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."
Garrett kept her silent vigil as the man’s wife was soon brought through the crowd. The surgeon could do nothing to help the man and quickly explained this to his wife, making her well aware of the serious nature of the accident. The grief-stricken face of the woman was tugging at her heart as she watched the tender scene unfold before her very eyes.
The surgeon was amazed at the concern her patient had for the welfare of his wife. It was as if what happened to him was of no importance. She didn’t understand the man’s concern at all. His feelings seemed foreign to her. Most patients fought to cling to life, placing all emphasis on themselves and their goal to survive. She never anticipated a love beyond one’s self by such a common and seemingly uneducated man as this.
Danni left the man’s side when his wife arrived, affording them the privacy that they needed to convey their last sentiments. It made her think of her own life and brought home the importance of not waiting until it was too late to tell people that they mattered. The nurse could feel the sting of the tears as they ran down her cheeks. It was too emotional of a scene for her tender heart to take.
After several minutes, the young wife was escorted away and the railroad employees readied to uncouple the cars.
The patient’s last words were to his rescuers, thanking them for trying to help him. He had commended them on their valiant effort and at the same time apologized for the cruel hand that fate had dealt them. At the end of his small speech, he nodded to his fellow worker that he was ready.
The sound of metal scraping on metal grated on one’s nerves. The signal was given and the engine pulled the car away from the other. The life drained out of his face as the final realization set into his soul. These were the last visions he would see of this world. It was over in no time, the pool of blood soaking into the ground underneath his lifeless body.
Garrett Trivoli knelt on one side of the patient as Danni clung to his hand willing that he would feel her spirit until the end. The surgeon bent down and closed his eyelids. She looked down at her watch then spoke the words for those around to hear. "Time of death, 2037."
There was nothing more for the Flight Team to do now but go home.
The ride back to the hospital was spent in quiet as each of the crewmembers thought about events of the last hour or so. It was funny how death had a way of making you think. The fact that someone could be living one minute then lifeless the next was a heavy concept for anyone to accept. The Flight Surgeon’s Team was no exception.
Danni couldn’t get the words of the dying man out of her head. The words that he had entrusted to her wove a web of confusion inside her head as it haunted her every thought. Here she was debating whether to tell someone that she thought she loved them, and there he had been, adamant about making sure his loved one knew it was the last thing on his mind. The nurse was thankful for the dark of the night, as the tears began to fall down her face. It was all that she could do to keep from letting the rest of the crew know how much this had touched her.
The surgeon had seen death come from many sources. Her experiences had taught her that life was a fleeting thing and death a matter of permanence. It wasn’t often that a death would effect her, but this one did. The fact that she could do nothing to even try to preserve that man’s life was the hardest thing for her to accept. Garrett knew that they had done all that they could in making the man comfortable and staying with him until the end. Death was something you just learned to accept in the profession she was in, but it didn’t mean that you had to like it.