Chapter 02

Flames of Fear

by

Major Mount

The Beginning

A group of people gather in the break-room to prepare for their mid-morning break. Snacks come out of bags and the fridge, hot cups of tea, coffee, chocolate, and various cold drinks are made or taken out of the fridge. People sit down at the tables and they talk in low voices so as to not disturb the others too much. The sound of the radio murmurs away in the background. They eat and drink for several minutes.

All talking stops when a voice on the radio calls for a response by fire-fighters from Penrith to deal with a fire at the Harris Industrial Park and the call is acknowledged. The people in the room glance around, but continue with their break as this call doesn’t affect them due to being for another station.

A few minutes later another radio, the local frequency: Tactical 5 - called Tac 5, comes alive with the sounds of the senior officer at the fire issuing orders to his people on where to deploy to fight the fire. All in the room can picture the scene when he orders half of his force to deploy on the street near the southern entrance and the other half to enter via the northern entrance to set up inside the industrial park to fight it.

In the break-room they finish their snack, tidy up, and are walking out of the room when a voice on Tac 5 says, “Shit! Take cover!”

The leader of those in having a break says, “Mount up,” and leaves the room. In the garage he walks to a wall with a button that opens the front doors and he presses it before going to the lead vehicle to get in it. The rest mount up in their vehicles. Then they sit, and wait.

They hear the senior officer at the fire call for team leaders to check their teams. This is followed by the teams counting off. All goes well until they get to Echo 9 and they don’t respond. The leader calls for Echo 9, again no reply, and no reply from their partner - Echo 10.

The team leader reaches over to flick on the flashing red light while saying, “Let’s go,” to his driver. In seconds all six vehicles have their lights on and the front three are moving out through the doors. The light traffic in the street stops when they see the flashing red lights on the front truck. The six vehicles make their way out onto the street. Without sirens they move out in close order and turn westward. They’re about fifteen kilometres from the fire with most of their path to it through the urban traffic of a working weekday. They’ve got no orders to attend the fire, but the unit leader is playing an experienced hunch.

The small convoy is about two kilometres into the trip when they hear the senior officer at the fire contact control to request additional support plus the special search and rescue unit for his missing people.

Control orders two more Penrith units to the fire and adds, “Delta Whisky, Control. Attend fire at Harris Industrial Park, Penrith.”

“Control, Delta Whisky One. Attend fire at Harris Industrial Park, acknowledged,” is the unit leader’s reply on the radio while he leans over to turn on the siren; then the vehicles behind him do the same. The cars in front of them move aside and the driver speeds up, with the rest of his unit’s vehicles speeding up when they can. Some minutes later he switches to Tac 5 to say, “Penrith Command, Delta Whisky One. We’re about three minutes out. What’s the situation?”

“Delta Whisky One, Penrith Command. Damn that’s fast. The whole southern wall of workshops is on fire with many of the interior ones as well. A gas bottle explosion caused a fireball that demolished one of the units and set most of the rest of the units on the south side alight. The fire started in the unit on the western side of the southern entrance and we’ve two people down in that area. We need search and rescue in there and help on that section of the southern side as well as the western side near the corner.”

“Penrith Command, Delta Whisky One. We’ll split between the southern entrance and the western side.”

Police stopping traffic a few blocks from the fire wave the convoy of fire-trucks through. At the next intersection the first four vehicles head south while the others continue to the west. All of them are soon stopped and the fire-fighters are disembarking to get their gear out for use. Delta Whisky 1 starts directing the bulk of his force to deploy hoses in support of the fire-fighting effort on the south side while Delta Whisky 3 asks the officer-in-command at the fire for details of where his people went down.

The Situation

Paul Mickelson, the officer-in-command on site, says, “We had two people in the entrance road with a fifty mil line trying to get at the seat of the fire from the side windows when the propane gas tank next door went up. When they didn’t respond to the check two of my people followed the line in, but they weren’t at the end of it, nor within about three metres of it. They couldn’t check any further due to the heat. Since then the intensity of the fire has forced us back on all sides so we’re back a heck of a lot more than when it went up.”

