Puddle

It's raining. I guess that's normal. What's not normal is that I am underneath a 4X4 looking after a young lady who was hit by aforementioned 4x4, and is currently lying on her left side, completely under the car. She's fully conscious, and tells me what happened. She was walking across the road, when she saw a car slide towards her. She ran, slipped in a puddle, then watched in horror as the car came inexorably towards her, then over her. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.

The end didn't come, and now she lies there, while the fire crew use hydraulic lifting gear to raise the 4x4 off of her, and while I lie next to her, in a puddle of rainwater, putting a cannula into her vein to give her enough pain-killing medication to allow the ambulance crew and I to move her on to a board and drag her out. My discomfort, that of the water seeping inexorably through my flight suit and my trousers, is nothing compared to her pain from her fractured pelvis.

Eventually she is out, and we get her to the hospital to be checked out. I make a mental note to myself to get my suit cleaned, and waterproofed at the same time.