“Hang in there,” the man with the flashlight said to both of them. “Help's on the way.” They could all hear the wail of the sirens approaching, but her screams seemed even more piercing.
“I can't move … I can't … I can't breathe …” She was panting and out of breath, hyperventilating in her panic, as the young doctor quietly took charge of her, and talked to her very calmly.
“You're all right …you're fine …we're going to get you out of here in a minute …now, try to breathe slowly … here …hold my hand …”He reached in and took her hand in his own, and he saw that there was blood on her hands where she had touched her legs, but in spite of the flashlight he couldn't see what had happened. The best news was that she was conscious and talking to him. No matter how damaged her legs were, she was alive, and there was every reason to hope she would make it.
The man with the flashlight left them for an instant then. He had just seen that there was an unconscious girl in the front seat. At first she had been almost invisible, she was lying so far down on the seat, and there was so much metal pressed against her. But they had suddenly noticed her face and her hair, as they tried to examine Chloe. The doctor kept busy talking to Chloe as she sobbed, while the man with the flashlight tried to pull open the front passenger door to free the girl lying under the dashboard. But to no avail. The door was bent beyond hope of opening it, and the young girl on the front seat never moved as he reached in through the broken glass of the window and tried to touch her. He said something in an undervoice to the doctor who, glancing at her, said he suspected that she was dead like the driver. But a moment later, he checked, leaving the other man to continue talking to Chloe. He was surprised to find a pulse when he touched her neck, it was thin and thready, and he could detect almost no breath at all. Her entire head and face were covered with blood, her hair matted with it, the sweater she had worn was a deep red, she had cuts everywhere and had clearly sustained a major head injury in the collision. She was barely alive, hanging on by the merest thread, and he thought it unlikely she would live long enough for them to save her. There was nothing he could do for her, and even if her breathing stopped or her pulse, he couldn't have administered CPR. She was positioned too awkwardly, and was obviously much too badly damaged. All he could do was stand there and keep an eye on her, feeling helpless. From what he could see, both of the young people in the front seat were a loss. Only the two in the back had been extremely lucky.
“Christ, they're taking forever, aren't they?” the man with the flashlight said under his breath, looking at the carnage in the car. With the flashlight, they could see more clearly how much blood had been lost. Both of the girls seemed to be bleeding profusely.
“It just feels that way,” the doctor said softly. He had ridden an ambulance as part of his residency in New York ten years before, and he had seen a lot of ugly things, on the highways, in the streets, and in the ghettos. He had delivered his share of babies in back hallways too, but he had seen more scenes like this one, and frequently with no survivors. “They'll be here in a minute.”
The other man was sweating profusely and Chloe's screams were getting to him. And he was afraid to look at Allyson's face, she was in such bad shape. He wasn't even sure she had a face left.
And then, finally, they came. Two fire engines, an ambulance, and three police cars. Several people had called from their car phones and reported how bad the accident was, others had approached the two cars cautiously, and learned that there were four passengers in the smaller car, two of them badly injured. The driver of the other car had been miraculously untouched except for a few scratches and bruises, and she was sobbing hysterically by the side of the road, in the arms of a stranger.
Three of the firemen and two cops approached the car simultaneously, along with both paramedics. The other policemen tried to take charge of the traffic, directing it slowly around the two cars, and getting it moving in one direction. Their own vehicles had added to the confusion and the roadblock, and the single file of cars heading north barely crawled past the two cars and the emergency vehicles, as people stared at the carnage.
“What have we got?” The highway patrolman glanced in first, and shook his head when he looked at Phillip.