“You don’t have to overdo it!” I said holding on to the side of my seat.
“WHAT?” Harun glimpsed at me, while the fingers of his right hand twitched in rhythm with David Guetta’s ‘When love takes over’.
“The speed…” I replied while the side of my seat no longer felt secure enough and my hands moved on to the seemingly more reasonable structure of the car’s handhold.
“Oh, come on Janet.” Harun clicked his tongue and the engine screeched as he continued accelerating. I tore my eyes away from the street in front of me and looked at him. He was smiling. That was so typical of him. He knew I didn’t much enjoy the sensation of being pressed into the seat of a speeding ambulance but … he did. Not so much the speed but my reaction.
I didn’t reply. We had to turn right at the next traffic light in order to pick up some ice cubes at the Maritim Hotel, so there was no need to further talk about the speed. Acknowledging my fear now, would keep him going, fuel the fun for him and thus make him attempt to go even further.
The smile slowly faded from his face as the street in front of us reclaimed his attention. The ambulance that had been assigned to us, a Mercedes Sprinter called 16-86-02, slowed down as we approached the green traffic light. Three more turns and we had reached the Maritim Hotel where Harun parked in the second lane and turned off the engine. We grabbed the ice box and entered the hotel. The receptionist glanced at us, a confused look upon his face which turned into recognition as we waved at him and then disappeared in the restaurant. The early guests in the restaurant didn’t pay much attention, as we walked by and entered the kitchen to fill our ice box.
—
“I am hungry, let’s search for this VIP lounge and eat.” Harun looked at us eagerly. He sat on a revolving chair while his feet rested on one of the patient chairs. Ronny looked at me. “I am not hungry yet, you?” I shook my head. “Nah! Not really.” I responded and entered the small bathroom of the emergency room to wash my hands. “Oh, come on now…” I heard Harun’s disappointed voice as I splashed some water into my face.
I felt hot and my face was still a little red from carrying our last patient to the emergency room. “Lydia for Andre…!” my radio blared. Then Harun’s voice. “What is it Janet?”
“Not for us.” I answered and splashed some more water into my face.
Since our arrival at the Telekom Dome we had been busy nonstop. One twisted ankle here, one slight abrasion there and ice, most of time demands for ice. I looked up at the mirror, recalling the last two hours while the water dripped from my chin. One person with a broken elbow, then the second with a contusion on the upper left leg. Both of them had fallen off their bikes while participating at the Telekom sports event.
One hour ago, while I had been walking upstairs in order to deliver an ice pack to a participant who had been unfortunate enough to be hit by a ricocheting ball from a football table, my radio started blaring. “We need some medics at the bicycle parcours, fast.” it demanded. Ice and radio in one hand, I pulled out my phone with the other hand and looked around.
The football tables were in front of me, while to the left the building opened up and I saw a group of people kneeling around something. I looked back over to the football tables and dialed Harun’s number, while walking through the people. No Connection. I dialed Ronny’s number while looking for any bleeding lip amongst the players. No one.
Also, no connection to Ronny.
I glanced over at the people outside the building again and was met with questioning eyes. “Excuse me.” I focused on a young woman in a red organizer shirt, standing amongst the players. “Y–Yes?” She seemed confused. “Look, can you please give this to someone at table 4? There is someone who was hit in the face by a ball.” I basically had to push the ice pack into her hands since she still seemed hardly convinced that I was actually talking to her. I gave her one last reassuring look then turned around to rush outside to the bicycle course, when another youth with a red shirt, walked by.
“Excuse me, could you please go downstairs to the medics and get them to come over to the bike parcours.” His face looked puzzled. “It’s downstairs next to the administration office.”
“Ah, ja…okay.” When he turned around I walked on and was met by about 24 pairs of eyes, solemnly awaiting for me to perform magic it seemed.
I went around the onlookers and kneeled down next to a woman, whose legs were still tangled with the frame of her bike. Somebody had covered her left leg with a towel. “What happened exactly…?” I asked as I looked at her. Apart from some smudgy mascara and a slight paleness her face seemed composed.
“I don’t know, I lost control of the bike and fell onto it…here.” she pointed at the outside of her left upper leg and my finger found an obvious inward dent. “Does it hurt when I touch you here…?” As my hands moved towards her knee her answers were, “Yessssss, no, no. Only up here.”
“Okay.” I said and had a closer look at the towel.
I was tempted to have a look under the towel, expecting some gruesome sight when somebody said that they had placed the towel on her leg to stabilize her leg… erm, stabilize her leg with a loose towel?
To be on the safe side I moved the towel in a way that she wouldn’t be able to see whatever was underneath. ‘Whoever had the idea with the towel’, I thought as I discovered that the leg underneath was unscathed.
“Can you move your leg?” I asked her while I checked the knee for any swelling. She moved her leg carefully, upwards, downwards, sideways. “Okay, now the ankle.” I encouraged her and removed the shoe from her left foot. She carefully moved her foot and nodded. While her face was tense, there was still no sign of pain visible.
“Okay then”, I said and stoop up. “I need some of you strong men to lift her up and get her away from the bike.” Within seconds four men had bent down and carefully lifted her up, while another person pulled out the bike from underneath her.
I had pulled out my phone again and started another attempt to call Ronny. This time I got him. I was relieved when I heard him pick up the phone. “Janet here, I need to at the bike parcours with bag and all.”
“Almost there.” he answered and the line was cut. As I knelt down again, I saw something white appear from the building. Harun and Ronny, carrying Ronny’s big emergency backpack full of goodies.
While Ronny put down the backpack, ready to assist in case we needed material from the bag, Harun knelt down beside me and after I explained the situation he checked her injured leg again.
Harun decided to bring her down to the emergency room and so Harun and myself helped her up and basically supported her for half the way until she needed a break. We helped her to sit down on a seat in the basketball hall and while I knelt down in front of her to take her data, Harun and Ronny hurried to fetch the stretcher.
“Okay then, I need a few information about you, could you give me your name?” I started filling in our divi report.
—
“Oh come on, I am really hungry and I don’t want to go alone. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Harun’s voice yanked me from my thoughts. I checked my reflection in the mirror one more time and turned around.
“Okay, then, let’s give him something to eat Ronny.” I said and smiled at Harun while closing the bathroom door. “Come one cry baby, let’s go and eat.”
THE END (for now) 😉
All is well.
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