‘It hurts…my leg hurts.’

Laura twisted her own head to peer through the shattered glass of a back window. Her partner, Tim, was approaching with a cervical collar in his hand and she could see the other supplies he had set out on a blanket beside the wreck. Some of the tension evaporated as Laura took a deep breath. They could get moving now. Get their patient’s neck protected, get some oxygen on, an intravenous line in place and some pain relief on board.

‘And…and I’m scared!’

‘I know you are, sweetheart. But hang in there. You’re doing just fine.’

Tim leaned past the bulky figure of the fireman assigned to patient communication. Laura adjusted her grip to allow the collar room to slip behind the girl’s neck. The fireman straightened and stepped back to allow Tim more room to manoeuvre, but his action elicited a forlorn cry from the accident victim.

‘Don’t go. Oh, please, don’t go!’

‘I’m right here.’ A heavy glove was stripped off and Laura frowned as she saw the fireman catch the fingers of the hand stretched towards him.

‘I’m Jason,’ the fireman introduced himself. ‘What’s your name?’

‘C-Courtney.’

The neck collar was secured. Tim slipped the elastic of an oxygen mask over the patient’s head and squeezed the metal band at the top of the mask to make it a snug fit over her nose.

‘Pleased to meet you, Courtney.’ Jason’s grin made his teeth gleam in the powerful artificial lights now set up to illuminate the rescue scene. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘N-not so good.’ The response was broken by a frightened sob.

Tim hung his stethoscope back around his neck. ‘Chest’s still clear,’ he told Laura. ‘Equal air entry.’

Laura nodded, but she was reaching into the pocket of her coat with one hand.

‘Put some gloves on, Jase.’ She passed them over the barrier the front seat created.

‘Sure.’ The fireman was smiling at Courtney again. ‘I’m in trouble now,’ he confided. ‘Laura’s going to tell me off later for forgetting my gloves.’

The sound that now came from the injured girl sounded like a cross between a groan and a giggle.

‘I’d rather not cannulate this arm.’

‘No.’ Laura agreed with Tim’s decision. ‘Not with that elbow injury.’ There was no way of knowing how well the blood vessels were still functioning below an injury like that.

‘Have we got access through the passenger door?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Is that what you need?’ Jason’s quick shift of attention revealed that his focus wasn’t entirely on the girl he was comforting. A quick glance over his shoulder made him nod with satisfaction. ‘The gear’s all ready to go. We can start cutting wherever you need it.’

‘C-cutting?’

‘The car, sweetheart-not you.’ Jason seemed to fill most of the remaining space in the crushed car as he leaned even closer. ‘We’re getting you out of here, remember?’

Courtney clung to him with her uninjured hand. ‘It hurts,’ she sobbed. ‘Get me out now.’

‘I can reach the other arm,’ Laura told Tim. ‘Pass me the gear. You should be able to maintain alignment from where you are now that she’s in a collar.’

‘I can hold her neck,’ Jason offered.

‘That would be great. I’d like to get a blood pressure done.’

‘No!’ Courtney refused to release the hand she was holding.

‘Keep still, Courtney,’ Laura instructed. She squeezed the top half of her body through the gap between the front seats. This job would be so much easier if she were skinny. Even a few kilos off would help. The flash of annoyance increased a second later when she had to push her dislodged spectacles back into place. Small irritations that would normally not distract her at all from the job in hand. Was it simply her close proximity to Jason Halliday that was making her aware of them now?

‘Laura needs this hand, love,’ Jason was saying. ‘Once she gets a little needle in, she can give you something to help that pain.’

‘No! I hate needles. And my hand feels funny. Just get me out!’

‘What kind of funny?’ Laura queried.

‘It’s got pins and needles.’

Laura caught Tim’s glance. With a symptom that suggested an even stronger likelihood of a spinal injury, they were going to have to manage this extrication with particular care.

‘It might help if you keep holding her hand, Jase.’ Laura tightened the tourniquet and swabbed an area she could reach easily on Courtney’s left forearm. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’

Jason obliged. He also placed his other arm gently on Courtney’s shoulder, ready to stop any struggle if necessary. Then he tried to distract the terrified teenager.

‘You’re lucky you’ve got our Laura here,’ he told her. ‘Do you know, I’ve been working with her for six months now and I haven’t heard a single complaint from any of her patients?’

‘You haven’t met many of my patients,’ Laura muttered.

‘She’s a fireman?’ Courtney’s surprise indicated that the distraction was working.