Delta Whisky 3 replies, “Right! I’ve got it.” He turns to his team who are awaiting orders. He gives orders to the senior member of each pair, “Jackson, Small, get a fifty mil line each and play them along the driveway. See how far you can cover into it. Wills get on the heavy duty gear, we’re going to have to go in to look for them.” The last three fire-fighters suit up in their extra heavy duty fire / heat resistant gear.

In a moment two hoses are spraying water as far down the driveway as they can to clear the fire back a little. However, it’s turning to steam very quickly. The rest of the Delta Whisky Units are deployed along the two most intense parts of the fire to provide additional support. Everyone in the unit works in pairs, except Delta Whisky 1 and Delta Whisky 3. Delta Whisky 1 moves about commanding the whole unit while Delta Whisky 3 commands the Search and Rescue teams; he always works with one of the pairs in the two teams as he doesn’t work alone.

Searching Shepherd

Delta Whisky 3 leads Wills and Simms along the driveway into the industrial park. Soon after passing the edge of the front building they encounter rubble on the ground so they have to also watch their step. A little further in the area of flames kept back by the hoses ends and they enter the fire itself. The fire blooming out from the burning buildings makes it hard to see, but the real hazard to them here is the rubble on the ground.

Delta Whisky 3 seems to sense where the rubble is bad and he makes his way around it, despite not being able to see it well. At one point he stops and waves the rest back a step just before a surge of flame comes out of the building on his right to flash through where he was about to walk. Once more Delta Whisky 3 has shown his odd affinity for a fire and predicted bad behaviour by it. It’s this uncanny skill to know what a fire is about to do that earned him the nickname of the ’Wizard of Fire’ and his posting as the youngest member of the ’Fire Devils’ the Service has seen. And now he’s the youngest team leader in the Service.

The search team reaches the end of the driveway without finding anything except rubble. Delta Whisky 3 looks about, he looks up to his right and he starts moving that way. What he saw is beyond the other two because they can only see more flames. They move three metres to the right then Delta Whisky 3 kneels down beside a fire-fighter on the ground. Wills and Simms join him. The man is unconscious and he has a broken arm, but his suit is intact and he doesn’t seem to be burnt. They load him onto the backboard they brought in and are about to lift him when Delta Whisky 3 suddenly looks up to the south. On the radio he says, “Delta Whisky Three, take cover, fireball south-west corner.”

All in the Western Division have learned to accept odd commands from Delta Whisky 3 so they hit the ground just seconds before a tank of propane explodes in a huge fireball near the south-west corner. The people in that area are on the ground when the fireball rages over them instead of being knocked down by the pressure wave and burnt by the flames carried on it. As soon as the fire pulls back they get up and get back to fighting the fire. Many of them just shake their heads in wonder at how the Wizard of Fire knows about such events seconds in advance.

Delta Whisky 3 says, “Right! Wills, get this one out. I’m sure the other is just a few metres either east or north of here, so come back here after you hand this one off to the paramedics.” They’re not happy about leaving him there alone, nor is he, but the need to get the injured out is the most important thing at the moment. They lift the board with one on each end and they make their way out of there. They spend more time watching where they’re putting their feet than anything else until they get into the clear and can jog to the waiting paramedics on their team.

As soon as the others leave him Delta Whisky 3 turns to look about him. A bit to the north is a ten tonne flat-bed truck with a load part on it and part on the ground to the east of it, obviously knocked off in an earlier explosion. Something draws his attention to the ground a little east of there. Later, when asked about it he can’t say what it was he saw due to his entire vision being filled with flames and smoke from the fire.

He moves in that direction and he finds the other missing fire-fighter. The person is alive but unconscious. He activates his radio, “Penrith Command, Delta Whiskey 3, found the last missing person just a few metres east of the previous position. Alive but unconscious. Awaiting stretcher team.” The message is acknowledged, and all are happy to learn the good news.

