the whole situation.
The kids were all moving. No one seemed to be unconscious. There was lots of blood, but nothing that looked like uncontrolled bleeding. A couple of children were cradling their arms. There’d be fractures, she thought. Lacerations.
Her eyes moved swiftly across the group. Nothing too urgent, she thought, moving on.
OK, go to the guy with the suit and the bloody head, or help the doctor.
Maybe that was where she was needed most. She could help the doctor with the clamps. There was so much blood. He was fighting against the odds.
But still she held back. This whole assessment had taken only seconds. She’d checked the people. Now assess the scene for further danger.
Her training—taking in the whole situation before deciding on action—made her eyes move on. To the bus. It lay precariously on the cliff edge, with logs pushing against it. The doctor must have been moving to the bus to check it, she thought, and then been deflected by a need that had been even more urgent. A child bleeding to death.
The bus could slide down.
Was it empty? It had to be empty.
How to check?
She forced her feet to walk across to the guy with the phone. Somehow. Her legs really didn’t want to hold her up.
The guy looked as if he was trying to make a phone call. He was punching numbers.
‘Is everyone out of the bus?’ she asked.
He turned and stared at her as if he didn’t understand what she was saying. As if she was a voice without a body attached. Then, without answering, he turned back to the phone and started punching numbers again.
Too many numbers. The job was too much for him. His fingers were all over the place. Achieving nothing.
He must be in deep shock.
Who was he trying to ring? Emergency services? Surely someone had rung them.
Here was a priority.
There was no time for gentleness. Emma took a deep breath, told her legs to stay working—she felt as if her body belonged to someone else—and she lifted the phone from the man’s nerveless fingers. She didn’t have time to treat him with kid gloves. The bus could slide at any minute.
‘Is everyone out of the bus?’ she demanded, in a voice that could have been heard interstate. It wasn’t a voice that could be ignored.
Especially when she was two inches from his face.
He gaped.
But he didn’t respond.
She lowered her voice to threatening.
‘You want me to slap you? Answer me! Is the bus empty?’
It worked. Sort of. She’d shocked him out of his stupor, but he was still no use. ‘N-no,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t…I don’t know.’
He reached for the phone again, as if that was all he could think of to do.
Maybe he didn’t know whether the bus was empty. Maybe he couldn’t even manage a phone call. Emma took a step back, held onto the phone, punched the emergency code and waited until a female voice responded.
‘Emergency. What service do you require?’ The voice was clinically efficient and Emma blessed her for it. Maybe this call had already been made but she was taking no chances.
‘All of them,’ she snapped. ‘A school bus has been crushed by logs a few miles north of Karington on the coast road. The bus is threatening to slide off the cliff. This guy will give you details but we need every service now, including cranes to secure the bus. I want ambulances, medics, police, heavy machinery to stop the bus from sliding. There may be kids trapped on the bus. Get out the army if you must, but get help for us now.’
She’d done something at least, which was almost amazing in itself. Her body didn’t feel as if it belonged to her.
But she had to go on. She handed the phone back to the dazed bus driver and instructed her legs to walk forward a bit further. To the bus.
That meant she had to pass the guy on the ground treating the little girl. The doctor.
He didn’t look up. She looked down and saw what he was doing.
So much blood.
He needed help. To apply pressure and clamp arteries himself…he needed someone else.
But the bus could slide.
He was searching, desperately searching, for blood vessels. Priorities. Too many children.
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Triage. If there were still kids on the bus and it slid…
She couldn’t let herself be deflected.
She’d reached the guy with the bloodied face now—the middle-aged man in a suit. Maybe a schoolteacher? There was blood streaming from a gash on his forehead and she stooped to see, hauling her jacket off to form a pad as she knelt.
‘You were on the bus?’ she asked, pushing the pad hard over his face. ‘Lie down flat.’ She pushed him down and started pressing. ‘Is everyone off?’
He groaned. ‘There’s still a couple…I think. I’m not sure but there were a couple of children I couldn’t reach. Before…before…’
He wavered. He was suffering from blood loss as well as shock, Emma thought, and he was close to sliding into unconsciousness.
‘Stay still,’ she told him again, propelling him backwards so he was lying flat. She pushed hard on the pad but she was already looking around to find someone who could take over. It was an ugly gash, deep and ragged, but she had to move on.
The two drivers were useless. Which left only the kids.
He’d have to do this himself.
She guided his hands up to the makeshift pad. ‘Push down on this and don’t let go,’ she told him. ‘Push hard.’
It was the best she could do. She straightened—and there was a child beside her. A little girl, who only reached her shoulder. Skinny. Pig tails. Really thick glasses.
About twelve.
‘What do you want us to do?’ the girl said, matter-of-factly, and Emma could have kissed her. The bus driver and the lorry driver were worse than useless. The teacher was too badly injured to help. She had to use this child.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Katy.’
‘Katy, you’re doing great,’ Emma told her. ‘I need a leader and you’re it. Can you organise the big kids to check the little ones? Tell everyone that they need to cuddle anyone who’s hurt. Gently. Lay anyone down who needs
