Silent Fear excerpt.
The radio crackled. ‘Thirty-two.’
Paramedic Holly Garland grabbed the microphone off the ambulance dash. ‘Thirty-two’s on Missenden Road near King Street in Newtown.’
‘Thanks Two,’ Control said. ‘Head to Beaman Park in Vera Avenue in Earlwood, cross street is Flinders. Twenty-nine-year-old male collapsed while playing touch. Call-taker’s giving CPR instructions. You’re the closest but I’m searching for back-up.’
‘Two’s on the case.’ Holly rehooked the mike with her heart already increasing its pace. They were three cars back from a red light, traffic packed in around them on every side. The cars on King Street were a solid line across the intersection. She looked at her shift partner, Joe Vandermeer, sitting up straight with both hands on the wheel, his black sunglasses pushed up hard on his face. He put his hand on the switches for the lights and siren. In traffic like this, with no room at all for anyone to move, you sometimes just had to wait until a space opened up, but Holly guessed he was thinking what was in her mind too: a cardiac arrest. In a twenty-nine-year-old.
He flipped the switches. Holly saw the driver of the blue Ford in front jerk in his seat, look around, and edge forward a few centimetres. Nobody could go anywhere.
‘Shit,’ Joe said.
Then the southbound lane on the far side of the intersection started to crawl along. Joe punched the horn to change the siren to yelp. People crept their cars forward and tried to squeeze into the next lane. Joe inched along, flashing the high beams. Holly shifted in her seat as if that could help. ‘You know the way?’
‘As far as Dulwich Hill.’
She opened the street directory and ran her finger down the route to Earlwood—King Street, Enmore then Stanmore then New Canterbury Roads, turn off at Wardell then over the Cooks River. Main shopping streets. She could just imagine the swerving and near-misses that awaited them there, but taking the back streets would be worse—slower, twistier, and potentially full of playing kids, especially this time of year and on a day like this, so hot and bright. It was Saturday, three weeks before Christmas, and every second person seemed to be out and about. She herself wanted to be at home, in the pool to be precise, lolling in the shallow end with a book in one hand and a mojito chilling the other. It’d been pushing thirty degrees by seven am and now it had to be close to thirty-five. The heat coming in the window was practically burning her arm though the aircon was cranked all the way up, and ahead of them was a sea of brake lights, and time was ticking away, and if the poor guy was really in cardiac arrest his chances were ticking right away with it.
The radio crackled. ‘Thirty-two.’
Paramedic Holly Garland grabbed the microphone off the ambulance dash. ‘Thirty-two’s on Missenden Road near King Street in Newtown.’
‘Thanks Two,’ Control said. ‘Head to Beaman Park in Vera Avenue in Earlwood, cross street is Flinders. Twenty-nine-year-old male collapsed while playing touch. Call-taker’s giving CPR instructions. You’re the closest but I’m searching for back-up.’
‘Two’s on the case.’ Holly rehooked the mike with her heart already increasing its pace. They were three cars back from a red light, traffic packed in around them on every side. The cars on King Street were a solid line across the intersection. She looked at her shift partner, Joe Vandermeer, sitting up straight with both hands on the wheel, his black sunglasses pushed up hard on his face. He put his hand on the switches for the lights and siren. In traffic like this, with no room at all for anyone to move, you sometimes just had to wait until a space opened up, but Holly guessed he was thinking what was in her mind too: a cardiac arrest. In a twenty-nine-year-old.
He flipped the switches. Holly saw the driver of the blue Ford in front jerk in his seat, look around, and edge forward a few centimetres. Nobody could go anywhere.
‘Shit,’ Joe said.
Then the southbound lane on the far side of the intersection started to crawl along. Joe punched the horn to change the siren to yelp. People crept their cars forward and tried to squeeze into the next lane. Joe inched along, flashing the high beams. Holly shifted in her seat as if that could help. ‘You know the way?’
‘As far as Dulwich Hill.’
She opened the street directory and ran her finger down the route to Earlwood—King Street, Enmore then Stanmore then New Canterbury Roads, turn off at Wardell then over the Cooks River. Main shopping streets. She could just imagine the swerving and near-misses that awaited them there, but taking the back streets would be worse—slower, twistier, and potentially full of playing kids, especially this time of year and on a day like this, so hot and bright. It was Saturday, three weeks before Christmas, and every second person seemed to be out and about. She herself wanted to be at home, in the pool to be precise, lolling in the shallow end with a book in one hand and a mojito chilling the other. It’d been pushing thirty degrees by seven am and now it had to be close to thirty-five. The heat coming in the window was practically burning her arm though the aircon was cranked all the way up, and ahead of them was a sea of brake lights, and time was ticking away, and if the poor guy was really in cardiac arrest his chances were ticking right away with it.