2nd piece for course - "The crash"/wreck

Fictional story based on a phrase hear on the radio Phrase " She had been waiting"

She had been waiting for the noise to stop for what felt like a lifetime, it was nothing like she dreamt it could be. There was a large man shouting when her ears finally seemed to work again. Where had he come from & why was man in front of her­­  demanding he be treated immediately? Did she have the word “Doctor” tattooed on her head? Rosa steadied herself, drew in a deep breath, let it out & repeated the action, allowing her to calm herself before looking at what had happened.

 

Still ignoring the petulant childish voice of the man, she looked around. The train was on it’s side, chairs were all over the place, shattered glass sparkled in places where before a table had been or a person in a chair. The carriage was totally off the rails, no doubt this was why the noise had been so very intense, painful & long. There was still a ringing in her ears, & she could also feel pain in her body. She did a quick “body check” on herself nothing was broken, she was just bruised & in shock. Seeing as she was no longer sitting in a chair at a table it was amazing that nothing was damaged, although she wasn’t surprised by the aches, pain & shock, all things considered.

 

She was lying on the windows which meant the doors would be impossible to open. Escape would only happen when the emergency teams arrived - & knowing where they had been before this unexpected trouble meant rescue would be a long time coming. There were no direct roads to the rail line along this area �" hills, trees, and more terrifying a 300ft drop to the bottom of the hill lay on the other side of the train tracks �" it was a miracle that the carriages had come off to the left �" had it been the right then the drop was  no, she wouldn’t think about it there was too many “ifs”  in life as it was.

 

Having taken time to ensure she was pretty much ok her attention was pulled back to the man who was standing �" she needed to get up & look at what his problem was, & hope it wasn’t  something major, as her head was banging  his rising voice made it worse.

 

Rosa looked at him, his claim was that he was a very important businessman & had come from 1^st class. He almost demanded rather than ask for something for in his words “my hand is badly damaged” which (thankfully thought Rosa) turned out to be a small cut on one of his pudgy fingers. The man was still almost whimpering,  but, Rosa could see how he had changed from a pompous prick to a child with a small cut on a finger. She looked about the carriage & could see bone sticking out of a leg behind her. “Why don’t you go carefully through the carriages & ask if there are anymore doctors or nurses aboard? You aren’t really hurt it’s shock, which will wear off in time”. He nodded like a child & went off asking “are there any doctors or nurses here”.

 

There was no way to get a grip on the insane situation. Rosa could see people with REAL injuries ones that needed attention. She grabbed her bag, it was a full med-kit, just not enough for a train load. She could smell blood, someone had been sick, along with an odour what could only be fear.

 

Snapping out of her reverie she moved towards the mess of people who looked as if a dumper truck had just unloaded them. She started at the edge of the pile of bodies, making sure she had access to the whole person. Gently she opened her bag, & pushed out the cardboard cover on a new box of latex gloves, she would need all of these, and started to talk to the person with a very bad cut on their head. Oh for the portable CT screener she had been trying to get the hospital to help fund the project for a situation just like this. “Hello, I’m Dr Sonderer, or Rosa if you prefer”, how are you feeling?” the longest hours were about to start, she knew it would take hours to get a rescue team out here, then even longer to open the train up to start moving people out, she examined the head wound, cleaned it, put 4 shortened steristrips over it & a small dressing pad. She also put a yellow sticker on the dressing, so when help did arrive, she had already started to triage. Surely there must be more doctors & nurses on this train? She moved the head wound lady to one side of the train & moved onto the man with a very broken leg.