They had to go now.
“Keeley, come to me,” he pleaded, pushing against the bedpost again to see if it would move. Nope. The piece was solid, low to the floor, and heavy as hell.
He and Roger could stand, use their weight against the frame to see if they could shift it, and pray Keeley got out of the way if they did manage to move the massive piece of furniture.
She was crying, but she scooted forward a little, then back to where she’d been against the exterior wall.
Precious seconds were ticking by. Despite his protective gear, Jude could feel the worsening heat.
Instincts kicking in that said bad was about to get a whole lot worse if he didn’t get her and get her now.
“I know it’s scary, Keeley, but you’re going to have to crawl to me so I can pull you to safety.”
That was when she moved.
Finally.
“Just a little closer, Keeley.” He reached as far as he could beneath the bed. “Just a little closer.”
Then her hand touched his glove.
“That’s it, Keeley. Just a little more.”
His hand closed around her wrist and he pulled her to him.
“I’ve got her.”
He wrapped his arms around her, just as a window burst out on the exterior wall.
Thank God. An exit.
No doubt the aerial truck platform was just outside the window and some of his guys were waiting to pull Roger, Keeley, and him through to safety.
Thank God.
“Don’t leave me,” the girl repeated, clinging tightly to him and then going limp in his arms.
“Never,” he promised again, praying he’d not been too late.
* * *
Just as it had every day since the brown-out a couple of weeks before, the emergency room was hopping and had been all day. Sarah had run from one patient to the next with very little down time. Everything from having slipped due to ice to a gunshot wound had come through the doors.
Currently, she was examining a fifty-seven-year-old white male with chest pain and a history of triple bypass three years previously. The man admitted to smoking a pack a day for the past thirty years, drinking a pint a day, wasn’t bothering to take his prescribed blood pressure and cholesterol medications, and was a good hundred pounds overweight. He had been a heart attack waiting to happen.
“Has your chest pain eased up, Mr. Brown?” she asked the clammy-looking man as she scanned back over the notes the nurse had made upon his arrival. He should have come by ambulance, but he’d walked into the emergency room.
“It has some,” he said, squinting at her as if the light bothered his eyes. “But it’s been hurting off and on for two days. This evening it got a lot worse and I couldn’t catch my breath. This may just be another off spell.”
His cardiac enzymes were running stat in the lab and his telemetry was showing a slight T-wave abnormality. She’d started him on a nitroglycerin drip and had called to have the cardiac cath lab readied.
“Has the shortness of breath gotten better since you started on the IV meds and oxygen?”
Although he still looked sweaty and pale, he nodded. “I am breathing easier.”
If that labored mess was easier, she’d been right to call Cardiology. If the guy wasn’t having a myocardial infarction, he was on the verge of a major cardiac event. She was sure of it.
“Hey, Sarah, we have incoming. House fire. Multiple victims. Most minor. One serious.”