Chapter 21
The rescuers had to secure the scene before they could even enter. Firefighters worked hard to shore up unstable areas of the building, before they allowed any of the paramedics to come in. Finally, one firefighter made his way to my side, coming in from the blown-away hall door. He carefully edged his way down the wall, across the piles of debris, and knelt down next to me.
“Are you Portia?” he asked gently.
I nodded.
“Portia, my name’s David. I’m a firefighter paramedic. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer me with a yes or a no. I don’t want you to move your head or body at all. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I wheezed, and he slipped a small monitor on the end of one of my fingers.
“I’m going to place an oxygen mask over your nose and mouth to help you breathe better now,” he said after looking at the monitor and then gently placed a soft plastic mask with a bag hanging off the end on my face.
“This bag down here’s an oxygen reservoir. It’s there to help you breathe better,” he explained.
I inhaled deeply several times, letting the cool air rush into my lungs.
“How old are you, Portia?” David asked while he pulled more equipment out of the large canvas bag he’d brought with him.
“Sixteen,” I replied through the plastic mask.
“Do you know what day it is today?”
“Monday.”
“Good,” David said. “Do you know where you are?”
“At the high school,” I responded.
“Very good. Portia, can you tell me where you hurt?”
Everywhere, I thought. “My back,” I said aloud. “I was slammed against the wall.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I only know we were getting ready to mix our chemicals together in the burner when there was a horrible explosion from the front of the room. I was looking down, though, and I didn’t see anything.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to examine you real quick now. You’ll feel my hands pressing on your body. You need to tell me if you hurt anywhere I touch, all right?”
“Okay.” My teeth chattered uncontrollably.
David began to run his fingers over me. When he reached the middle of my back, white hot pain shot through my spine, and I sucked in an excruciating breath and cried out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?”
“It’s all right. I’ll be fine.” I gritted my teeth, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes at the agonizing throbbing that still radiated from where he’d touched.
David’s face was full of concern. He watched me for a moment before speaking again. “I’m going to continue now.” His hands resumed their palpating down the rest of my backside.
“Portia, can you push your feet against my hands?”
I did as he’d asked.
“Great,” he said. “Now I’m going to check your arms.”
“Ouch!” I said as soon as he started.
“You have a lot of tiny shards of glass embedded in the underside of your arms and hands. I’m not going to check them anymore, but since you can’t squeeze my hands, can I get you to wiggle your fingers for me?”
I slowly wiggled my fingers.
“Good.” He lifted his head to look over the top of me. “Over here!” he called to someone I couldn’t see.
“My friend Maggie was right next to me,” I said, still worried about her.
“Maggie?” David asked. “What’s her last name?”
“Pratt,” I said. “Do you see her?”
“I haven’t seen her, but don’t worry. There are a lot of people here to help. We’ll find her.”
I could still feel the tears trickling down my face, leaving cold watery trails as they traveled along. I started to shiver even harder, I couldn’t control it.
“Portia, my partner is here now. His name is Kevin. He’s brought a backboard, which we’re going to put you on to help protect your spine and any other injuries you might have. It’ll probably be very uncomfortable for you, but it’s necessary.”
“All right,” I said, and a new face floated into my view.
“Hey, Portia, I’m Kevin. I want to give you a few instructions. When we move you, we need you to let us do all the work. Don’t try to move anything yourself. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m going to place this board next to you, and David and I will turn you on your side against it. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
I felt one of them lift my arm and lay it gently by my head.
“Keep your arm right here,” Kevin instructed. “Okay, Portia. We’re going to turn you on the count of three now. One, two, three.”
In unison, they rolled me onto my side.
I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming but was unable to suppress the sound.
“You’re doing great!” David said with a reassuring smile. “We’re going to do the same thing one more time, only this time we’ll lay you back onto the board. Ready? One, two, three.”
It was then I realized a third person had been there holding the backboard while Kevin held my head and David rolled me.
“Hello, Portia, I’m Pam,” the female firefighter said to me. “Kevin’s going to continue holding your head while we get you strapped in now.” She produced several belts and a roll of duct tape, as well as some sort of cardboard thing she snapped together. She held something to my neck. “This is a C-collar. It’s to protect your cervical spine. I’m going to wrap it around your neck now.”
While she was placing it on me, David was crisscrossing several buckling belts over my body and securing them to the backboard. After they finished, they slid the cardboard thing around my head.
“We’re going to tape your head down with this to keep it from moving. It’s just a precautionary measure to protect your spine as well,” he explained.
I soon felt like a mummy, wrapped up in a papoose’s cradleboard.
“We’re ready to move her!” Kevin called to someone in the hall.
I felt myself being lifted into the air and carefully carried across the great piles of debris. They moved me out the classroom door and into the hallway. Someone came and put a blanket over my freezing body after I was placed on a gurney. I was strapped down again, and then wheeled down the hallway.
Several of the light fixtures were busted and hanging from the ceiling, some still swinging precariously. Foam tiles were missing too, leaving gaping holes into the dark space above, and small bits of dust and debris fell from them, causing me to blink rapidly to avoid getting something in my eyes. When the doors opened to the outside, I had to shut them completely against the light of the bright, cloudy sky, giving myself a few moments to adjust to the change before slowly opening them again.
