Chapter 11

Teddy kept a wary eye out for traffic. Plus, since he needed to make sure the deputy didn't go into arrest, he had to stop to check on him every minute. Finally, he spotted the first ambulance on the scene, weaving between parked cars one hundred yards away. Deputy Web had made it! He glanced happily down at Web, and didn't see the rise and fall of his chest. Cursing, he checked for a pulse and couldn't find it. He pushed the stretcher to the ground and began CPR.

The ambulance arrived two minutes later, with Teddy still trying desperately to resuscitate Deputy Web. Two paramedics jumped out of the ambulance and injected a shot of adrenalin, and began to administer an IV, first of saline, to help get his blood pressure back up, and then of plasma, to help oxygenate his blood. Deputy Web coughed into Teddy's mouth on one of the breaths and Teddy felt a jolt of joy that he was breathing on his own.

Stepping back, Teddy watched the paramedics work to stabilize Deputy Web, for transport. Satisfied Web was in good hands, Teddy headed back into the wreckage to find more victims.

He nearly missed it. If he hadn't been walking along the shoulder of the highway, he would never have seen the car hanging in the tree, even with its lights still on. Now, what to do about it?

The car dangled precariously, hanging upside down on two branches, fifteen feet off the ground. Now he wished he had Ray here, with his wings. Somehow, he had to get up there. He certainly wasn't built for climbing trees. Then he remembered the disks he had. They would work on him as well, just as they had on his arms when he was doing the exercise.

Maybe he couldn't imagine himself flying, but he could imagine climbing up a tree, if he lowered his weight to something manageable. Realizing that the smaller disks wouldn't be big enough for him, he used one of the larger 'six-foot radius of effect' ones.

Turning the dial until he weighed only about 5% of his normal 360 pounds, Teddy was able to clamber up the tree, as easily as a monkey. Peering inside the suspended car, he saw an elderly couple, hanging upside down by their seatbelts.

They were battered and bruised, since the airbag had deployed, but were breathing and not bleeding excessively. The old man had a cut on his scalp that was still bleeding, but scalp wounds always bled all out of proportion to their severity. Still, if he had a head wound, he might also have suffered head trauma, so he was elected to become the first one rescued.

Teddy gingerly tried to open the door. The twisted frame of the vehicle resisted, and he was afraid for a moment that he'd have to leave them and go for the Jaws of Life. He wanted to make sure he couldn't force the door open first, so he braced himself with one hand, and gave a good hard pull with the other. With a terrible screech, the door twisted open on its mangled hinges.

Teddy put one of the smaller disks on the old man and released him from his seat belt. Holding the man by his belt, he simply released his hold on the tree branch, and began to slowly accelerate towards the ground. He used his free hand to brake their speed by grabbing at the rough bark of the tree trunk. Procedure said he should take the man he'd rescued back up to the road for immediate transport to the hospital. But the book had been written for normal situations, where the number of rescuers outnumbered the rescued four or five to one. Teddy couldn't do it. So he set the old man down, away from the tree, and went back up for his wife.

Minutes later, Teddy pulled both unconscious victims back up to the highway, and saw that this situation, at least on I-590 seemed well under control. Over a dozen ambulances were on the scene, and six EMTs swept in to take the old couple off his hands. He started up the row of wreckage once more, looking for any other unattended victims. This time, due to the reinforcements, he made it all the way passed the top of the exit ramp to northbound I-490, when a tall man came running his way, up the ramp.

The man cried out, waving him over, "Hey! Over here! My name's Sam, and boy, am I glad to see you! There's a couple down the ramp, I think they're hurt bad!"

Hustling down the ramp with Sam, Teddy panted, "What have you done so far?"

Sam replied, in time with his jogging step, "The man's leg was crushed, he was bleeding bad. So I put a tourniquet on it. But I'm more worried about the woman. She's unconscious, and has no visible injuries."

Together, they ran past Sam's big red Dodge truck, slowed to walk the last few feet, and Teddy began to evaluate what he saw in the crushed Charger. Primary impact in the rear, probably off-center sending them spinning into another secondary, softer impact in the driver's side door. The rear impact must have been at highway speed, and the secondary, still enough to crush the whole left side of the car in two feet, at about 35 mph, he judged.

All business, despite his exhaustion, Teddy set down his kit, and asked Sam, "How long has the tourniquet been on? And how long since you last loosened it?" Most amateurs forgot to loosen the tourniquet every 10 minutes, otherwise, it was almost sure to cause the loss of the limb.

But Sam had been in both the Air Force and Boy Scouts, so his training held. He replied, "I put on the tourniquet at 1:06, and loosened it three times now."