While kneeling beside the fire-fighter he looks about. Half of the load of the truck beside them is on the ground between them and the truck; it’s a load of odd pallets about one and a half metres wide and two and half metres long with very thick plywood as the top of it. He wonders what goods they’re used for shipping as they look like they’ll take a lot of weight. He also looks around at the fire. Suddenly his head spins about and he looks toward the south-west corner. He gulps, activates his radio, and yells, “Run! Take cover! Now!” He leans as he reaches over to grab one of the pallets and drags it over himself while he lies on top of the injured fire-fighter on the ground.

Seconds later there’s an explosion then the sound of things hitting all around them. Things hit the pallet above Delta Whisky 3. Part of the impact force is absorbed in damaging the wood of the pallet, but one bit punches through the pallet to hit his helmet and it knocks him out.

The urgent instruction of, “Run! Take cover! Now!” comes over the radio. Only the fire-fighters are on this frequency so they all know it’s one of the other fire-fighters. Those who know his voice recognise Delta Whisky 3 and know about his uncanny ability so they know they need to obey him right now. All who hear the urgency and command in his transmission drop what they’re doing and turn to run away from the fire. Those who see the fire-fighters running away turn to run as well. A few, like Dilip Mistri, can’t run because they’re treating injured people. So they grab what they can to protect the people in their charge and themselves while staying where they are.

A second passes and then there’s a huge explosion followed by a bloom of flame and smaller explosions. When the flame shrinks back bits of building rain down. Large clumps close to the industrial park and small bits further away. Many people suffer minor injuries from small bits, some suffer worse injuries from the medium sized bits, and a few are seriously injured by the large bits. Many of the vehicles are damaged by the hard rain. One of the pumper units close to the corner where the explosion occurred has a section of steel pipe through its roof and into the road under it with the whole cabin area destroyed. Most of the body is damaged and it’s also singed by the flame, but the pump still works and the hoses connected to it are undamaged. The rain of material goes on for a few seconds. People wait a moment then they move back to what they were doing before the warning. Hoses are picked up and played on the fire, injured fire-fighters go for treatment, and some go back on the line after being treated by the paramedics.

The radio comes alive, “Delta Whisky Three, Delta Whisky One, status.” All wait for the reply, but nothing. The call is repeated twice before it changes to, “Penrith Command, Delta Whisky has a man down in the fire. We’re initiating a search.”

Wills looks over at the entrance drive, it’s now covered in burning rubble so he turns to Delta Whisky 1, “Sorry, Boss, but it’s too hot in there for us to go back. We need to beat it back and down some more first.”

The rescue effort switches to the job of cooling down that part of the fire so they can go in and make a search. None are happy about this.

A Will to Survive

Some minutes after being knocked out Delta Whisky 3 wakes up in screaming agony. It takes a few seconds for his mind to overrule his body to stop the screaming, mainly because the sound hurts his ears. His left thigh hurts with a pain greater than any he’s ever known before.

Delta Whisky 3 looks about himself as much as he can to assess the situation before using his arms to push what’s left of the pallet off him. It’s in several pieces and the largest isn’t quite a metre square. His whole back aches, but it doesn’t feel like any broken bones, just bruises. He moves off the person he’s protecting and he turns to look at his left leg. On seeing the leg his thought is, That’s not good! His protective gear is pierced in a few places and there are bits of metal and wood sticking out of his left thigh. Also, beside him is a section of the pallet flattened and smashed by a clump of bricks, and the way it sits there makes him think it bounced off his leg, mainly because his leg feels like it did.

He checks himself out: no broken bones he can easily identify, but a few may be cracked. He can wiggle his toes in his left leg, but it hurts and any movement of his left leg is agony. He checks his patient and finds his patient unchanged as they’re still unconscious but breathing.

Only then does he become aware there’s no sound coming from his radio. A hand check of where the unit sits on his belt tells him why as the radio is a nice compact rectangular package while all the bumps and bits sticking out are not part of its usual make up, so it’s broken. Thus no outside help, just him to get them both out of here.