An ambulance waited near the curb, and they turned the gurney to slide into the back, allowing me to catch my first and only glimpse of the school. A giant gaping hole with rubble spilling out of it was all that was left of my classroom, and policemen swarmed the grounds with dogs.
It all faded away as my gaze was riveted on three long black bags lying on a section of the snow-covered grass. Body bags, I realized. People were dead, people who were my classmates—friends. Tears came unbidden, and I suddenly wished I’d kept my eyes closed, knowing the awful image would stick with me forever.
“Hey, Portia, you’re doing great,” David said, reassuring me again as he climbed in to sit on the seat next to me, while Kevin slammed the doors shut behind him.
I didn’t answer.
“I’m going to start an IV now. This is in case I need to give you medication or if you need surgery or something. Kevin’s going to drive us to the hospital, and you’ll hear the sirens. There are a lot of bystanders and heavy traffic on the road, so we need them to get through everyone.”
“Okay,” I said, hearing the loud wailing sound of the vehicle as we
began to move.
David started the IV in the back of my hand, since the other side of my arm was covered in glass.
“All done!” he said, when he had the IV securely taped. “Hey, Kevin? Can you patch to the hospital while I take her vitals?”
“Sure thing,” Kevin called back from the front of the ambulance.
A minute later he called back to David.
“Verde Valley has requested we defer to Flagstaff Medical Center under the circumstances. They said they have a chopper on standby at their facility if we need it.”
“Yeah, let’s do that. I don’t want to bounce her all the way to Flag in this weather if we don’t have to.”
“My mom’s a pediatric nurse at Verde Valley,” I said then.
“Really? What’s her name?” David asked.
“Stacey Mullins. She’s working today.”
“Kevin!” David called to the front. “You’d better get Verde back on the horn. This is Stacey Mullins’s kid.”
My mom was standing at the emergency room door when the ambulance backed into the bay, and a flight crew was standing there with her.
“Portia?” my mom called, and I could hear the worry straining her voice.
“Mom!” At the sound of her voice, emotion flooded me, and I started crying again.
She started to reach for my hand, but David stopped her.
“She has glass embedded in her hands and arms, Stacey,” he warned, and she pulled her hand back to her chest.
“How is she?” she asked him, though her eyes never left my face.
“Let’s talk while we walk,” David said, motioning to the flight nurse that he was ready to give his report.
The flight nurse began writing everything David said on his clipboard. Even though I could hardly understand any of the medical jargon, my mom seemed to be getting the gist of it all.
“We have a sixteen year-old female, Portia Mullins, who’s the victim of a possible chemical explosion at Sedona High School. Portia was thrown across the room, unknown distance, and slammed into a brick wall. The ceiling of the classroom collapsed on top of the occupants. We found her against the wall, lying on her stomach on a pile of debris and complaining of severe back pain in the lumbar spine. Deformity is noted in the same area.”
I heard my mom gasp.
“Patient is able to move all extremities at this time with good pulses and capillary refill. Full C-spine precautions and one hundred percent O2 by non-rebreather were initiated on scene. An eighteen gauge IV was started in her left hand enroute to this facility via ambulance. Pupils have been equal and reactive to light, and patient is alert and oriented. Initial O2 sats were at ninety percent on room air, and patient is now saturating at ninety-eight percent on one hundred percent oxygen. Pulse is up a little at one hundred and ten. I was unable to get a blood pressure due to the shards of glass in her extremities.”
“Very good,” the flight nurse responded, glancing over at me. “We’ll take her from here.”
David and Kevin helped move me from the gurney into the helicopter.
“Good luck, Portia,” David said, resting his hand gently on me. “We have to go back to the scene now, but we’ll check on you later, when we get the chance.”
“Thanks,” I said, watching them walk away while the flight crew tightened all my restraints.
“Hi, Portia. My name is Scott,” a male voice said. “I’ll be your flight nurse from here to Flagstaff, along with my partner today, Mary Ann. She’s a paramedic. Your mom is coming with us. She’s going to sit up front with the pilot. His name is Stan.”
“I’m right here, honey. Daddy’s on his way to Flagstaff to meet us,” my mom called to me.
I couldn’t see her, but it was comforting to know she was still here with me.
“Portia, we’re getting ready to start the chopper. It’ll be very loud, so we’ll be placing a headset down through your cardboard brace to cover your ears. There’ll be a microphone too, so you can talk to us if you need to. We’ll be wearing the headsets also.”
“All right,” I said.
Scott soon had my headgear set, and I could see the helicopter’s blades begin to whirl in the air outside my window, quickly picking up the pace until they were nothing more than a blur.
“Here we go,” Scott’s voice cut in through the headset.
We lifted off the ground easily, and I could hardly tell we were moving through the air. It was kind of like being in a giant bubble.
“I’ll be checking your vitals again while we’re in the air,” Scott said, his voice clicking on and off through the headset. “The flight to FMC is very short. It’ll take about ten or fifteen minutes. Are you doing okay?”
