The Nurse's Rescue

Joe’s smile faded as he remembered the desperate plea in Jessica’s dark eyes. The kind of plea that would make any man feel duty bound to render whatever assistance was humanly possible. His face was quite serious as he nodded at his squad leader.

‘I can deal with this, Tony. I want to deal with it.’

Tony’s nod was brisk. ‘Let’s get on with it, then. We’ll get this team back inside and see what we can do.’

Jessica walked a pace behind Joe as she followed her team.

‘We’ve been reassigned,’ Tony had informed them. ‘They’ve cleared a lot of rubble from part of Sector 5 and there’s now access to a previously inaccessible section that the engineers have just cleared as safe to search. Follow me.’

Jessica followed, trying to focus clearly enough to remember the site map they had seen during their initial incident briefing. Which part of this sprawling, suburban shopping precinct had been designated Sector 5?

‘Can you remember the map, June?’ Jessica turned to an older woman walking alongside her. ‘Where’s Sector 5, exactly?’

‘I think it’s on the Sutherland Street side of the mall,’ June responded. ‘Or maybe Desmond Street.’

Jessica nodded, a little grimly. Whichever street held the entrance, it was still well away from the area where her mother had been found. At least it was within the disaster scene, however, which was infinitely preferable to being kept out. The thought of having to simply sit and wait, with nothing to do but agonise over what might or might not be happening, had been unbearable. Besides, none of them knew what parts of the mall might still be relatively intact. Or how far a small and determined child might be able to travel…if he was uninjured.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

Jessica simply nodded. She had never been more sure of anything in her life.

‘I’d feel just the same way.’ June reached out to pat Jessica’s shoulder in sympathy as she returned the nod with an encouraging smile. Well into her fifties, June had been the oldest member of Jessica’s USAR training class. She was as tough as they came, and had been involved with the Red Cross for more than thirty years. She had also raised four children of her own and was now counting grandchildren. She understood.

The team walked briskly around the outskirts of a car park that had been cleared of private vehicles to create the operations base for every emergency service it had been possible to mobilise. It was an unprecedented scene for a New Zealand city and despite the fact that the alien light generated by powerful equipment had now been replaced by real daylight again, it still seemed as unreal as a movie set.

How long had they been here? Jessica had lost all track of time. The massive explosion that had apparently been centred in the mall’s supermarket had occurred just after 3.30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon—just as Jessica and the other members of the USAR class had been finishing their three-week course and learning the results of the final exams on their new and specialised search and rescue skills. They had all assumed that the callout had been a hoax, a novel way to end a period of training that had brought together a diverse group of people and seen some close friendships develop.

A Friday afternoon. At just the right time to catch the rush of after-school and end-of-week shoppers flocking to the popular shopping centre. Hundreds of people had been inside when the explosion, assumed to have been caused by a fault in the mains gas supply, had occurred. It was a disaster that was major on an international scale and the evidence was everywhere Jessica glanced as Tony led his team through the car park, their progress now being filmed by a television crew.

There was ample material to keep all the film crews happy. The area was teeming and it seemed likely that there were now more rescuers on scene than there had been people caught in the mall. It was easy to spot the workers who had recently been inside the incident scene. They all had the same covering of dust, the same grimy goggles and dust masks pushed just clear of faces that wore the same expressions of dogged determination to carry on despite exhaustion. Tempers were fraying more frequently now and Jessica was not surprised at the sounds of an argument coming from behind one of the army’s personnel trucks they were passing.

‘I’m not going to move this truck. Where the hell do you think I’m going to find a place to put it?’

‘It has to be moved. This tent is going up here.’

‘Put your bloody tent somewhere else, mate. This truck’s not moving.’

What was the new tent for? Jessica wondered. Another temporary morgue, perhaps? Or maybe it was something to do with another set of new arrivals—the dog team she could see ahead of them now. The handlers were unloading their highly trained search dogs and checking their gear. Leads and harnesses were being attached and bowls of water distributed. The barking of the dogs melded into the myriad sounds around them and Jessica knew it was a sign that the rescue operation was moving into an advanced phase.

Surface casualties had been dealt with by the time the USAR teams had been deployed. The more easily accessible sectors had been covered and many victims found and extricated by the specialist teams. The likelihood of finding more survivors was dropping rapidly but it wasn’t impossible. Jessica held onto that thought grimly as her team halted and regrouped near a side entrance to the mall. The bubble of hysteria that made her want to run ahead, screaming the name of her son and flinging any obstacle she could touch aside, had to be as rigidly controlled as the bubble that contained the grief for her mother.

She could do it. It might take every ounce of strength she possessed and then some, and it might only be possible for a short period of time, but Jessica knew it was possible and that was a revelation in itself. How could she, Jessica McPhail, possess such an inner reserve and have been so completely unaware of its existence for the thirty years of her life so far? She had always lacked confidence and self-esteem. Had always been quick to put herself down before others had had the chance to do it for her. She had never done anything on her own without encouragement from someone she trusted. And she had never been assertive enough to insist on doing something in the face of active opposition.

