Page 25 of The Session

“If there is, there is. That’s awesome. But don’t stress it. Just make a good impression, which is going to be hard without me watching after you. But you’ll do your best,” Mark said with a smile.

“Thanks,” Devon replied as he hopped out of the ambulance’s passenger seat. “You good to take this back to the yard?”

“I might do some burnouts in the Walmart parking lot and set it on fire, then take it off-roading. We’ll see. All depends on how the rest of the morning goes.”

“That would be hilarious,” Devon replied. “Because the funny thing is, I don’t even know if this thing is insured right now.”

He closed the door and waved to Mark as he headed into the house. A small pair of eyes was visible, peeking through the blinds, excited to see Daddy finally home.

Mark drove the ambulance through Devon’s neighborhood and saw kids lining up at the bus stop. A few of them waved at him; others stared with curiosity, probably wondering if there was somebody sick in the back—or worse, dead.

An elderly man out for a stroll with his walker watched Mark with a blank expression as he crossed the street in front of the ambulance. For some people, the sight of the vehicle brought up traumatic memories. For others, it was a minor nuisance during their daily commute.

Mark was halfway to the ambulance station when the dispatcher’s voice crackled through the radio:

Medic 12, respond priority one for a motor vehicle collision with an unconscious driver.

Location: Main Street and Oak Avenue, at the four-way stop by the post office.

Adult patient, approximately fifties.

Caller reports two-vehicle collision in the intersection. One driver unresponsive, breathing at this time.

Possible head injury reported. Airbags deployed.

Local PD on scene and requesting EMS. Intersection partially blocked.

Time out 07:14

Mark’s ambulance was officially off duty, but neither Devon nor he had called in to say they were because sometimes calls came in before they made it back to the station.

Mark picked up the microphone. “Dispatch, Medic 12 copies. Responding priority one to Main and Oak. ETA four minutes.”

Mark flipped on the lights and siren and headed toward the small shopping plaza where he’d had dinner with Holly and her parents.

One hundred and forty seconds later, as he pulled into a scene that looked quite different from the one the dispatcher had described, a bullet cracked his windshield.

First Responder

Chaos.

Mark had responded to hundreds of ambulance calls. Usually, they presented pretty close to what the dispatcher described. But in some cases, what he found at the scene was completely different from what had been explained over the radio: drownings that turned out to be electrocutions, bullet wounds that were industrial accidents, acid burns described as fire-related injuries. He’d also arrived in situations where police responders didn’t have the situation under control.

The textbook course of action was to wait until law enforcement authorities had defused the situation. This didn’t mean he couldn’t treat an injured passenger while a belligerent motorist screamed, yelled, and had to be restrained by police. But it did mean he had to use due caution, not put himself in danger, and not aggravate the situation.

He was one intersection away from where he had sat two nights before, postdinner, staring at the blinking yellow light. Instead of that serene scene, a black SUV was hard against a bent traffic-light pole, its radiator spewing steam. A figure holding a gun hid behind the automobile’s door, firing toward a police officer crouched behind a cruiser to Mark’s right.

Another police cruiser was parked at the opposite end of the street with two officers crouched down, their weapons aimed behind a building where Mark couldn’t see.

When the round from the suspect in the SUV struck Mark’s windshield, he immediately stopped and ducked to avoid getting hit. He was almost aligned with the squad car and assumed the suspect was shooting at the police, not him.

Mark considered putting the ambulance into reverse, but that would mean exposing himself through the windshield as he tried to see.

He waited what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, and heard more gunshots. By his reckoning, they were coming from different locations and sounded like a full-out exchange.

Mark decided the smartest course of action would be to move to the back of the vehicle and make a run for it out the rear door rather than expose himself through the shattered windshield. He waited for a lull in the gunshots, then popped his head up for a moment—and his plan changed.

One of the police officers, a woman, was crouched behind a concrete pillar on the left side of the street. She started to expose herself to take a shot at the gunman, but a bullet struck her in the side, and she collapsed to the ground.