Page 54 of Desperate Justice

“EMTs there?”

“No. No cops, either. Must have happened recently. Traffic isn’t backed up much.”

Allison knew her duty. “Tell Rafe I’m headed there. They may need me.”

“Allison, wait, it may not be safe...”

She hung up, pocketed her phone and roared on the breakdown lane ahead of everyone. The crash site was about four hundred yards ahead. Allison pulled to a stop and saw a small sedan, front end accordioned, and a bigger vehicle off to the side. She made sure she had her backpack and ran forward.

Good Samaritans had pulled out the passengers from the sedan. A woman, perhaps a middle-aged mother, lay on the swale, groaning.

Nearby people huddled over a child. An older boy, who looked about thirteen and wore a gray concert shirt, looked up helplessly. “She’s my sister. I was riding in the car behind her. I don’t know what to do.”

Ignoring the roar of the bikes behind her, Allison raced forward.

Rafe joined her. He looked grim. “I told you, we stick together. When will you ever listen to me?”

“I’m a nurse. Let me do my job.”

Squatting by the child, who looked about eleven, he joined her. Rafe smiled at the child, who struggled to breathe.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s your name?”

The girl coughed violently.

“Her name is Jenny,” the middle schooler answered.

Then he looked at Allison. “How bad is she?”

Allison assessed the young girl. Her skin was pale and cool, clammy to the touch, and her heart rate showed clear signs of tachycardia. The chest wall sustained severe injuries and the girl was gasping.

She put her ear to the girl’s chest.

“Poor breath sounds, asymmetric chest expansion and percussion. Her left lung’s collapsed. I have to drain the fluid or she’ll die before the paramedics get here.”

The teen kneeling by the girl recoiled. “You can do that?”

“I’m a trauma nurse practitioner. You see anyone else around here who can do it, find them,” she snapped.

She looked at Rafe. “Any cops here yet?”

As she asked, a highway patrol vehicle pulled up and a state trooper emerged.

“How far out are the EMTs?” she asked the officer.

“At least twelve minutes behind me.”

The kid might not have that long. “I’ll have to inflate the lung.”

She glanced around. Diana was still on her bike, looking pale, but composed. “Di, give me the straw from your tumbler,” she called out.

As her sister rushed over with the straw, Sam joined them. “What can I do?”

“What do you need?” Rafe asked.

“Get the kit from my pack and open it. There’s a flask of alcohol in there.”

When he did, she poured the alcohol over and through the straw.