how Hilda and Mav double-checked their airway kits and lined up meds.
“Look!”Natalie yelled and pointed.
A firefighter slowly emerged from the smoke-filled front door with a man draped over his shoulders.Was that Tuli or Hunter?
The shiny yellow helmet indicated it was Hunter.
Where was Tuli in his beat-up red fire chief’s hat?
“I’ll take this one,” Hilda said, scraping her orange curls off her face.She and Amberlyn, along with the trooper and Lou, pushed a gurney across dirt and gravel to meet the patient.Even as Hunter lowered the man to the bed, Hilda and Amberlyn began working with a flurry of efficient movements and murmured communication.Lou helped them pull the gurney to the rig, then eased Wayne and Natalie back a few feet as Wayne Sr.received care.
The older man coughed and wheezed.His facial hair had been singed off and his lips were red and burned.With that presentation, there was a high risk of swelling in the airway and sudden airway compromise.
After securing Wayne Sr.in the ambulance, Hilda prepared for rapid-sequence intubation.Amberlyn set the IV and hovered next to Hilda with labeled syringes of meds ready to push.
Lou turned back toward the house and approached Hunter.“What’s going on?”The words ended on a quaver.
Hunter’s face floated behind the respirator and mask.His voice was muffled as he yelled, “Tuli’s still in the house with the girl.I’m going back in.”
