Teresa practically dragged Kai to where Mia was trapped. Instead of finding refuge in one of the ocean side rooms, Brad, Mia, and Teresa had hunkered down in the kitchen of condo 1004, on the side of the building facing the explosion.
Kai was stunned by the sight of the ravaged condo. The entire exterior wall was in tatters, and bits of furniture and metal had been propelled into every surface. Even though the kitchen had been shielded from the worst of the blast, it hadn't come through unscathed.
As Kai had covered Lani during the explosion, Brad did the same for Mia. When the blast caused a piece of the ceiling to cave in, a steel girder slashed into the wall on one side and smashed the counter on the other, pinning Mia and Brad at their midsections. Although Teresa had been only five feet away, the falling girder had missed her.
'Are you OK?' Kai said to Brad.
'Except for the fact that I can't move, I'm fine. I think Mia might have a broken leg.'
'Let's try pulling you.' Kai gripped Brad by both hands and pulled until his full weight was into it.
'Stop!' Brad cried. 'It's not working. You're going to pull my arms off.'
Teresa bent over and caressed Mia's hair.
'You're going to be all right, honey.'
Kai quickly inspected the foot-wide girder. The situation looked grim. The wall between the kitchen and the condo hallway had kept it from hitting the floor and crushing them, but that was about the only good news. Moving it was going to be a big job, and they only had a few minutes.
'This thing must weigh a thousand pounds,' Brad said.
'And,' Kai said, 'it looks like the girder is wedged into that wall pretty solidly.' To Mia, he said, 'You can't move at all, sweetie?'
Mia shook her head. 'My leg hurts. Please don't leave us here.'
'No one's going to leave you,' Kai said. 'We're going to get you out.'
He led Teresa back to the hallway.
'I'll be right back, Mia,' she said as they left.
'I need you to go down and check out Jake. Let us know what you find.'
'What about Mia?' Kai could see the desperation in her face.
'I'll stay and try to figure out something.'
'How long do we have?'
'Not long. No more than 10 minutes to the next wave. But that means we need to be out of here in five minutes so that we can get down and find another building to climb.' Kai pulled the fire ax off the wall. It had survived the explosion, although the protective glass was gone.
'What are you going to do with that?' Teresa said.
'I don't know. It might come in handy.'
She eyed it suspiciously, and Kai understood what she was thinking, but amputation wasn't an option, not the way they were pinned. He tried to reassure her.
'I'll be careful,' he said. 'We're going to try everything we can. The most important thing is to get that girder off of them.'
'I didn't come all this way to lose her now, Kai.'
Kai held her head in his hands. As gently as possible, he said, 'I know. You are not going to lose her. But we need you to keep it together, OK?'
She nodded. 'You figure something out.'
'I will.' He hugged her, and she hurried down the stairs. Kai headed back to Brad and Mia, ax in hand.
Teresa met Tom on the eighth-floor landing and quickly assessed his awkwardly askew arm.
'Is it broken?' he asked.
'No, it's dislocated. Where's Jake?'
With his other arm, Tom pointed down the hall. Tom and Jake hadn't been able to get into any of the condo rooms. The hallway looked like a bomb had hit it, which was essentially what had happened.
Tom had been thrown against the wall by a door blown off its hinges, causing the dislocation. Jake had not been so lucky.
A jagged piece of metal about two feet in length had sliced through the wall like it was tissue. Jake sat against the opposite wall, the metal protruding from his chest, his hair filthy from rubbing against the muck coating everything. Blood covered the wall behind him and oozed from the wound. Teresa bent down to look at Jake. His breath was shallow, but it was there.
'Can you help him?' Tom asked plaintively. 'Is he dead?'
Teresa was devastated at the sight of Jake because she realized that her decision to come with them was the reason he was here. A If she had just stayed behind, Jake would be safe.
For a moment the guilt overpowered her, freezing her. With effort, she fell back on her medical training and put it aside. She had to make a choice, and her options were not good. It was a no-win situation. The problem was a classic dilemma. If she moved him, the shock might kill him. He'd already lost a lot blood, and any movement might cause further disruption of the wound. Ideally, paramedics would be brought in to stabilize him before he was taken away in an ambulance. But the likelihood of getting any kind of professional medics here in the next ten minutes was nil.
That left her no choice. She had to try to get him out. But before she did that, she had to take care of Tom.
'Tom, I'm going to have to put that arm back in place because I need your help.'
'Will it hurt?'
'Yes.'
'OK. But do it quick.'
'Lie down.'
Tom lay down on the floor on his back. Teresa positioned herself behind him. She put her left hand on his shoulder and her right hand on his elbow.
'I'll count to three, and then I'm going to push your arm back into the socket. OK?'
'Yeah.'
'One, two, three.' With a fast rotation, she snapped the arm back into place. Tom screamed and then relaxed, the pain greatly reduced now that the arm was in its socket.
Teresa heard Kai yell from upstairs. 'Are you all right?'
'Don't worry about us!' she shouted and turned her attention back to Tom. 'Better?'
He nodded in relief.
'You did well, Tom.'
'What about Jake? Should we take that thing out?'
Teresa knelt down, shaking her head at the hopelessness of the situation. 'If we do, he'll bleed to death.'
As she said that, Jake's eyes fluttered open. A hoarse whisper came out of his mouth.
'Where am I?' He was in shock. He felt no pain, probably wasn't even aware that he had been through an explosion.
'You're injured, Jake. We're going to get you out of here.'
'I'm so tired.'
'I know, sweetie. But you need to stay awake.'
'So tired…'
Jake closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and slipped into unconsciousness.
'Jake!' Tom yelled. 'Jake!' He grabbed Teresa's shoulders. 'Do something!'
She wanted to, but she could see that Jake was too far gone. She put her ear quickly to each side of his chest and heard shallow gasps on only one side. The metal shard had collapsed his lung and nicked a major artery. Resuscitation wouldn't work. If she had the proper instruments and a hospital staff, they might be able to remove the metal, control the bleeding, and re-expand the lung so that he could be revived. Without them, any attempt at
