Post Grid: An Arizona EMP Adventure (3 page)

Thud, her chest and shoulder hit the rail. Momentarily stunned, she held onto the rope and waited for the swinging and pain to subside. At last her body was still, her nose nestled against the soft, white sheet. From this position it was difficult to maneuver, but after a minute or so she succeeded in getting her legs and torso into a ninety-degree angle. The descent was slow going. At any minute, she feared she could lose her footing again. If that happened, she would be torn to bits by jagged glass.

Ryan peered down from above and called, “Slow, girl, take it nice and steady.” Kelly did not look up or down; she concentrated on her feet and kept walking. She controlled her rappelling sling by extending and retracting her right hand. This tightened and loosened the harness and allowed her to wriggle down the rope. The knots were stiff and occasionally caused pain when they scraped along her body.

Suddenly Kelly's right hand lost hold of the rope; she had come to the rope's end and it had slipped through her grasp. A searing scream escaped her lips as she fell. The end of the last sheet struck her in the face as it passed by.

A tremendous jolt went up through her legs and into her hips when she hit the ground, but she remained standing. She looked up. The fall had been about five feet.

“You alright down there?” came Ryan's voice.

“I think so. You next.”

“Oh, no... I'm fifty pounds heavier than you and have never even touched a rope. I'll meet you at the stairs.”

“You can't!” Kelly called up, but Ryan's face had already disappeared from the window.

Kelly took off in a dead run for the cafeteria doors. They were unlocked; her first stroke of luck all day. It was only a minute or two more to the emergency department, then the stairwell. From the cafeteria doorway she could still see a few people rushing out of the building. The screaming and confusion had stopped; all that was left was the sound of coughing and shuffling footsteps. What was it, twenty, thirty, forty minutes after the crash? Kelly had lost all sense of time.

“Come on! You alright?” One man put out his hands to help her into the hallway, but upon seeing the blood caked on her arm, just held the door for her.

Kelly seized the man by both shoulders. “Help us, the stairwell is blocked. The whole south wing is trapped!” He looked at her quizzically, trying to comprehend what she was saying.

A male nurse came toward them, pushing a gurney. Kelly grabbed the bed by the end, impeding its progress, and looked the nurse pushing it right in the eyes. “The south wing is trapped!” she said frantically, reading his name tag.
Nathan, RN
.

“What are you talking about?”

“The stairs on the far south end are destroyed and the inner stairwell door is jammed. That way,” she said, pointing behind him.

Both men, the door-holder and Nathan, followed Kelly down the hallway. As they got closer, banging emanated from behind the doors, but no voices could be discerned.

“Couldn't anyone hear that?” Kelly asked in an irritated tone.

“We've been a little busy down here,” Nathan answered.

“We've gotta get 'em out. We'll need a ram of some kind,” Kelly announced. She pounded on the door with her fists and shouted, “We're coming, stand back, get back!” The impacts c
aused flashes of blinding pain to radiate through her
tired arms and shoulders.

“We'll use this gurney, maybe we can force it open,” said Nathan.

“The banging's quit, they must have heard us,” Kelly said, looking at door-holder man.

He took Kelly's bleeding arm and said, “I'm Dr. Cho. Let me have a look at that arm.”

Kelly yanked her arm away from him. “Not now, later.” It was then she noticed his hospital name badge hanging from his belt. “I'm sorry, Doctor, but we need to get these people out first,” she said with a weak attempt at a smile.

Nathan had positioned the cart about six feet from the door, then everyone gathered at the head end and gave a great shove.

The plastic bumpers on the gurney shattered and fell into pieces on the floor. The fire door had a big dent and paint was scraped off where the gurney had made impact. The door had moved a mere inch, but it
did
move. Smoke briefly puffed through the opening, but was immediately drawn back. Air whistled as it was sucked up what was now a chimney.

Kelly leaned toward the opening and shouted, “We're coming!”

“Get back,” Nathan shouted at Kelly, motioning her away from the door frame.

The men took another run at the door and it was displaced another inch. It took about six or seven rams; Kelly had lost count by the time it was open wide enough for her to get through.

She squeezed in, then looked back and called, “We need a bigger opening, big enough for wheelchairs.” Then she disappeared into the smoky darkness. She turned the corner and was besieged by people.

“We thought you'd been killed,” said Bridgette, yelling from half a flight up.

“Long story.”

“
Very
long by the look of it,” said Jim. She hadn't recognized the ICU nurse from before. He glanced down at her bloodied, battered form, hair falling from her once-neat bun. “We have crews ready to carry the invalids and they're all staged, ready to go, on the first floor.”

Just then the door below them came loose. It slammed into the block wall, completely open.

“Let's go!” said Kelly, tugging on Greg's shirt sleeve, but Greg turned and headed up the stairs, against the throng.

“I'll keep things moving up there,” he said.

Staff and patients flooded down the stairs, pushing Kelly along with them, flowing out into the emergency department and toward the sunlight of the doors that led out into the ambulance parking area.

“Kelly! Kelly, over here.” Kelly heard the nursing supervisor calling and beckoning from the nurses' station. She made her way in that direction.

“Are you alright? Your arm.”

Kelly put her hands on her knees and bent forward, still breathing heavily. She coughed repeatedly and said, “It's okay, a flesh wound, I think. The bleeding has slowed, if not stopped.”

“Can you run?”

“Yes, I think so, why?” Kelly asked.

“We need you to run to the fire department—I'm assuming you ran in the military. We need an army, and fast. We've gotta get as many of these patients outta here as we can. The fire is taking the south wing and moving toward the north one.”

Kelly looked up from her bent position, squinting against the sun, and asked, “What do you mean?”