“Yes.” I closed my eyes, thinking I wasn’t okay at all. I was terrified for Vance.
True to Scott’s word, we soon began our descent onto the helipad, down to the heavily snowed roof of the hospital.
“We’re here now,” Scott explained. “We’ll wait a minute for the chopper to shut down, and then we’ll get out. After that, we’ll put you on another gurney and take you by elevator to the ground floor emergency room.”
“You’re doing great, baby!” My mom’s voice came through the headset, trying to reassure me.
I was soon unloaded from the helicopter. Mom walked by my side as I was wheeled into an elevator, where a trauma nurse and an ER doctor met us. Scott gave them his report, and I was wheeled into one of the trauma rooms and switched to another bed.
“The doctor will be right in,” the trauma nurse said to my mom while hooking me up to a bunch of monitors.
“Thank you,” she replied, coming to stand next to the bed and finally, for a few moments, we were alone.
“Momma,” I cried in a whisper. “Something happened to Vance.”
“Was he with you?” she asked, looking concerned.
“No. He was running to help me, and then . . . I don’t know. He just disappeared.”
“What do you mean he disappeared?”
“Everything’s gone. I can’t reach him. Mentally there’s nothing, and the farther we flew from Sedona, the worse my pain got.”
The doctor came into the room at that moment.
“I’ll let your dad know immediately,” Mom reassured me.
I spent the next hour answering the same questions repeatedly until I was finally wheeled in to get a CAT scan. They slid the backboard into the giant machine, and I could hear it whirring loudly as it took the pictures. Thirty minutes later, I was wheeled back into the trauma room where my mom, dad, and grandma were waiting for me.
“Hey, Pumpkin. How are you hanging in there?” my dad asked, bending to give me a kiss on the forehead.
“Not so great, Dad. Has anyone heard from Vance?”
I noticed him exchanging a worried look with Grandma.
“Concentrate on you right now, honey,” he said, evading the question.
“Dad, Ninety percent of the physical pain I’m in right now is because Vance isn’t with me. If you know something, please tell me. I don’t know how much longer I can survive this.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, working his jaw a bit before he spoke.
“It’s bad, Pumpkin. Really bad,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“Please tell me.” All sorts of horrible thoughts began running through my head.
“Babs went to tell Marsha about the explosion at the school,” he began. “When she got to Marsha’s house she found her there. She’s dead, honey. Someone killed her. All of her belongings were strewn everywhere, and Vance’s things are missing. The police are still there.”
I gasped at the news. “They don’t think Vance is responsible, do they?” I replied in shock, my heart breaking into a million pieces as I realized he’d lost another family member.
“No. He was at the school, so he has a good alibi. Sweetheart, Vance is missing, though. No one has heard from him, and no one can find him since the exp
losion. I’m beginning to think the whole thing at the school may have been orchestrated as a cover to kidnap him.”
He was right, and I knew it. I felt as if everything inside me had died, and I began sobbing hysterically, unable to keep the terror at bay any longer.
The nurse ran into the room. “What’s wrong?” She looked at me with concern.
“She’s in a terrible amount of pain,” Grandma said, covering for me, but it was the truth.
“Her scans are back now.” The nurse looked at me compassionately. “I’ll get the doc in here and see if we can’t give her something for the pain.”
I tried to control my tears when the doctor came in a few minutes later and started explaining my current condition to my family.
“The scans look good around her head,” he said. “However, she does appear to have a serious fracture in one of the lumbar vertebrae in her spine. There’s a significant amount of swelling around the fracture, so we’ll wait for it to go down, and then probably operate.”
“What’ll the operation do specifically?” my mom asked.
“We need to stabilize the vertebrae so it won’t slip and damage the spinal cord. We’ll watch her for the next twenty-four hours and re-evaluate things from there.”
“Okay,” Dad said.
“I’ve already sent her papers to admitting,” the doctor added. “The nurse will be in shortly to give her something for pain.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” my dad replied, reaching to shake his hand.
“Dad, I can’t stay here,” I complained, the moment the doctor couldn’t hear us anymore. “I have to find Vance.”
“Let us worry about that,” my dad replied. “You have to get better first.”
“Dad, he’s a healer. If we find him, he can fix me. Please! You have to take me with you!” I was starting to feel more than a little desperate.
The nurse entered the room now. “Here’s some pain meds for you, sweetie.” She administered it straight into one of the IV ports. “If you start feeling nauseated, let me know.”
It was amazing how fast the medicine moved through my system. I could taste it in my mouth before she was even done pushing it all in. I felt a wave of dizziness and a heavy sensation passed through my neck.
“Daddy, don’t leave me,” I pleaded once more as I fought the medication. “I have to find him!”
“Honey, the police are doing everything they can.” I knew he didn’t really mean the police, but the nurse was still in the room.
I could feel the medication begin to ease all my pain, and I turned to my Grandma.
“Gram. Please,” I slurred in desperation, but the room started spinning, and suddenly I was so very tired.
I closed my eyes and drifted into blissful unconsciousness.