Megan
My cell phone buzzed with an incoming text from Seth. Working overtime. Rain check for tomorrow?
So much for our romantic Valentine’s dinner plans. Damn tornado.
I responded sure and sighed. I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised about the rain check. It was all hands on deck after the devastation the storm had caused. In fact, Derek had informed me that all day-shift FWPD officers had been ordered to stay out on patrol until further notice. Still, after the run-in at the liquor store, I’d love the comfort of Seth’s strong, safe arms around me. I hadn’t even had a chance yet to tell him what had happened.
I motioned to one of the K-9 teams working a pile of cinder blocks, mortar, and glass that, only an hour ago, had been a nail salon. “There’re search-and-rescue teams in the area. They’ve asked me to head west and see if I can hear anyone in the rubble.”
As usual, Derek seized control of the situation. As weary as I felt, I didn’t mind, for once.
“I’ll work the north side of the street,” he said, gesturing to our right. “You take the south side.”
We retrieved our bullhorns from our cruisers and made our way around the vicinity, calling into demolished buildings and running our gaze over the wreckage, looking for any signs of a buried body, a possible survivor. I hoped that if I did spot a body part it would still be attached to a body. I wasn’t sure I could handle finding a severed limb.
Though the debris had yet to be removed and emergency vehicles could not get into the immediate area, multiple teams of EMTs with portable gurneys swarmed about, some of them carrying injured down the street to ambulances waiting at the edge of the debris field, others running with their equipment to help dig survivors from under collapsed walls and roofs. The constant wail of distant sirens and the flashing lights in the distance made the area feel like some type of warped carnival midway.
I stopped in front of a dry cleaner that was missing the top half of its four brick walls. The only things still standing were half a sign that read VER & SON, the countertop in the customer service area, and a huge pressing machine. Garments in clear bags had been tossed around like items at Neiman Marcus Last Call, the protective plastic covering torn. So much for dry clean only.
Though it would be a miracle if anyone who’d been in the store had survived, I pushed the button on my bullhorn. “Fort Worth PD. Anybody in the cleaners?” Or in what remained of the cleaners?
I cupped a hand around my ear and listened, feeling like Horton trying to hear a Who.
Nothing.
Just in case there was a Who in Whoville who had not yet spoken up, I tried a second time. “Anyone in there?”
When I cupped my hand around my ear this time, I heard a faint sound, a female voice calling “Here!”, the word carried on a cry.
“I hear you!” I hollered into my bullhorn, the resulting sound so loud it caused me to cringe even though I’d caused it. “Call out again!”
Another faint, “Here! I’m here!” came from behind the countertop.
I grabbed the walkie-talkie from my pocket and pushed the button to activate the mic. “I’ve got a survivor at the dry cleaners.”
One of the male search-and-rescue team members responded. “What’s the closest cross street?”
I looked over to where the street sign should be but it was gone, evidently torn away by the winds. I pulled out my cell phone. Thank goodness mobile service was still operative. After checking my current location on the GPS app, I relayed the information to the team.
“On my way.”
I looked around for something to tie Brigit to, but none of the structures looked stable. I ended up tying the end of her leash to the door handle of an upside-down Mercedes in the parking lot. “Stay here, girl.”
Brigit’s eyes shined bright with anxiety but she obeyed, sitting down on her haunches with only a small whine in protest. I gave her a quick kiss on the snout. As scary as today had been, it would’ve been worse if she hadn’t been with me.
My partner now situated, I began making my way through and over the rubble to the counter, talking the entire way, partly to reassure the person buried under the wreckage, partly to make sure I wasn’t stepping on someone else buried under the debris. “Here I come!” I called. “Almost to you!”
Scuttling and crawling over shifting debris wasn’t easy. Bricks slid and smashed my fingers twice, and a piece of drywall I’d mistaken for concrete gave way under my foot, jamming my ankle against an unforgiving strip of metal roof flashing. It felt as if I were in some type of carnival fun house—minus the fun.
When my eyes spotted one of the rescue teams heading our way, I raised my arms and waved them. “Over here!”
The man rushed over to the edge of the debris field, unclipped the leash from the collar of his golden retriever, and issued an order. The dog scurried onto the pile, quickly sniffing and snuffling his way past me, having a much easier time balancing on the shifting debris with his four legs than I’d had on my two. He stopped behind the counter, his nose shoved into the rubble, his back end sticking up in the air. A second later he raised his head, looked back to his partner, and barked. Ruff! Ruff-ruff-ruff! His tail wagged vigorously. To humans, search-and-rescue work was a matter of life and death. To the dog, his work was playtime, an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. Still, despite the differences in approach, human/canine partners made amazingly effective teams.
The man, whose embroidered name badge read J. REED, ordered his dog to continue his search for other survivors while he joined me in trying to get to the buried woman. Reed had an easier time than I’d had, having been trained for this type of work and also being equipped with knee pads, shin guards, heavy gloves, and other protective gear.
He began to pull bricks off the pile and stack them on the counter. “Careful,” he advised. “The last thing we want to do is make things worse.”