‘Nah. She’s not tall enough to be a fire officer. Our station is a base for both fire and ambulance. Just one of each. We’re on the outskirts of town in Inglewood.’

‘That’s where I live.’

‘Cool. You’ll have to drop in and visit us. Mrs Mack makes the world’s best scones.’

‘All done,’ Laura announced. ‘I’m going to give you some morphine now, Courtney. You’re not allergic to any drugs that you know of, are you?’

‘No.’ The distraction Jason had been providing was still working a treat. ‘Who’s Mrs Mack?’

‘She looks after our station. It’s kind of a long story.’

‘I’m just giving you something to make sure the morphine doesn’t make you feel sick, Courtney.’ Laura injected the dose of metaclopramide.

‘Is she your wife?’

Jason chuckled and Laura found herself smiling wryly as she snapped off the top of a glass ampoule to add morphine to the saline another syringe already contained. Jason Halliday married? Tied down to single choice from amongst the model-like creatures that entered his social orbit? That would be the day!

‘Mrs Mack is at least sixty,’ Jason informed Courtney. ‘She’s Scottish and she’s as tough as an old boot. She lives next door to the station and kind of adopted us. We’re in an old house that got converted and…’

And Courtney didn’t appear to be listening any longer. Her eyelids fluttered shut as the morphine took effect and her distress was obviously diminishing despite the increase in noise and activity of the rescue workers outside the vehicle. Another helmeted figure appeared between Jason and Tim, who was still maintaining Courtney’s spinal alignment.

‘How do you want to get her out?’

‘Straight over the back would be great,’ Tim responded. ‘We’ll tilt the seat back and get a backboard in.’

‘Right. We’ll get the roof off as soon as we’ve dealt with these doors.’

Jason looked up at the tarpaulin a colleague was unfolding nearby. ‘Things are going to get a bit noisy and messy now, sweetheart,’ he told Courtney. ‘We’re going to cover you up so you don’t get hit by any bits of glass or anything.’

Her eyes snapped open. ‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t. I’ll be right here with you under the covers.’ Jason winked. ‘My favourite spot when I’m with a gorgeous girl like you.’

‘That’d be right.’ The grin from his colleague acknowledged the kind of humour and encouragement that only Jason could get away with. Even Laura smiled. He’d be saying the same thing if the accident victim were a seventy-five-year-old grandmother of eight and it would probably have the same effect of keeping their patient comforted and calm.

‘We’ll need a dash roll as well,’ Tim told the fire chief. ‘We’ve got a leg trapped.’

‘No problem. You staying in there, Laura?’

‘May as well.’ She moved back to a position where she could support Courtney’s head and neck again. Only she knew that her comment referred to more than providing company for the victim. This was the only way Laura would ever get under any covers with Jason Halliday, but she wasn’t complaining. Any job where she got to work with this particular fire crew was a bonus, and being one on one with a patient and only Jason was the closest they had ever worked together.

The car rocked and shook as hydraulic cutting gear was used to open it up like a giant sardine can. Tiny shards of glass peppered the tarpaulin sheltering those still inside the vehicle, and Laura made sure she kept Courtney’s head immobile. A more violent rocking motion occurred as the roof was lifted clear of the car and Laura could hear the grin in Jason’s voice.

‘The earth sure moved for me. How’re you doing, Courtney?’

‘I’m fine.’

Amazingly, the injured girl did sound fine and Laura’s lips curved a little, unseen in the darkness of their covering. Jason’s somewhat unorthodox communication skills were a new experience and, surprisingly, she liked them. Six months ago she wouldn’t have believed it could be remotely possible to add humour or-heaven forbid-flirting to an accident scene with beneficial results, but it worked. The Green Watch fire crew of Inglewood station were a closely bonded team of intelligent and dedicated firemen and Jason, in particular, had a gift of lightening even the grimmest of atmospheres.

He had his work cut out for him in the next few minutes as the tarpaulin was removed and the rescue shifted into a higher gear. The car was now completely open to the elements with the windscreen, roof and doors removed. The pre-dawn chill was noticeable and scene time had already been nearly twenty minutes. Everyone wanted to move as quickly as possible now and get their patient to the medical care she needed.

The dash roll that lifted crushed metal from Courtney’s right leg revealed a nasty compound fracture of her tib-fib. She tried to move her leg as the weight was lifted but her foot was trapped beneath the brake pedal and she screamed as her pain level skyrocketed. The blood loss was also increasing. Laura opened the flow on the IV fluids she now had running.