Tuesday afternoon. There’s no word yet but guess is multiple casualties. It seems the undercover car park and a small section of the plaza itself have collapsed.’
‘What resources are on the ground?’ Luc asked.
‘There’s a small local hospital but anything serious gets airlifted here, so there are few resources. I’m bringing the team back, field hospital, the works, but it’ll take time to get them there. Luc, I’m trying to sequester med staff from the rest of the hospital but they’re not geared up like you are. The fire team’s already notified and the first responders will go with you. The chopper’s on the roof. Gina’s refuelling and ready to go. Resources will follow at need but I want you in the air ten minutes ago. Go!’
And ten seconds later he was gone.
‘MESS’ DIDN’T BEGIN to describe what was beneath them.
From the air Namborra looked what it was, a small, almost-city situated in the middle of endless miles of wheat fields. There was a railway line and station, and a massive cluster of wheat silos. A group of commercial buildings formed the town centre, with a mammoth swimming pool and sports complex to the side. But Luc’s focus was on the largest building of all—a vast, sprawling undercover shopping plaza.
The scene of disaster.
The plane seemed to have skimmed across the rooftop, bringing part of the roof down and then smashing into the sports oval next door. That was some consolation, he thought, but not much. He couldn’t see the plane—what he saw was a smouldering mess.
And the plaza... There was a local fire engine on site, with men and women doing their best to quench a small fire smouldering a third of the way across the smashed roof. There were two police cars.
There were locals, visibly distressed even from where Luc gazed from the chopper, some venturing out onto the collapsed roof, others clustering around people on the ground. Some were simply clutching each other.
They circled first. Gina, the team’s pilot, knew the drill. Even though seconds counted, there was always the need to take an aerial assessment. Calculate risks.
‘Hard hats. Full gear. You know the drill,’ Kev, the burly chief of the SDR fire crew, barked. ‘Anyone going in under that mess, watch yourself.’ He was including Luc in his orders. SDR medics were supposed to stay on the sidelines and treat whoever was brought to them but it often didn’t work that way. In truth firefighters often ended up doing emergency first aid and the medics often ended up digging or abseiling or whatever. No one asked questions—in a crisis everyone did what they had to do.
‘Obey orders and keep your radios close,’ Kev ordered as the chopper landed. ‘Back-up’s on its way but it’ll take time. For now there’s just us. Okay, guys, let’s go.
* * *
Toby was recovering from the initial shock. Blessedly he didn’t seem hurt. One little hand wriggled free, up through the neck of her T-shirt. Tiny fingers touched her neck, reaching up to her cheek. She wiped the grit away as best she could. Toby was making sure it was her.
‘M-Mama...’
There were car alarms sounding all around her, a continuous screaming she couldn’t escape from, but she heard...or maybe she felt him speak. Toby had been calling her Mama for two months now and every time she heard it her heart turned over. Now, in the midst of noise and pain and fear...no, make that noise and pain and terror, it still had the capacity to ground her.
This little person was the centre of her universe and she wasn’t about to let a crushed leg and a shopping centre fallen down around her make her forget that.
‘It’s okay, Toby, love.’ Could he hear above the cacophony? She had to believe he could. Maybe like her, he could feel her voice. She fought to fumble her way into her bag, until her fingers closed on a scrappy, chewed rabbit.
Robert Rabbit was incongruously purple, so garish that even Beth could usually make him out in dim light. She couldn’t make him out now—the darkness was absolute—but she felt his scrappy fur and he gave her inexplicable comfort.
She’d be okay. They’d be okay.
If only her head didn’t feel...fuzzy. If only the noise would stop and the waves of pain would recede.
She pushed them away—the pain and the faintness—and focussed hard on Toby. And Robert. She put the scraggy rabbit into the little hand and tucked both hand and rabbit back down her T-shirt.
There was one blessing in all this. Because she’d been delayed at childcare, one of the women had given Toby warm milk and changed him into his pyjamas. She’d intended to heat spaghetti at home. Toby would have eaten a few ‘worms’ and then he’d have crashed. He didn’t really need the spaghetti, though. He’d had a full day of childcare. It was dark, he was well fed and he was tired. With luck he’d sleep.
‘Heydee, heydee-ho, the great big elephant is so slow...’
The simple child’s song was one she used to settle him in the middle of the night, rocking him, telling him all was well in his world, all was well in her world. She forced herself to croon it now.
The car horns were blaring but he must be able to feel her singing. He was so close. A heartbeat...
‘He swings his trunk from side to side, as he takes the children for a ride...’
Her throat was caked with dust but somehow she managed it. And she managed to rock, just a little, with both hands cradling Toby.
‘Heydee, heydee-ho...’ Oh, it hurt. Dear God... If she fainted. ‘Heydee...’
And blessedly she felt him relax. This had been scary for a few moments but now...maybe it was no worse than being put into his own cot in his own room. He had his mama. He had his rabbit. He was...safe?
If only she could believe that.
Toby snuggled deeper as she held him and tried to take comfort in him. The shards of pain were growing stronger. The faintness was getting closer...
Do not give in.
‘Heydee...’
* * *
He needed his team!
There was a local paramedic team onsite, plus another from a small town twenty minutes’ drive away, but they didn’t have the skills, equipment or know-how to try and go underneath the mess. There seemed to be only one available local doctor. She was working flat out in the nearby hospital. That meant triage and immediate life-saving stuff was up to Luc.
A café at the outer edge of the plaza had collapsed, with a group of senior citizens inside, and that’s where the firefighters centred their early rescue efforts. One dead, two injured. Luc was in there until the café was cleared, crawling under the rubble to set up intravenous IVs and pain relief.
He was filthy. A scrape on his cheek was bleeding but as the last gentleman was pulled from the rubble he was already looking around for what needed doing next.
