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| Page Nine |
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Then they saw it. The involved truck, it was upright, almost intact. But beneath it lay a sportscar and one woman, fouled and trapped behind her crumpled steering column. Truck 127's men were already on scene with bottles and masks advancing on her with mist fanning hoses into the air to dissolve away any lingering swirls of ammonia from over her location. Roy screeched to a halt two hundred yards from the truck. "Gotta stop here. If that gas cloud doubles back, it'll corrode the vehicles." "Not to mention us, too." Gage said grimly. "She must be alive. They're spraying a defensive pattern over her.." DeSoto and Gage rushed out of the squad cab and met up with Cap and the gang in a hurried group as they all grabbed SCBA and pulled out high volume water hoses. Roy and John had their air bottles and masks on in less than a minute. "Cap...?" Roy asked, ready for instant instructions. Hank Stanley stood, his helmet off in hand, holding his mask to his face and he motioned them all nearer. "I want you all to take a look at where the liquid puddles are now. Remember where they are when you start laying down water. That is where the ammonia lies. It's subliming into gas and it's -28 F. Watch your step or your clothes and shoes will freeze burn to your skin faster than dry ice! If you get any liquid on you, start stripping off all clothing immediately and get under a firm wash.. and don't stop hosing down. Only way to thaw those kinds of burns. Any fumes will dessicate your eyes and mucous membranes on contact. And the only thing that will help it is water. Tons of it. Oh, and I don't think I have to tell any of you guys to avoid other engine companies hose runoff. Anhydrous is caustic ammonium hydroxide when diluted with water until its through absorbing water to satiation. Don't worry about sparks from extrication equipment. This stuff's not flammable out in the open. The gas cloud will turn transparent as it spreads but you'll be able to smell it long before you reach a dangerous area. Remember, your safety comes first. If I tell you to retreat, do it sooner than yesterday. Ok, move out.." The gang circled the truck widely, avoiding the deadly cold shiny spill stain spreading from under the dripping misting valve of the shattered semi and moved onto a narrow strip of dry concrete that Batallion 14 and the other crews were utilizing near the trapped woman's sportscar. Cap lifted his handy talkie to his mouth. He now had a better idea of what they were dealing with. "Foam Truck 127. Move in. The only leaking areas I see are immediately beneath the semi.. Lay a full covering spread. Confirmed pressurized anhydrous ammonia leak. The tank's got the proper labels all over it." Gage watched Roy sprint over to the other car, crumpled and on the side of the road. "Chief?" Johnny yelled through his mask. "How's she doing?" he said to the older white helmeted man directing the water curtain misting team holding fast between the woman and the semi. He could hear the dark skinned woman moaning from where she sat pinned in her seat. "She was talking a while ago, but she's starting to have some trouble breathing. Just get her out before you treat anything beyond the basics. This wind may shift on us with that thunderstorm approaching." the Battalion chief replied. "Careful in there.. And do not use any O2 at all. The moisture from it will only burn your victim's lungs and her eyes if she takes in any concentrated ammonia gas to her face using it while still being this close to the leak. Wait until you're evacuated." Johnny saw a pair of legs lying under the semi where the truck driver had fallen after escaping his cab and he started forward.. The chief grabbed his arm, shaking his head. "He's dead.. we found his face frozen solid to the ground. Looks like a direct stream hit him when he tried to shut off the valve to protect the woman." Johnny swallowed dryly and he nodded, firmly making himself not looking at the man's upper torso after hearing that. Roy and Johnny gingerly made their way over to her, wincing as hose mist dampened their coats and hissed as minute traces of ammonia gas sizzled on the rubber they contained. Their breathing sounded hollow behind their masks, whistling in their ears. Terror made them begin to sweat immediately. Johnny shouted to the woman putting own his best calming smile and soothing voice.. "Hey, how are ya doing? Just relax, we're gonna get you outta here.." He said, moving a quickly ungloved hand to her carotid for an assessment. "You hurt anywhere besides your legs?" he asked. "Anything in your neck or back?" The dashboard hid most of them from him below her knees, but he saw no visible blood anywhere on her pants legs. "No, I'm fine..agh. Get me out of here.. Can't...can't.. b- breathe." and she gasped and her eyes rolled into her head. |
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"Cap!! Step up that misting! The fumes are doubling back!!" Gage shouted, holding the woman's throat and chin tipped up as far as he could. He could feel her chest heave as she began to choke a bit. Gage lifted her larynx up with his fingers and her stridor eased off. "Hey.. You're fine.. Just keep breathing. Nice and slow and very shallowly. Now we're gonna get you out of here real fast. Just relax... You hear me?" he shouted, muffled through his mask. The woman was beyond talking, but her eyes never left Johnny's and her hands tightly gripped his wrist where he was managing her airway for her. Her struggling eased off as blissful clear air returned around them from the displacing water fan's effect. The fireteam near them added another hose to the water curtain swiftly, and found the best angle to utilize the clearing winds until they pushed the wispy edges of the gas cloud away from the paramedics and their victim. Chet and Marco sprinted up with a K-12 and jaws and Roy was right behind them with news about the other car. "The other driver's ok. Just bumps and bruises. The CHP got him out just fine, he's waiting for us. Just has a simple fracture of the right ulna. What do you got here?" "Dyspnea. Moderate laryngeal spasming. And her legs are pinned. She says they don't hurt at all. I didn't see any bleeding. Her C-Spine's clear. Can you tell anything down there? I haven't checked her out very well yet because of this.." he said angling his head to mean the lifting airway hold he was maintaining on her with both hands over her throat at the angle of her jaw. Roy said, "Hang on." And he moved to the other side of the