Darkening Skies (34 page)

Her movements sluggish, requiring concentration, she unclipped her seatbelt, found the door latch and with an effort managed to open her door. The car was at an angle, leaning to the driver’s side, the front wheel up on a log. Maybe that had saved them from worse injury, slowing the car before it hit the tree at a lesser angle.

She
clambered out, her legs unsteady on the rough ground among stones and dead branches. Even with the boots supporting her ankle the sloping ground sent pain shooting up her leg.

Mark scrambled out on her side. He gripped her arm, looked into her eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Just shaken.’ Very shaken. So shaken she wanted to sink to the ground.

But he didn’t let her. ‘Jenn, the bus.’ The harsh urgency of his voice penetrated through the whirling cloud in her brain. ‘It’ll be the primary school kids. The district swimming carnival was in Birraga today.’

The enormity of his words sunk in, and she registered the scene beyond their car, the bus almost on its side, the cabin torn. ‘Oh, God.’

‘Yes.’

Kids. Injuries. Probably many of them. She gulped in a breath. ‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve done advanced first aid.’

He nodded, and they set off at a run. The bus had come to rest on the opposite side of the road, knocked to its side, the front of the cab crumpled. Forcing her legs to work, desperately disciplining her thoughts against panic, she followed as quickly as she could.

A little further down the road, finally back on the side it should have been, the truck had rammed into another tree. A stream of smoke came from the engine and Mark bypassed the bus and ran directly for the truck, unclipping the fire extinguisher from the side of the truck with rapid, sure movements. He was already spraying the truck’s engine when Jenn reached the bus.

There was
movement inside, children crying, a repetitive, high-pitched scream, and the sound of breaking glass coming from the rear of the vehicle.

The driver was beyond help, and it made more sense to go in through the large, back exit. It was Beth at the back of the bus, bloodied and dishevelled, tears streaming down her face, kicking out the glass in the window from inside.

‘It won’t open,’ she said, through the hole she’d made, kicking again. ‘The window won’t bloody open.’

‘It’s okay, Beth. Mark and I are here. And there’ll be help coming very soon.’

Even as she said the words, her eyes adjusted to the duller light inside the bus, to see the tangled mess of swimming bags, brightly coloured towels, shattered glass, broken seats and bloodied children, and she knew she’d lied. It wasn’t okay. Nothing about this could be
okay
.

Mark extinguished the small fire, climbed on to the step and reached into the cab to switch off the ignition. The identity of the driver who’d tried to run him off the road hit him like a blow to the gut.

Mick Barrett.

Mark stared at Mick’s bloodied, lifeless face, battling the tumult of anger, wanting to swear, yell, close his eyes and be anywhere but here.

Mick had tried to run them off the road, and now he was dead, and a busload of children were smashed on the road.

Another child on the bus joined in the screaming, the sound
piercing through Mark’s anger, clearing the blankness in his brain and jolting it into action. Police, ambulances, rescue services – the kids needed all of them. He jumped down to the road and pulled out his phone. With no time to waste trying to explain locations and requirements to a distant triple-0 operator, he dialled Kris’s number. Kris could report it quickly, and coordinate everything.

He cut across her greeting the second she answered. ‘Kris, listen to me: the school bus and a truck have crashed, about two kilometres west of the Ghost Hill turn-off. It’s major, Kris. If there’s a disaster plan, get it into action, now.’

‘How bad, Mark?’

‘Very.’ His heart raced as he watched Jenn bash more glass from the back window with a kid’s shoe. But his first priority was to make sure Kris understood the situation. ‘Get every ambulance in the district, and all the rescue teams. The bus hit the side of the truck, and has tipped over. It’s the Dungirri school kids, Kris. Multiple injuries, and at least one fatality – the truck driver. It was Mick Barrett. Jenn’s with me, and we’ll do what we can, but get help here urgently.’

He disconnected without waiting for her answer.

He reached the bus and took in the sea of wreckage, glass and bleeding children, and he prayed that it was better than it appeared.

He could see Jenn inside, hear her voice, low and reassuring, among the groans and cries. Two boys were crawling to the back window, whimpering and wincing on the broken glass, and he helped them climb out. Braden Pappas and Calum Barrett. Both twelve years old, both usually cheeky and lively boys, and
both bleeding from various scrapes and bruises. But alive and moving and at first glance at least, mostly okay.

‘Sit down in the shade there, boys. Don’t go walking around. There’ll be help here very soon.’

‘Will my mum come?’ Calum asked, wiping a bloodied hand across his nose.

‘Yes, mate, she’ll be on her way soon, I bet.’ Somehow they’d have to cope with all the panicked parents who would rush here as soon as word of the accident spread – and that wouldn’t take long.

With the bus tipped on its side, children were sprawled over seats, some lying on the smashed glass of the side windows. He knew the Dungirri school statistics: two teachers, one teacher’s aide, and thirty-one kids aged five to twelve, from Dungirri and the nearby Friday Creek Aboriginal community. And he knew almost every one of them. The staff, Gemma and Keisha; Simone Callaghan, the head teacher who’d transferred from Sydney to be closer to her husband, working further north on the gas fields; and the kids … most of them children of his friends. Kids he’d watched grow from babies to children.

He scrambled inside. For a moment, the scene in front of him paralysed his brain and his breathing. Too many injured to know where to start. But he had to think clearly. They’d all need to be brought out and the back exit was the clearest. Wrapping a towel around his fist, he bashed out the rest of the glass in the window.