Technically Delta Whisky 3 could use the radio of the other fire-fighter to call for help. However, he knows it’s far too dangerous to try and do that. In order to get at and use the other fire-fighter’s radio he needs to take the helmets and coats off both of them due to where the radios are located within their coats. The heat and flames of the fire means he can’t do that to get at the radio.

No point in rushing things, but he can’t wait all day because their breathing gear won’t last all day. After a few minutes thought to plan his actions he puts his plan to work.

Lying on his right side Delta Whisky 3 uses his right leg and both arms to squirm around until his head is aimed toward the driveway and he has the injured fire-fighter aimed in the same direction. In the process he learns his patient is a woman. He carefully moves her up to lie on his left side with her legs on each side of his, now to get out.

Using his left hand and arm to hold his patient in place in the way he was taught to use in surf lifesaving he starts a side-swim motion on dry land. His right arm reaches out to grab something and pull them forward while his right leg pushes on the ground or anything else to send them ahead. His first movement gains them only two hundred millimetres, the next is about the same. Not much, but it is movement. His actions are like the old saying: slow and steady wins the race, and this will be a long one for both of them. Like a drip of water on a rock each little movement wears away at the distance they have to go.

Delta Whisky 3 has no idea of the passing time because his entire being is compressed into the repeated actions of reach and grab, pull and kick, then do it again. At a real snail’s pace he makes his way across the ground. At times he pulls them over the rubble, sometimes around the rubble, other times he can push some of it out of their way. He slowly worms his way to where he entered the industrial park’s inner area to go down the access drive so he can take his patient out of here to better medical help out in the street.

The movement is very wearing on his boots, gloves, and the side of his protective clothing. It’s a good thing they’re all designed for hard and heavy usage because he’s putting them all to a more severe test than the designers ever imagined would be needed.

Observers

When the fire was first reported the various media organisations sent their reporters and camera crews to the site. Some were closer than others so they got there before the police started blocking access. A few did arrive later but they got by the police lines and into the area of the action by going around the police blockades.

One late arriving television crew is a group of new hires under field training by a very experienced cameraman. He knows this area and he gets them through the police lines by going through the properties of the businesses in the block beside the industrial park. After climbing the fence from one business into the yard of another they walk up beside the building to come out opposite the southern entrance into the park. In the business’ car park in front of them is a tow truck for towing semi-trailer tractors so they move up to just behind it. The road on the other side of this truck is full of fire-trucks, fire-fighters, and hoses.

Tom Paine turns to his crew and says, “Right! We’re well inside the lines to keep people back and out of the way. If we go any further we’ll be hauled away. In fact, if we’re spotted this close we’ll be hauled away. So stay hidden behind this truck and we’ll be out of their way so they probably won’t see or bother us. Set up the camera to get a good view over the back of the truck and secure it to the truck so any more gas tanks going off won’t knock it over.” The two trainee camera operators get busy with that and the young woman with the sound gear sets it up to start recording their environment plus anything the reporter says.

Turning to the reporter Tom says, “Keep your voice calm and start reporting just what you see. No guessing about what’s happening, just a straight forward verbal account of the scene and actions.” She nods yes and starts talking into her microphone by giving the lead-in like she was trained to do it: her name, the network, time, place, and the event.

Less than a minute after they get set up Delta Whisky arrives and gets busy. The preparations and actions to recover the downed people is recorded and sent back via their radio link. The injured fire-fighter is brought out. The race from the scene is recorded. Tom realises there’s a major problem and he orders his team to take shelter under the truck.

The truck shakes when the pressure wave of the explosion washes over them. Tom makes them stay there. They hear the truck being hit as they see things hit the ground around the truck. Only when he can see the fire-fighters moving back does he let them get out and stand up.

