Garrett bit at her lip, disgusted that she could do nothing for him. "Then when he’s ready, they uncouple the cars."


The blonde nurse looked puzzled. "Uncouple the cars, how do they do that?" She looked back over to the man. "Can’t we do something then?"


Garrett looked back over to the trapped man. The priest that had been called to hear his last confession had just arrived. "He needs a few minutes of privacy. Follow me."


The tall surgeon took off across the railroad yard to the pair of railroad cars that stood off in the distance. Her long strides made short work of stepping over the numerous sets of tracks as she quickly reached her destination. Danni scurried to keep up. Her much shorter legs lifted higher to clear the 6-inch metal rails soon began to tire, as the walk resembled more a step aerobic workout.


Finally arriving at their destination, Danni showed signs of being slightly winded. The heaving of her chest was noticeable to Garrett. "Why didn’t you tell me I was going too fast?"


"What, and make you think that I can’t keep up with you? Never!" The corners of her mouth turned upward as she sucked in another round of breath. "Now show me this coupling thing."


Garrett moved between the two uncoupled cars and Danni followed right along.


"See how the metal is shaped like a hook?" Danni nodded. "Now follow me to the other car. You’ll see that the hook is just the opposite. They slide into one another and mesh together in the middle, locking them together."


"Then when it went through him…"


"It caught everything in the middle and pinched it off." Garrett’s brow furrowed. "That’s what I was talking to the Scene Commander about. The liaison for the railroad was kind enough to explain it to me."


The nurse moved even closer to see the menacing coupling. Her petite frame next to the boxcar made her look even shorter than normal with the coupling’s height being just about the area of her heart. The mechanism amazed her and caused her to lose all concept of the world around her. Bending over, she tried to study it from the underside, twisting and turning around several times. ‘By the gods, I bet that there’s nothing left to his vertebrae but splinters.’ Danni’s mind brought vivid images of the man’s anatomy and the trauma that had occurred to his internal organs. She shivered in response.


Suddenly Danni could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as the idea of knowing that this would be the day of your death over powered her. She closed her eyes against their sting as the first tear rolled down over her cheek. A wave of fear washed over her as she thought of what the man was going through. The nurse stole a look at her tall, raven-haired friend and imagined herself in that same position as a giant lump came to her throat. Brushing the tears off her face, Danni forced her mind to concentrate on the coupling device. Maybe, just maybe, something would come to her mind to help save the man.


The tall woman stood back and watched her for a moment, amused at the intrigue of her curious team member. ‘I wonder how she would act if I let her into the O.R. for one of my operations?’ Garrett shook her head and turned to lean up against the other boxcar. The surgeon looked back across the yard at the gathering crowd of onlookers and rescuers alike. Her center of attention now focused on the scene of the entrapped man and the priest.


Danni was having a hard time understanding the locking device. ‘Maybe if I can understand how it goes together, I could figure out some way to help.’ She stood now in front of the claw-like device on the car closest to her. Something seemed to elude her but she just couldn’t think of what it was. ‘Maybe if I eye them up in line…" Danni turned and stood with her head at coupling level, trying to see how it would connect and spring into action. She turned back to the closer coupling and studied it intently.


The noise of the yard was resuming as the trains in the other parts of the yard were being moved and rotated into the lines of cars that were needed to carry the freight to their destinations. The sound of squeaky wheels and groans of the rails as the engines passed over them brought images of the travel that Garrett had taken to get here to Pittsburgh from San Francisco. The ride had been so soothing for her, and the scenery magnificent. If she closed her eyes right now, she could feel the constant jiggle in her body and hear the slow sounding clickity-clack that both started and stopped any rail journey. It was enough to lull her into dreaming of taking more rides by train in the near future.


The moment of quiet contemplation was suddenly thrown out the window with the jolting push her body felt and the sound of metal snapping into metal. The surgeon was thrown out of her comfortable position and found herself headed for the ground. Remembering where she was, her first thought was that of the safety of her friend. Blue eyes opened to see Danni still squatting in front of the coupling device and staring at it.


Garrett could feel the boxcar pushing her forward as she fell. There was no time to call out. Instead, she lunged forward, stretching her body to it’s full potential with her arms outstretched, fingers grabbing for the Flight Suit of the nurse.


"Hey! What the…" Danni’s body was being pushed forward and pulled down all at the same time. She didn’t know what to think but to go with the flow of force to keep from getting injured trying to fight it.


Thud! Humph!


Within seconds, the petite woman was laying on the ties with the tracks off to either side of her, the sound of metal clashing with metal coming from directly over her head. Wide green eyes stared at the action above her as the coupling latched itself together with a thunderous clap.


It took a few seconds for Garrett to catch her breath. The fall had knocked the wind out of her. Drawing in air to expand her lungs, she held on tightly to the smaller form next to her.


"Dan…" she tried to talk, "you okay?" The sting of the air expanding her lungs burned as it entered her chest.


Danni took only a moment to take stock of her body, and then she answered. "Yeah, everything seems to be okay. How about you?"


The surgeon’s breathing was becoming easier. "Okay, now. Got the wind knocked out of me, I must have landed wrong." Must have, you know that you did, otherwise you couldn’t have pulled her out of the way.’


The thought of what could have transpired shot through Garrett’s mind like a bolt of lightning. She hastily closed her eyes then opened them trying to get a fix on the blonde hair that could have been separated from its body, had things happened differently. She looked over at Danni’s face, never gladder to see it than at this very moment.


The boxcars had stopped moving and the noise had quieted when the pair of baggy pant-covered legs came into Danni’s view.


"Hey! You people want to get hurt or something? You can’t lay down in the middle of the tracks like that." The railroad worker stood on the side of the tracks. He had gotten off the engine to check the coupling before the boxcars were led to there place in line.


The women slowly crawled out from under the connection and began dusting their clothing off as they stood next to the worker.


"What the hell were you two doing, trying to commit suicide?" His voice was now becoming more agitated.


"I wanted to know how the coupling worked." Danni spoke as she dusted off her pants. His eyes glared at her. "Don’t worry, I understand how it works now, you won’t have to do it again." She smiled politely as she raised her hands, declining any further need for a demonstration.


Garrett came up angry. Her temper was quick to spark at the cause of the near fiasco. "Don’t you people look before you just go and try to kill someone?" She rose from her knees to her full height, towering almost a foot above the man’s head. "No wonder you have a man trapped over there."


She looked over to the scene of the entrapment. The frantic waving of arms was like a message in Morris Code to her, spelling nothing but trouble. "Danni, we’re needed." Her hand reached out to tap the blonde on the shoulder, then she was gone.


The railroad worker stood dumbfounded as he watched the two women make their way across the yard to where they were being beckoned.


The surgeon and the nurse sped across the open yard and began pushing through the throng of rescuers, spurred on by the rush of adrenaline that they had going from the near accident of their own.


The Paramedic that was with the entrapped man met them. "Hey Doc!" He waved them over to himself. "He’s in a heap of pain. My protocols won’t allow me to give him anything else."


Garrett nodded in understanding. "He’s going to need more to keep the pain to a bearable level." She could tell that the Medic’s nerves were wearing thin with the magnitude of the situation. "You better go distance yourself for a while." She could see the tension growing in his face.


"But I…" the medic started to protest until Garrett’s steely-colored eyes relieved him of his duty.


"We’ll take over from here." The authority in her voice over powered him and he turned and walked off into the crowd.


Danni sniffed back a tear and nodded. "I’ll stay with him until his wife gets here."


"Dan, if you think he needs anything, just give it. He doesn’t need to experience any pain."