Except she wasn’t doing this on her own, was she? Jessica glanced around her as she followed instructions to put her dust mask and goggles back into position, to check her radio and switch on the headlamp attached to her protective helmet. She had a team around her that included an expert squad leader in Tony. Firemen Bryan and Gerry had been classmates, as had June, and they made up half the six-person rescuer section of USAR 3. Jessica was one of the medics and then, of course, there was the pick of the bunch as far as she was concerned. The team’s other medic—Joe Barrington.

‘All set?’ Tony nodded, having surveyed his team. ‘Let’s go, then.’

Security barriers were lifted to allow them entry to what looked like a relatively unscathed area of the mall. Apart from shattered shop frontages and the disarray of goods within them, the general structure appeared normal. Jessica turned her head, as did the other team members, using the beam from her headlamp to survey and assess their surroundings, checking for hazards and trying to absorb all the information and stay orientated.

Having crunched over broken glass as they’d passed several small shops, the team entered a food court. The smell of partially cooked and abandoned meals made a welcome change from the stench of dust, but the eerily empty space, overturned chairs and half-eaten meals on the tables turned the scene into a potential set for a horror movie.

Jessica noted a partially demolished hamburger, barely recognisable through the thick layer of dust. A holder on a nearby countertop held empty ice-cream cones, the contents long since melted and mixed into the surrounding layer of dust. Had children been waiting for an adult to pass the treats within reach? Jessica swallowed a painful lump in her throat at the thought. How often had she taken an ice cream from just such a holder in order to pass it into Ricky’s eager hands? The food court was left well behind by the time she managed to rein in her thoughts.

Why had they come to the mall so early? Jessica had arranged to meet her mother and Ricky here but not until 5 p.m. when she could be sure her last day on the course was over. Had Ricky been so excited by the promise of the visit to the toy shop he had driven her mother to distraction with the wait? Jessica had had no premonition of personal disaster as they had travelled to this scene. She had been more concerned that she was included in an emergency rescue team whose skills might be required for a lengthy incident, much longer than she would feel happy leaving her mother to cope with Ricky for.

Even when her phone call to the motel unit had been unanswered, Jessica hadn’t worried unduly. Her empathy during the initial briefing when she’d heard of parents panicking about their missing children had been no more than automatic, and there had been no time for personal worries once her team had entered the scene for their first active duty. The experience had been so far out of Jessica’s normal realm it should have been overwhelming, but she had astonished herself by coping with everything. Picking her way through the rubble of partially destroyed shops. Dealing with the extrication and treatment of the two survivors they had found. Even coping with the bodies being removed from near the tunnel that led to the basement car park. Coping until she had recognised one of the victims, that was.

Her own mother.

The woman who had raised her entirely unaided. Who had provided for and protected her as the only focus of her life. And who had been there for her when history had repeated itself and Jessica had found herself pregnant and abandoned.

The shock of recognition had been overwhelming. Jessica had never fainted in her life but she’d come within a whisker of losing consciousness at that instant. The incentive to overcome the shock had been all that had kept her upright as others had taken her mother away, but it had been enough to keep her on the front line until the area had been officially deemed clear. No more victims had been trapped when that section had collapsed.

So where was her son?

Had they been going towards or away from the car park? And why? Jessica knew the answer to that. Ricky was never happier than when he could indulge his passion for cars by looking at the real thing. Why hadn’t they chosen the outside car park to wander in? And what had happened during the collapse or the seconds leading up to it? Had Ricky been small and fast enough to run clear as the roof caved in? Had he found a space in a nearby shop to hide or was he beyond or beneath the tunnel, which was still totally inaccessible—a solid barrier to the car park that would need a bulldozer or crane to clear. A barrier that was now well away from where Jessica was. She wanted to turn and run. To try and find a path that would lead her closer to where she thought Ricky could be.

‘Jess? Are you OK?’

‘Sure.’ Grateful for the block to the threatened emotional tidal wave, Jessica gave Joe a grimly determined smile.

‘Watch yourself while we’re climbing. Keep three points of contact with the rubble at all times.’

Jessica nodded. She had been too close to losing her grip just then. So close she hadn’t noticed her team was about to start searching a mound of rubble that blocked the end of the mall leading away from the food court.

‘Position yourselves one metre apart,’ Tony directed. ‘We’re hoping to get past this quickly but we’ll do a line and hail search as we cross.’

Heavy machinery within the vicinity had been shut down. Jessica tested a length of timber protruding from the pile in front of her and then used it as an anchor so that she could lean as close to the debris as possible. She waited her turn, listening as others in the line made their calls.

‘Rescue team above. Can you hear me?’

The silence was punctuated by the sound of someone firing up an air hammer and the shouts of someone else curtailing the noisy activity. Bryan had to repeat his call and then wait for a new period of quiet to listen for a possible response.

‘Nothing heard,’ he reported.

June was the next in line. ‘Rescue team above. Can you hear me?’

There was another short silence. ‘Nothing heard.’

Jessica’s turn came and went with the same result and then they moved forward and up. Joe’s foot slipped as he pushed himself higher. Glass shattered and something metallic dislodged itself with a clang.

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah.’ Joe steadied himself and Jessica could see the edges of a smile around the mask. ‘You?’

Jessica simply nodded. The chain of calls had started again.

‘Rescue team above. Can you hear me?’