By some minor miracle their equipment is undamaged. They start reporting on the changes brought about by the explosion and the work by those fighting the fire. The five of them are constantly looking about them and pointing to things of interest. Tom moves the camera’s aim to capture the most interesting aspects of the fire while it’s reported.

About twenty-five minutes after the big explosion one of the trainee camera operators touches Tom’s arm and says, “What’s that there?”

Tom turns to her, “What, where?”

“Down on the ground in the entrance. Now and then the fire swirls, then I can see something moving on the ground there.”

Tom moves behind the camera and he focusses it onto the rough area she describes, he sees nothing, but he waits a moment. The fire swirls in the breeze it creates by itself and he can see something darker moving where there should be no movement at all. He can’t believe his eyes, but it sure does look like a gloved hand. “Good catch, Mary!”

Tom doesn’t even think about what may happen to him as he walks around the truck and up to the senior fire-fighter. Touching him on the arm he waits until the man turns to look at him, when he glares and goes to speak Tom says, “I saw movement in the driveway. It looked like a hand at ground level. About a third of the way in from the right and it’s only visible now and then when the fire swirls back a bit.”

Paul Mickelson is angry about having civilians inside his fire-line, but he’s experienced enough not to write off what he’s told, “Show me!”

Tom leads him back to the camera and has him watch the screen while he focusses in closer. In a moment the fire moves and they can both see a gloved hand reaching forward at ground level.

Action

Paul glances at the film crew, he should have the police drag them off but he won’t, not now. Striding away he activates his radio to order three hoses to aim down the driveway and for the Search and Rescue team to bring a stretcher. They all rush to do as told while wondering about why he’s telling them to do it.

Within seconds the hoses are aiming down the driveway and he’s directing their aim to where he saw the movement. After a moment for the water to do its job they’ve a good view of the upper body of a fire-fighter on his side while crawling along the drive. Many rush forward, and in a moment both the missing people are carried to the paramedics.

Dilip helps his friend take his protective head gear and breather off while his partner is doing the same for the other fire-fighter. Delta Whisky 3 turns to Paul, grabs his arm, waits until Paul is looking at him, and says, “The core of the fire is almost in the south-west corner of the complex, but in the inner buildings. Get half a dozen long fifty mil lines down the drive to hit it hard. Do it now and you can kill this.” Paul nods yes and he moves off while organising to do just that as he’s been at other fires with the Wizard of Fire so he knows to act on his comments.

Two minutes later a large group of fire-fighters are working their way down the driveway while dragging several fire hoses with them. The paramedics are busy removing the rest of the protective gear from the two injured patients while making their initial assessments.

Five minutes after being dragged out of the edge of the fire the two injured are in an ambulance on their way to hospital while the core of the fire is being beaten down and the fire-fighters are starting to win the battle here today instead of containing it the way they have been.

On the way to the fire he went into his combat mode to became the entity called Delta Whisky 3, now leaving the fire behind he exits that mode of thinking and action to return to being Ernie Wells. This way of changing modes and thinking is a survival process for him. Now he can take the time to appreciate the patterns and beauty of the fire he saw.

Hospital

On arrival at the hospital the doctors check the two injured and send them for a full body x-ray and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) each. They soon learn the young woman, Marla Shaw, has a hairline skull fracture with a couple of cracked ribs. Her only other injury is a severe concussion. They tape her ribs up and put her to bed under constant supervision. The young man, Ernie Wells, also has a few cracked ribs, a headache from a mild concussion, a fracture in his left shin, a fracture in his left thigh, many foreign objects in his left thigh, severe soft tissue damage to part of his left thigh, and many bruises.

The damage is bad enough the doctors at Penrith Hospital decide to air lift Ernie to Westmead Hospital so more experienced specialists can work on him. Their major concern is the damage to the back muscles on his left thigh. They tape his ribs, put a splint on the left shin, and ship him out for surgery at Westmead Hospital.