car, crawling in as well as he could over the woman's lap to check. "Just a panel of the dashboard over her left knee. The jaws should be able to handle that well enough.. Nothing seems to be broken.." he said, moving careful hands over her lower limbs. He straightened up, "Kelly there's a good bar right down there to put the chain. String it up would ya?" he said calmly. "Right.." Chet said. Then his eyes fell on the woman's name tag, still on her shoulder. "Daphne, now we're gonna pull this car off your legs, won't hurt at all but it's gonna be real loud for a while. Just some sounds of twisting, popping metal all right?" "O-Ok.. ugh.." her voice rasped hoarsely. Johnny hastily readjusted her head's placement when her eyes suddenly closed. "Hey hey, now Daphne.. Stay with us.." said Johnny. His forearm never left her diaphragm nor lifted away from the breaths he could feel moving there. "She needs O2. Fast. Daphne, don't...black out. We need you to- ah, h*ll..." and he shifted position, taking the full dead weight of her head into his shoulder as Daphne lapsed into limp unconsciousness. There was a loud thudding of hollow liquid and metal from above and they all hunched down, anticipating trouble.. All the firemen looked up to the nurse tank truck's roof when a man from Hazmat suddenly appeared above the leaking valve in a full chemical suit to deal with the source of the spreading cloud. They heard his satisfied grunt when all it took was a flip of the tank's sealing cap and a twist of its pressurized valve to stop all the bad fumes. |
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Everyone sighed in relief. But the Batallion chief said, "We're not out of the woods yet. That cloud will hang around for hours before it dissipates. Only water will carry it into the soil where it will be absorbed. Stay away from it.. And we'd better hope it doesn't start to rain. That will flatten the cloud like a pancake and we'll all be enveloped before we even have a chance to run. Get her free and move her out to the half mile perimeter at the minimum.." "Yes sir.." Roy replied. The Jaws and K-12 came to life under the assisting Truck 127 firemen's gloves, working to free Daphne. The sportscar was foreign made but soon, brute mechanical strength made the front end uncrumple and fall away. Kelly piped up from the front tire spot. "We got it! We got it. Gage, DeSoto, you can pull her out anytime, but hang on just a sec, and let me get a wooden longboard for her. It won't melt down in the ammonia if it gets wet like a metal stokes would." And the stocky masked and helmeted fireman ran for the station's engine. "Bring a C collar too! And a short oral airway! I wanna get one in before she swells up any more." John shouted after him. Three minutes later, Daphne was breathing secured, and almost free when a new smell reached those on the outskirts of the evacuated area. Rain.. on hot concrete. "Rain!! Everybody out of there! Now!!!" Cap shouted into his HT. "Move it! Move it!! That cloud's gonna bloom big time..." |
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All the firemen around the car dropped their hoses and grabbed Daphne's board gracelessly. And Roy, John and they, ran with her, top speed, away from the semi truck.. leaving behind all else. The cloud of anhydrous NH3 above them writhed ominously, expanding with the gift of water, and then hideously, it began to settle, on the way to smothering those running on the ground beneath it. Station 51's vehicles were nearest to the semi. "Move move!! Everybody on.. We're getting outta here!" Stoker ordered.. The firemen hefted up Daphne's long board onto the back of the engine and clung to the side rails as Stoker hastily fired up the engine and rapidly backed away down the freeway in a race to avoid the spreading cloud of gas. Roy and Johnny barely managed to get the squad, festooned with un-chem suited hazmat men hanging on to whatever they could, out of there when a wall of caustic puffing vapor occupied the place where they had just been.. Roy frantically wove in between cars, driving back wards as fast as he could, until he was convinced he was outdistancing the rain spiked gas plume's widening fringe. In Roy's mind, he was intermittently terrified and amused when Stoker maneuvered the LaFrance with all the lurching grace of a drunk rhino, in reverse, along their same torturous route in between the maze of stopped abandoned autos on the highway. Mike almost didn't see a Harley, and he threw the steering wheel full left to avoid it. Chet, his grip insecure, fell off the side from the landing when momentum flung him wide. He impacted the road violently, and rolled with his heavy tank bottle still on his back, in front of the squad. Roy slammed on his brakes when he saw a canvas backed body lurching in his rear mirrors. "ohmyg*d" Gage said, and both Johnny and Roy's eyes slid back the way they had come to the rolled tanker to see a huge angry semi transluscent wall of ammonia boiling down upon them. Then they both glanced back at the stunned Chet, who was just trying for his feet. Johnny said, "Move Roy, move.. We'll pick him up as we pass him by.." Roy didn't speak, he acted. And the squad began to pick up speed once more in reverse. |
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"Get up ! Get up, Chet! Grab onto me!!" Gage shouted, throwing an arm through his open passenger window for Chet to snag onto. "It's almost on us!" Terror made Kelly get up immediately and he started sprinting for Johnny's hand and the squad's landing board like a hobo trying to catch a caboose. Along the way, Kelly shed his breathing apparatus in pieces, clearly running for his life. The bottle fell away finally and Chet stumbled only once before his running finally gained him the ground he needed, he caught up with Roy's continuing high speed reversing. An errant gust of wind caught Chet full in the face and it came with poisonous teeth and rain. Kelly's hands flew to his eyes and he screamed, just as Johnny grabbed his arms and hauled him partially into the squad, belly down. -------------- Others motorists in the safe area saw the engine and squad escaping the spreading cloud only by slim meters as yet unaware of what was happening in the cab. They began to cheer when the two reversing red vehicles regained their lead on it, and began to pull away. Those cheers turned to shouts of horror when they saw Chet's legs and lower half dangling precariously out the window of the high speed backward traveling rescue squad. ------------------------------------ |
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