I smiled at Marilyn. It couldn't be any too soon for me.
"Mrs. Torquist's injuries were considerably more severe, and were complicated by the fact that she was pregnant. I have received permission from the Torquists to provide relevant information. Before the Congressman was able to reach Mrs. Torquist, she had been injured by some falling shelves in her storm cellar, which gave her an extremely deep cut on the back of her right calf, penetrating and partially severing her posterior tibial artery." She now pulled out a dummy leg. "Congressman Buckman was able to fashion a tourniquet and remove Mrs. Torquist from the basement, where she was transported here. Further medical treatment required that we perform an emergency Caesarian section here, and then we transported Mrs. Torquist to Oklahoma University Hospital in Oklahoma City for vascular surgery to repair the arterial damage to her leg. While I am not a vascular surgeon, the doctors I spoke to at O.U. expected that Mrs. Torquist would fully recover and come home again in a relatively short time. In addition, while the delivery of their baby wasn't planned, the birth was only about a week early and the baby is in good health. For more on the Torquist family, you will need to speak to Mrs. Simpson here, as the family spokesperson. Now, I'm going to sit down and let the others here speak."
And pandemonium ensued!
Everybody began speaking at once, and both the doctor and Mrs. Simpson seemed stunned by it. Finally I stood up and motioned people to silence with my good hand, and then said into the mike, "Okay, one question at a time, just like when we were all back in the first grade!" That got me a few laughs, so I sat down and pointed at somebody in the first row. "You first."
"Congressman, why did you go into the basement? Why didn't you wait for trained rescue people?"
"There wasn't enough time.", I answered. "When we were yelling to see if anybody was in there, we were told to save her children. That put a whole different light on things. We had to go in, right then. By the way, my job was the easy one. All I did was hang around in the storm cellar. The guy we really ought to be thanking is one of my staff, Jerry McGuire. He's the guy who kept going in and out of the house to bring out the Torquists." I looked around but didn't see Jerry. The rat must have ducked out when he heard me mention him.
Another reporter popped up. "Why didn't you rescue the children first?"
"Because Mrs. Torquist's injuries were pretty bad. I'm no doctor, but she was losing blood pretty fast. The children were uninjured. I simply did the best that I could at the time."
Doctor Shooster broke in at this point. "The Congressman is correct in this. Mrs. Torquist lost an awful lot of blood before he got the tourniquet on her. If he had waited even a few minutes while rescuing the children, both Mrs. Torquist and her unborn baby would have died. As it was, she needed massive transfusions both during the ambulance ride and here."
Huh! I had no idea!
Another question came in, this one really dumb! "Congressman Buckman, weren't you frightened to go into a house on the verge of collapsing?"
"Of course I was, but you can't let that stop you. All I knew was that there were people trapped, at least a woman and some children. Once I was inside, I was much more scared of messing up the tourniquet than anything else. Like I said, I'm no doctor, but I do know you can screw that sort of thing up and really hurt somebody!" I looked over at both the doctor and Mrs. Simpson. "She's going to be all right?"
"She'll be fine.", assured Doctor Shooster.
Mrs. Simpson got into the act, which was fine for me. "I talked to Tom this morning. Sylvie is doing fine. The surgeons think the damage is fully repaired, and that she can come home in another week to ten days. She's a tough girl. She and Tom said to make sure I thanked you for saving her life. Oh, and I wanted to say that your daughters are simply darling girls. The kids loved them."
Holly and Molly lit up at that, and the conversation turned on them. Another reporter asked, "How did you meet the Congressman's daughters?"
"They stayed with us last night. Mrs. Buckman came over last night and checked on them, but it seems they had orders from their father to take care of the children." She turned to us and asked, "What was that about, anyway?"
I rolled my eyes at that and Molly answered, "Oh, Dad told us to take care of them right before he went to the hospital. We figured it was his last request, you know?"
I must have slapped my head and looked to the heavens at that, but there was some laughter around the room. I looked over at that and said, "Sorry about that. I heard about my 'dying orders' the other day. I appreciate your taking care of them."
She waved it off. "Everything was fine. Ever since my boys moved out we had the room, and they were good with the kids and the dogs."
A reporter asked, "Did you really think your father was dying?"
Holly looked over at her sister, who nudged her and whispered something, and then Holly turned and said, 'Well, maybe, I don't know ... it's just..." She looked at the rest of us for a second and continued. "All my life – all our lives – we've heard how Dad is so brave and a hero and all, and to us he's always been just ... Dad, you know? And then during the tornado, when we were down in that basement, we were down on the floor and he was on top of us, like nothing could get to us without it going through him first. Then, afterwards, all I wanted to do was run away and hide, and he said no, that we had to help people. And now this ... it's just ... I – we – suddenly realized that Dad is always about helping other people, not himself. Nothing is ever about Dad. And he told us to help Billy and Molly, so that's what we were going to do, no matter what." She gave a wry shrug at that.
I didn't know what to say. I looked over at Marilyn and she was smiling but her eyes were glistening. Great!
"Mrs. Buckman, when did you learn about your husband rescuing this family?", was yelled out.
Mariyn's eyes opened when she realized a question for her. I passed her the microphone and she answered, "Probably like everybody else did. I had a day off from the campaign and I was watching television when they interrupted the show, and I could watch him being pulled out of that basement."
"How did you feel?"
"Scared, mostly, but then when the story came out, I felt proud. It was like what Holly just said. I've known Carl since we were in college. He's not about himself, he's always about helping others. I married a hero." The politicians behind me began applauding at that.
Meanwhile, this was all going out live. Needless to say, the next question was about the dogs. I glanced over and saw the aide on the side, who was smiling. I motioned him over and he ducked down and ran over. I took the newspaper, a day old copy of the New York Times, and I whispered, "Stick around." He nodded.
The inevitable question came up. "Congressman, did you really adopt a puppy during the rescue?"
I laughed at that. "I had to! I promised the kids I would save them and I'd hate to break a campaign promise!" I turned to look at Governor Bush. "Governor, we keep our promises, don't we?!"
He smiled back and yelled out, "Absolutely!"