The four doors of the Suburban opened, and the Coats family jumped. Erin landed on the hard ice, she bruised her hip, scraped her forearm, and screamed as her left arm broke. Ariden was lucky enough to land in the snow and wasn’t injured. Trinity landed on the back of her head and knocked herself out as she rolled against a large rock.
Jon also landed on the hard ice and began rolling towards the fire. He tried to stop, the ice had started to melt and quickly refroze, it was very slippery, he couldn't stop himself, he tried to twist his body so he rolled towards the snow or at least change his slide so he could go to another truck. He reached up and grabbed a LAV which had managed to stop on the edge of the growing fire.
Jon watched their Suburban roll into the fire, he covered his head and face when the large SUV was consumed by the fire and its gas tank and the fuel in the extra tanks exploded. Parts of the Suburban flew in all directions, the shrapnel hit additional soldiers and its gasoline added to the massive fire. Jon tried to pull himself from under the LAV when he realized his left leg was broken, in the excitement, he didn’t notice the pain. He yelled for help, a soldier heard him and helped free him. The soldier then threw Jon over his shoulder. “Hold on, we’ve set up a MASH tent on the other side of the fire to care for the injured.”
“My family…”
“We’ll check after we get you looked at, it looks like in addition to your leg, you caught some of the fire.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I really don’t know. We were two vehicles ahead of you, our driver managed to aim for a snowbank and thankfully he hit it which saved all of us. There was fuel still in the tanks and because this was a truck stop, there must have been over a thousand gallons, maybe even more. Once the fire started, it thawed the diesel out, the fire got hot enough to ignite the diesel, what a mess, then as our vehicles slid into the growing fire, our fuel and ammo added to the fire which we’re now letting burn itself out.”
“How many did you guys lose?”
“I don’t know. I saw the Colonel who caught some of the fire, his face and hands were bandaged. His overcoat was charred. I heard we lost at least one fuel truck and our communications command vehicle.”
As they neared the MASH unit, Jon noticed the line of wounded soldiers, he asked the one carrying him, “What are we going to do now?”
“I’m only a sergeant, that decision is way above my pay grade. I’ll carry you inside.”
They passed cots of burned soldiers, “Broken leg and burn, civilian.”
An Army doctor yelled, find an empty bed and put him on it, then yell out the bed number.”
“Sixteen!”
“Got it. Thanks, one of us will see him as soon as possible.”
Jon looked around and out the opening and closing door flap, he noticed soldiers were still putting up sections of the tent and others were rushing to bring in medical supplies. The reflection from the flames reminded him of the stories his mother used to tell him about Hell and where he’d end up if he wasn’t a good boy. He looked around trying to see if he could see his family. He thought he caught a glance of Erin’s coat, but he couldn’t be sure. Where are my girls? Did they avoid the fire? If they didn’t, I don’t want to live. This is all my fault. I should have left a long time ago when they told us to go, but no, I thought we’d be okay. I was so wrong. My ego may have killed my family. I lost everything we packed, I lost two SUVs. If Hell was flames and burning lava, this has to be the direct opposite, this is like another planet. Everything is frozen, we haven’t seen the sun in over a year and instead of warming up, if anything, it’s gotten colder and the snow heavier. I now know the weather people were right and I was so wrong. Jon’s thoughts were interrupted by someone saying, “Hello, I’m Doctor Day, let me see what we have here.” He looked around and yelled, “I need an X-ray bed 16 left leg, NOW!”
Two soldiers pushed a mobile X-ray machine to Jon’s bed, they tried to gently lift his left leg which caused Jon to scream. “Sorry, but we need to get the panel under your leg.”
“It’s okay, I’m sorry I know it must hurt.”
“How do you develop them out here?”
“We don’t develop anything, all electronic, the X-ray will show up on the doc’s tablet, here he is.”
“You have a clean break in your left fibula, all I’ll have to do is gently shift it and cast it.”
“You can cast it here?”
“Not a normal cast, it’s an inflatable…”
“Huh?”
“Inflatable, we place your leg into it, then we inflate it which holds it tight against your leg till it mends, it should take 6 weeks. You should stay off of it for a couple of weeks, we’re short on crutches so one of the soldiers will set you up with a small device to hold your weight off your leg.”
“Have you seen my family, two teenage girls and my wife, name’s…”
“I know them, they’ll be fine, one had a broken arm, a few second degree burns which I covered, speaking of which the back of your hands and your face caught some. Let me put some gel and bandage over them. See me every three days to check them. The bad news is second degree burns are
