Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,59
the wind outta me, I guess.”
“Your head hurt?”
“Not too bad.”
Webster stabilizes the head. Head wounds bleed profusely. It’s not as bad as it looks. He checks the pulse in the guy’s ankles.
“How old are you, Randall?”
“Thirty-four.”
Koenig glances at Webster. The guy looks to be in his late fifties, if a day. Hard living.
“Randall, were you pushed or did you jump?’
“I guess I jumped.”
“Can you feel either your right or your left leg?” Webster asks.
The man tries to look up. The exertion seems to tire him, and he lies back.
“BP one hundred twelve over sixty-eight,” Koenig reports. “Pulse thready and weak. Respirations twenty-four. Breath sounds equal and bilateral.”
“You got the warming blanket with you?”
Koenig takes the shiny blanket out of the trauma box and covers the man up to his chest.
“Lumbar fracture?” Webster asks Koenig.
“Think so.”
Webster can overhear the cops talking behind him. “Who would try to kill himself by jumping off a two-story building?” one of them asks, and another starts laughing.
“Call it in,” Webster says to Koenig. “Tell them we got a jumper, possible L-1, compound tib-fib fracture, knee dislocation, bleeding profusely from the back of the head. ETOH. Conscious and talking.”
“I want full-body immobilization,” Webster says. “Bring the rig around,” he tells one of the many cops who have gathered just to see the novel scene. Webster tosses him the keys. “Make it quick,” Webster says.
By the time Webster and Koenig slide Randall onto the stretcher, the cop has the rig waiting, the back door open. “I can feel the guy shivering right through the stretcher,” Webster says. “He’s in shock.”
Webster climbs in back with the patient and starts a line, the first of two. He can hear Koenig calling it in. Webster warms the IV liquid and jacks up the thermostat.
The guy is shivering so much, he can barely make himself understood. Webster wants to keep the guy talking and awake.
“So why did you do it?” Webster asks.
“Girlfriend.”
“Randall, stay with me. Look at me. You with me?”
Randall nods once.
“What about the girlfriend?” Webster asks.
“She died.”
It’s an answer Webster wasn’t expecting. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says in a loud voice. “How did she die?” he asks while taking the man’s vitals.
“She killed herself,” the man says.
“Really,” Webster says.
“She jumped.”
Oh God.
Webster feels it coming on and tries to suppress it. The more he tries to suppress it, the worse it gets. A deep, cosmic laughter rumbles up through his chest.
He turns away from the patient just in time. Facing the back corner of the rig, Webster opens his mouth wide, suppressing the sound as best he can. Tears run down his cheeks, and he wipes them with his sleeves. The laughter stops. Webster catches his breath. Thinking it’s over, he starts to turn, and then has to whip back around. He puts an arm over his mouth. He can’t stop himself. He bites on his sleeve. He puts his forehead against the padding. The guy behind him says something unintelligible, which sets Webster off again. He pounds his fist into his palm to make himself stop. He keeps it up until he’s good to turn around again. Koenig pulls into the bay, Webster opens the doors, and he can see an ER nurse running toward him. Tears still in his eyes, he gives his report as quickly as he can. He motions with his head for Koenig to go in with the stretcher.
When Koenig comes out, Webster is in the passenger seat.
“What the hell happened to you?” Koenig asks. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“Oh God,” Webster says. “I asked the guy why he tried to kill himself, and he said his girlfriend died. So I asked him how she died, and he tells me she jumped. And…” A high-pitched sound escapes him. Koenig shakes his head and starts laughing. Webster pushes the heel of his hand hard against his knee. Koenig snorts.
After a time, they stop.
“That was awful,” Webster says.
“That was pretty bad. You might be losing it.”
“I am losing it.” He remembers Rowan with the hose.
“We don’t ever have to talk about this again.”
“No, we don’t.”
Koenig puts the rig in gear and heads back to Rescue.
Chelsea seems to Webster to be a maze of industrial, abandoned, and triple-decker residential buildings. He makes his way to a water tower at the top of a hill and drives by what appears to be a hospital straight out of the First World War. When he passes the fire station, he searches for an attached building for Rescue, but can’t