At Westmead Hospital Ernie is sedated and taken to the operating theatre to remove all of the foreign objects in his leg, some are metal and some are masonry. The worst is a short piece of jagged pipe all the way through the thigh which cuts a twenty-seven millimetre hole through his leg. The team of doctors includes a neurosurgeon who examines the soft tissue damage caused by a heavy impact. His concern is the nerves in the impact area. He doesn’t need to do surgery to see what he wants to look at because the other damage has the area of concern open to his view. Standing on the other side of the operating table he can see what he wants to see while the foreign material is being removed. He’s very unhappy with what he sees.

Four hours after his arrival Ernie is waking up in a recovery ward. The nurse checks his vital signs, gives him some ice chips, and calls the doctors to tell them he’s awake. Seven doctors are soon in attendance and the number of them surprises Ernie. After introducing themselves the doctors check his wounds and his mental processes. Two of the doctors are soon happy with how he’s doing, so they leave. Four of the others turn him over to check his left leg a lot more.

They’ve a rolling table with some equipment they attach to parts of his leg and hip before they start a process of pushing and prodding him while asking how it feels. After several minutes of this they ask him to move his leg in different ways, which he does. Well, he thinks he does, as some of the commands to his muscles aren’t acted upon. Over the thirty minutes they’re checking him out the team of neurologists map the extent of the damage to the neuromuscular system of his left thigh.

Being face down Ernie can’t see what they’re doing, and sometimes he can’t feel anything when they ask him, “What does that feel like?” So when they stop and withdraw across the room to have a quiet talk for a few minutes he wonders what’s going on as he’s now a bit nervous.

They roll Ernie onto his back and the lead neurologist starts to tell him what’s wrong with his leg. Although he’s had a lot of paramedic training Ernie is soon lost, so he says, “OK! Cut to the chase. In very simple terms, what does it mean to me in a practical way?”

The lead neurologist starts in again with the medical terms but the seventh doctor, who’d not said much before now, interrupts with, “Joe, I can handle this now! Why don’t you write up his chart while I tell him in layman’s terms.” The neurologist sighs, nods yes, picks up Ernie’s file, and writes on it. “I’m Doctor Alice Walters, your assigned physician. I’ll be looking after you from now on. The specialists will be providing me with advice on your rehabilitation but I’m the one you’ll be seeing each day. Got that!” Ernie nods yes. “You have some cracked ribs plus a fracture in the left shin and left thigh. You also have many puncture wounds in the back of the thigh with some impact damage to it and the nerves in the thigh. Due to the wounds we can’t put a normal cast on your thigh, just an inflatable one with splints taped to the thigh.”

Ernie sighs and says, “Doc, I’m a trained paramedic and I understand all of that. What I didn’t understand was the longer words he was using,” while pointing at the lead neurologists, “as my medical training didn’t include them.”

“OK! In short simple terms, whatever fell on you smashed the hell out of your left thigh. There’s impact damage to the muscles and nerves as well as puncture damage and a piece of pipe cut a hole through the thigh. Some of the damage will heal and some won’t heal worth a damn.”

“The overall prognosis on how this will affect me is?”

“When all of the bones and muscles heal you’ll have full mobility of your lower left leg and can use the front thigh muscle. However, you’ll have no use of the left leg back thigh muscles at all.” He slowly nods, but her next words cause him to lose all colour from his face. “You’ll not be able to stand or walk again. Although the skeletal system will be able to take your weight the muscles to hold the upper leg in place to do so won’t hold it there. Nor will you be able to do anything else with the left leg because you’ve lost too much of the muscle itself as well as the nerves that control the muscles. Not being able to walk means you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.”

“What are the chances of using a prosthetic?”

“Not for bearing any weight or real movement. Amputation isn’t needed, and we’d have to take it off at the hip if we did. The best we can do is to put a steel frame around your hips and left leg so you can stand on it, but movement with the stiff encased leg will be impossible, or almost so. I know of one person with such a system, but they have it fitted with a roller skate and wear a raised sole on the other foot. Even so, they’ve a hard time moving about, and their damage isn’t near as bad as yours.”