Classic Drama In Real Lifereadersdigest.co.in 89Royd had been trying to take her
mind off her predicament. “What do
you watch on TV?” he asked, and they
talked for a while about her favourite
shows. “If you could go anywhere in
the world, where would you go?”
“Disneyland,” she said emphat-
ically, “I love Mickey Mouse.” This
man’s so brave, she thought. He could
get out of here any time he wants.
Grandad and Uncle Vincent must
have sent him.
Whenever she was startled by a sud-
den noise, Royd would explain what
the firefighters were doing. He tried to
reassure her: “You’ve got a few broken
bones and burns, but it’s marvellous
what the doctors can do.” Occasionally
she would let out stifled moans. “It’s
OK, yell all you want,” he encouraged.
“Bite me if it helps.”
The pain from the injuries to
Shirley’s lower body was becoming
unbearable. She cried out, burying
her hands in Royd’s thick hair, pulling
hard to ease her agony. As a firefighter,
Royd had seen grown men with very
little wrong with them blubbering like
idiots, yet here was a 12-year-old girl
who had not shed a single tear.
The steady f low of water wavered
for an instant. God no, thought Royd,
the fire can’t take us now. Shirley
barely managed to move her arms as
the f lames rolled in. Then the water
came pouring back and Royd was hor-
rified to see several layers of skin on
her arms had slid down and bunched
up round her wrists. “I’m still withbegan lifting and blowing out man-
hole covers all over the complex.
One-and-a-half kilometres away,
storm-water drains emptying into
the Puhinui Stream sparked five
separate fires in the scrub on the
stream’s banks.
The entire shopping centre was now
permeated with petrol fumes. “Evac-
uate the centre. Quick as you can,”
Mears ordered.B
ack at the burning rig, Warby
approached a paramedic from a
waiting ambulance crew. “There
must be something we can do to ease
the girl’s pain—do you think you
could make it under there?” he asked.
Biting back his fear, the paramedic
donned a bunker coat and helmet and
headed into the inferno. As he crawled
into the tiny space where Shirley and
Royd lay, he realized he wouldn’t have
room to get an IV drip going. He con-
sidered administering a painkiller,
but decided against it: Shirley seemed
to be coping and side effects such as
suppression of her breathing might
hamper the rescue operation. Trauma
victims need to get to hospital within
an hour of injury—dubbed the ‘golden
hour’ by emergency services—to have
a decent chance of survival. Crawl-
ing out, he was conscious that tim-
ing was vital. Shirley had been under
the tanker for more than 30 minutes.
With her massive injuries, burns and
now the cold, she could easily slip into
shock and die.