“All the phones are out, even cells. We can't find even one car or truck that will start. There hasn't been a single siren.”

Terror struck at her heart.
What did all of this mean?
Who had done this?

“If you think you can make it downtown on foot, the front hospital entrance is still clear, you can go that way.”

Kelly didn't answer, but dashed down the hall past the ER medication room. An IV pole lay on the floor in a pool of shattered glass from the room's broken security window. Mike, an ER nurse she recognized, dodged out of her way at the last second, his vision impeded by the huge box of medicines that partially covered his face.

“Bring what you can carry,” Mike urged.

“I'm going to the fire department to get help,” Kelly shouted down the hallway after the swiftly-moving figure.

Mike turned back and called, “Take stuff you think you might need. There are likely people who will need your help out there, and this place won't be here long.” He continued down the corridor, not waiting for a response or looking back.

Mike's pry bar had left the medicine-dispensing machine unrecognizable. Its drawers hung open, displaying their contents. Kelly threw medications into a patient's belongings bag. She chose antibiotics, nausea medicines, painkillers and other emergency drugs. Bins of syringes and other supplies hung on the wall. Handfuls of each were collected. The stockroom was right next door, but not locked. Items deemed necessary were thrown into a plastic bag, including gauze, soap, and sutures. Finished, Kelly took off running toward the main entrance and her Jeep.

Her desperate, uncoordinated hands dug at her lanyard and her car key. She pushed the fob. No beep.

The Wrangler's door had to be opened with the metal key. The key turned in the ignition, but the engine refused to turn over. In fact, it was silent.

“What the…?” Kelly ratcheted the key in the ignition again, more forcefully this time. She got out and slammed the door. Going around to the passenger's side, she retrieved her four-wheeling, survival backpack and set it in the seat, then upended the belongings bag into it. The medical supplies were added, along with the phone charger which she yanked from the cigarette lighter.

A large man, sweating heavily, pushed a wheelbarrow past Kelly, conveying a young woman. Her bloodied, singed blouse was torn by bits of what might be fragments of an exploded airplane. She lay there with her mouth agape, head bobbing, her complexion that pale grayish cast worn by the dead. The man did not stop, but pressed on in the direction of the ER.

Kelly took off running east before turning south, past the crash, in a gait the military calls the airborne shuffle—more than a jog, but less than a true run.
How many hours had she run like this during officer's training
?

How surreal it all was. She couldn't ever remember feeling this insignificant or inadequate. Tears welled in her eyes.
I can cry now, I'm alone and don't have to be strong for anyone.
Her sight was blurry at best while navigating the parking lot to the street.

Vehicles rested at odd angles in the roadway and over curbs. Fires, ignited by the exploding transformers, grew where they had fuel available from brush and homes. People were gathered on the street corners in awe, looking toward the crash site. The early September temperatures, still in the high nineties, forced people into whatever shade they could find.

“Go help evacuate the hospital,” Kelly pleaded with everyone she passed on her way downtown. Most people just looked at her blankly. It was then she realized her scrub uniform was smeared with blood from clutching the newborn and her lacerated arm. Her long hair had escaped her neat bun, and unruly tendrils now hung, framing her face. She pushed it aside in vain.

“Get hold of yourself,” Kelly said out loud. “Remember your mission… fire department, downtown, run!” This set her resolve.

Several blocks into her journey, Kelly saw a bicycle lying in a front yard. Her moral compass struggled, only momentarily, with stealing it. She approached the bike, scanning for anyone who might have an objection to her borrowing it, lifted the bike by its handlebars, then threw her right leg up and over. Adjusting her backpack straps, she hoisted the pack higher onto her shoulders. The yard sloped toward the street, making her departure effortless.

Kelly zigged and zagged along the street, avoiding people and parked cars. Ignoring those who called out to her, she pressed on, and the four miles to downtown whirred past. She rode up onto the sidewalk, around the light pole and potted plants, right up to the front steps of the fire department. Kelly had her right leg in the air before completing her stop. The bicycle landed up against a chunky concrete pillar, meant to keep vehicles from driving into the lobby. Taking the stairs two at a time, she hurled herself at the entrance.

Inside stood a rotund uniformed police officer. He opened the heavy glass door just wide enough to speak. “Hold it right there, miss.” He looked taken aback by her appearance.

“My name is Kelly Wise,” she exclaimed, breathless, lifting the ID badge pinned to her uniform to reinforce her statement. “I'm coming from the hospital. We need help. The hospital's been hit by a plane and is on fire. We have severely injured patients and our power is out.”

“Emergency Operations has been set up here in the lobby because of the lack of lighting in the basement. Wait here, miss,” the officer said, visibly shaken.

How can he just leave me here, standing quietly, bursting apart on the inside?

The officer let the glass door close. He kept one eye on her, but hurried into the large lobby and spoke to another man.

“Come on, come on!” Kelly thought.

The two men conversed for a moment and then the officer hurried back across the lobby and held the door open for her.

It's obvious no one here had witnessed the horrific scenes playing out near the hospital. How can they all be so calm?

“I'll need to search your backpack, Miss Wise,” the officer said, putting on vinyl gloves from a pouch on his duty belt.

“I understand why you are doing this, but really, I need to talk to the command staff,” she panted. “We need help, this is life and death. There's a jetliner crashed into the hospital. It's simple!” Her words spilled out half whine, half scream.

“I'm sorry, but we don't know what the threat is.”

Kelly, exasperated, let her backpack fall off her right shoulder, but caught it with her left arm. It was so heavy that her whole frame jerked to the left. The officer grabbed the pack at that point and finished lowering it to the floor.