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March arrived and the weather warmed up. Spring was officially around the corner, but it was already in the air. I’d pulled out my shorts and it was the perfect Saturday to walk along the beach. Pearce had the weekend off, so we called Terri and Justin to see if they wanted to head out to the beach for the day.
We watched a group of guys kitesurfing, as the wind was strong that day. It was awesome to see how much speed they could pick up and then watch them as they flipped and turned.
We left the beach late in the afternoon and drove up to Awendaw to grab some fried seafood at a local restaurant. It was dark as we followed Terri and Justin home in Justin’s Range Rover. We’d taken separate cars because Justin was on call and needed a vehicle in case he got called in to the hospital.
As we were driving, I saw a deer jump out of the woods in front of Justin’s car. He swerved to miss it but there was an eighteen-wheeler in the lane next to him. I screamed as his car hit the truck and careened back into his lane, then spun out of control and rolled off the highway down an embankment, coming to a crash against a huge pine tree. It was deja vu all over again.
I couldn’t stop screaming, “Terri, Justin!”
Pearce slammed on his brakes and had to swerve to miss getting hit himself. We finally spun out but were unharmed.
“Alexia! Are you okay? Lexi, answer me now!”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I cried. “Are you?”
“I’m fine. I have to get to them. Call 911 stat. Tell them exactly what happened. Use my phone and tell them to track us by GPS. Tell them who I am. Follow me now because I’m going to need your help.”
We bolted out of the car, and he grabbed one of those proverbial medical bags that all doctors must have secreted away somewhere. I called 911 as we ran to the Range Rover.
“Fuck! It’s too dark. I can’t see anything. Lex, can you turn on the flashlight on my phone?”
I did as he asked and, in the meantime, the 911 operator was on the line.
“I need your location,” the operator said.
“I don’t know it. We’re somewhere between Awendaw and Mount Pleasant. Use the GPS tracking on my phone.”
“Hey, Lex, can you shine the light over here?” He pointed to a dark area down the embankment. I did as he asked, and Pearce was able to get to the door handle, but it was locked.
He slammed his hands on the roof. “It’s locked from the inside. Lex, go back to my trunk and get the jack or tire iron and bring the beach towels.”
I grabbed as many things as my arms could carry. When I returned, he wrapped the jack in the towel, broke through the window, reached in, and unlocked the door. He called to both Justin and Terri but got no response. When the door opened, the light came on and there was blood everywhere. It was bad and I almost went down.
“Lex, hand me that kit.”
I passed him everything and watched him go to work. He did a quick assessment of Justin and moved to Terri. He called out to me that Terri wasn’t breathing, and he needed assistance in performing something. He put a small slit in her neck, inserted a tube, and air started moving in. Then he checked both of them for bleeding. Justin had blood pumping out of his abdomen and Pearce stuck his hand straight into his belly and tried to get it to stop.
“Lexi, I need you to move in closer. I can’t see a fucking thing and I need that light on Justin or he’s gonna bleed out.”
He looked up at me and the look in his eyes made me want to crumble.
Dear God, please help this man save his brother.
I moved right next to him, and even though I thought I was going to pass out, and still wonder how I didn’t, I held that light exactly where he needed it.
“I’m right here with you, Pearce. You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
I shined that light on Justin and Pearce slid his fingers inside of him and seconds later the blood stopped pumping out. “I got it,” he called. “Now, babe, I can’t move. I’m locked here until the paramedics arrive. You gotta check Terri’s breathing. I’ll help you with whatever needs to be done, okay?”
“On it, Doc.”
I moved to the other side of the Range Rover on autopilot and looked at the tube and reported back to Pearce that the air was still flowing.
“Lex, lift up her eyelids and shine the light into them. Tell me what happens to her pupils.”
“They got smaller.”
“Both of them?”
