Читать книгу The Firefighter Blues - Alan Bruce - Страница 11

Murray Kear and I are driving Liverpool’s water tanker when we are called to assist at a truck accident. The water tanker is an off-road vehicle designed for bushfires and wouldn’t normally be called to a motor vehicle accident (MVA), but our rescue truck is on scene and requires the assistance of Murray, our Senior Rescue Firefighter.

When we arrive at the address, we’re surprised to find that the incident is located in a suburban back yard.

It’s complete chaos. A guy around twenty years old is yelling and cursing while punching palings off the side fence. An elderly woman screams at the top of her voice – in Italian. Two younger women are hugging each other while sobbing uncontrollably. Murray and I side step our way through the bedlam and meet up with the rescue crew, who are crouched over a man’s body while administering CPR. He is lying between two huge Mack trucks. It’s immediately obvious that the poor bloke is dead. His skull is disfigured, his face, purple and swollen; cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) is oozing from both ears.

We’re told this is a family transport business and the father and son were working on the trucks. One was parked directly behind the other. The father had stuck his head between the front of one truck and the rear of the other and yelled to the son, who was in the cab:

‘Okay, start her up!’

The son turned the key, not realising the vehicle was in gear. The huge Mack truck lunged forward and crushed the father’s head between the two vehicles. The son quickly shoved it in reverse but it was too late. His father dropped to the ground and died where he fell. The neighbour tells us that the poor old bugger has just come out of hospital after surviving a major heart attack. This was his first day back on the job.

The mother grabs me from behind, screaming:

‘Is he dead? Is he dead?’

I have no idea what I said to the poor woman. What could I say? I was never trained to counsel grieving family members at an accident scene. None of us were