One wrong move and the stack of debris could tumble down like a house of cards or blocks in a game of Jenga, but with devastating consequences.
After three minutes of careful digging, Reed pulled away a section of uprooted floor tile to reveal a tiny white woman cowering against the back of the counter. Her gray hair was matted with blood, her face crisscrossed with deep scratches, her pink sweater soggy and stained.
“Thank God!” she cried. She reached up to grab me, nearly pulling me into the hole with her.
Reed and I helped her to her feet, and she looked around in horror. “Where’s my son?” she said, softly at first, her words escalating to a shriek as the enormity of the damage sunk in. “Where’s my son? Where’s my son!?!”
The retriever had moved twenty feet back, indicating he’d found another person. But whether that person was still alive was unknown. The area where the dog stood contained an even deeper, denser pile of remains, including heavy machinery that had been tossed and toppled like children’s toys.
Reed helped the woman to the top of the counter. “Stay here until we complete our search.”
He radioed for paramedics to come tend to the woman.
As we turned to head to the back of the space, his eyes met mine. From the expression therein, it was clear he thought the chances of anyone surviving in the wreckage would be nothing short of a miracle.
It took us a full five minutes to reach the dog, another ten to figure out how to unearth the buried person with the risk of dropping machinery on him. Two large washing machines were counterbalanced at odd angles on top of the ruins. One wrong move and we could cause an avalanche that might not only crush the man trapped below but us as well.
Minutes later, when we finally uncovered a leg, Reed called into the rubble. “Search-and-rescue here. How you doing in there?”
There was no response. The man was either dead or unconscious. I prayed for the latter.
“Is he okay?” cried the woman from where she now knelt on the countertop, trying to get a better look. “Is he okay?”
As much as I wanted to give the woman good news, I had to tell her the truth. “We don’t know yet!” I called.
We continued to pull debris away from the man, keeping one eye on the machines towering over us. Creeeaaak.
Uh-oh. One of the machines had begun to shift.
“Get back!” cried Reed, scurrying to his left. “It’s gonna fall!”
I scurried in the opposite direction.
The machine wobbled atop the pile for a moment, letting out another creak, before toppling over backward and sliding away from us. While the machine had exposed the man buried below, it had also removed the main means of support for the other washer, which had started to inch its way down a slope of debris.
The rescue worker reached down and wrapped his hands around the prone man’s left ankle. “Grab a leg and pull!”
I reached down, wrapped my hands around the man’s right ankle, and yanked with all my might. We managed to pull him toward us and out of the way a mere instant before the washing machine slammed down into the space with a resounding BANG! A second later and the man would’ve been crushed to death.
Back on the countertop, the woman put her hands to her mouth and screamed.
“We got him out!” I called to her, hoping my words didn’t give her false hope. We’d gotten the man out of the rubble, but whether he was alive was yet to be determined.
The man looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a few lines beginning to form around his closed eyes. The rest of his face was slack, as if he were taking a restful nap. I only hoped it wouldn’t be a permanent nap. A large, oozing gash on his left temple indicated he’d suffered major head trauma.
Reed put two fingers to the man’s neck and exhaled a quick, sharp breath. “We’ve got a pulse. It’s weak, but it’s there.”
I looked over at the woman. “He’s still alive!”
“Thank God!” she cried, putting her left hand on her heart and raising the other to the sky. “Thank God!”
A paramedic team ran up with a stretcher. While the three of them finagled the man’s limp body onto the device, I picked my way back to the woman, helped her down from the counter, and gave her a shoulder to lean on as she limped her way through the rubble to join her son in the ambulance.
Brigit and I worked the rest of the day and late into the evening before being relieved from duty. During that time, I helped to pull three more seriously injured people from structures in the area. EMTs had set up a makeshift morgue in the bank building, one of the few structures that had suffered only minor, cosmetic damage. Several times I spotted teams going by, the limp forms on their stretchers covered with sheets. I nearly lost it when a woman’s hand flopped out from under the sheet, the sparkly diamond ring and festive pink nail polish at odds with the dark situation.
Captain Leone stopped by in person just before nine, giving me a once-over. “You look exhausted,” he told me. “We’ve got officers en route to relieve you. Go on home.”
He’d get no argument from me. My muscles were so sore and tired they quivered. I was no use to anyone in this condition.
Brigit and I rode back to the station with Derek. I didn’t bother to thank him for the ride. It was his job to help out a fellow officer, after all. Besides, he’d complained the entire time that my furry partner and I were making his patrol car smell of “wet bitch.”
I loaded Brigit into my Smart Car and drove back to my apartment. I’d never been so happy to get out of my uniform and into a warm shower. Afterward, I took a brush to Brigit, running it over her fur until her hair was tamed.
I set the brush aside and cupped her face in my hands. “That looter was right. You are a pretty girl.”
She gave me a sloppy kiss, then trotted across the kitchen to munch on her kibble. Crunch-crunch-crunch.
I, on the other hand, had no appetite. I did what I’d been longing to do all day. Curled up on the futon and cried.