‘Thanks.’ Jenn came up behind him as he finished, a balancing hand against the roof of the bus. Pale, her shirt and hands already smeared with blood, she spoke quietly but urgently. ‘Beth says
we need to triage. If we can get the least-injured out, that will give us some more room to deal with the more serious ones.’

‘Bad?’ he asked.

She bit her lip and nodded. ‘A few might be critical. But thank God for seatbelts.’ She waved a hand back down the bus. ‘Beth’s arm’s fractured, but her girls will be okay. If you can help her outside, she can look after the ones out there until other paramedics get here. Then we can decide who else can be moved.’

His chest tightened again. Of course Beth would be on the school excursion with her girls. She sat on the remains of a window halfway down the bus, cradling an hysterical child with her uninjured arm, her two older daughters huddled close into her, sobbing.

‘Take Alicia away from here.’ Beth signalled with a glance to where Simone, the head teacher – who was also Alicia’s mother – lay unconscious, bleeding from a head wound.

He lifted the girl from Beth’s lap, but she fought him, pounding on his chest and crying for her mother. Beth struggled to push herself to her feet, but with his arms full with the distraught child, he couldn’t assist her. He hated seeing her in pain, hated his powerlessness.

Just nine years old, Beth’s eldest, his goddaughter, looked up at him, searching for guidance. He kept his voice firm and even. ‘Tanya, your mum needs a hand up. That’s right. That’s good. Now, hold on to Emmy’s hand. Good girl.’

Alicia still struggled in his arms, and as he made his way towards the exit, Beth and her girls following behind, he tried to decide the next course of action. With her arm fractured,
Beth couldn’t hold on to the girl any longer, but in her current state Alicia might just run back to the bus. There were too many hurt kids, and not enough uninjured adults to deal with them.

The sound of a car arriving lifted his hopes as he clambered out of the bus. Too soon for emergency services, probably just someone travelling between the two towns, but the more help the better at this stage.

Jeanie Menotti slammed the door of her car and ran across the road. She took one look at the bus, turned to Mark and Beth and said, ‘Tell me what you need done.’

‘Stay out here with Beth, and help with the kids. Emergency services are coming. Can you take Alicia for me?’

She sat down on a nearby log, and held out her arms. ‘Injured?’ she asked, as Mark passed the girl to her.

‘Her mother is.’

She held the girl close, one hand stroking her head, and started rocking slowly, talking to her in her low, loving tones.

Beth sat on the ground, checking over Braden and Calum, Tanya and Emma close by. Mark handed her his phone. ‘Call Ryan. Tell him you and the girls aren’t badly hurt.’

That would at least save Ryan some anxiety. Other parents wouldn’t be so fortunate. He returned to the bus, and stepped back into the nightmare to help Jenn.

Nothing in her first-aid training or her experience of reporting disasters had prepared her for the reality of being first on a scene with dozens of injured. The cramped space, the absence
of even basic equipment, the heart-rending cries of children and the staggering responsibility of it all sent waves of panic that Jenn fought to quell.

Focus. One child at a time
.

The seatbelts had limited the injuries from the initial impact, but the toppling bus had thrown its occupants around, and many of the kids had fallen awkwardly, tangled in their seatbelts. Fractures, head injuries, possibly internal injuries, bruises and cuts from shattered glass … some would walk out of the bus, all would need medical assessment, and some she was scared for.

In that first, long half-hour before paramedics arrived, Jenn worked her way down the bus and concentrated on staunching blood flow on a couple of children and one of the teachers, and getting the lesser injured out of the cramped conditions. She wouldn’t risk moving those with potential internal or spinal injuries, or having someone trip over them.

After he carried or guided each child out, Mark returned to her side. He knew everyone’s name, talked with them in calm tones, his presence reassuring, his hands gentle. And each time he returned, the light touch of his hand on her shoulder kept her grounded and reminded her she was not coping alone.

Kris, another police car and the Dungirri SES arrived first, followed a short while later by the two ambulances from Birraga and more police. Never more relieved, Jenn left the cramped space inside the bus to the people with skills and equipment.

The road filled with emergency vehicles, flashing lights and people, some in uniform, some not. While Kris and other officers kept order in the traffic, ensuring access for the ambulances
due to arrive from around the district, a few older men rigged a couple of tarpaulins from the trees, creating shade from the hot sun for the injured.

She recognised Calum, kneeling on the ground by a small boy, arms around him as he struggled and cried. Ollie, who had trouble with too much noise and movement.

She had no clue what to do, but they were her small cousins and she couldn’t do
nothing
.

‘Calum,’ she said, touching his arm. ‘I’m Aunty Jenn, we met the other day. Tell me what Ollie needs.’

Calum’s face crumpled. ‘He needs Mum. He needs Mum and I can’t find Dana.’

A twelve-year-old kid trying to carry a huge responsibility. But not running, as she wanted to run.

She knelt on the ground and took Ollie’s hand. His eyes were screwed shut and he rocked as he struggled. She could see no sign of major injury. But what should she say to a totally stressed child? ‘Ollie, I’m Aunty Jenn. I know this is all scary for you. I’m going to pick you up and carry you somewhere quieter, okay?’

He must have been five or six, one of the little ones, light enough still for her to carry a short distance away, and although he struggled and kicked she managed to keep his arms pressed close to her.