Alive on Opening Day Read Online Free PDF Page A

and
ambled toward the bleachers while David walked back to Dan and
crouched down again to slip an arm around Clara’s waist.
     
    For 15 long minutes, David
and Clara huddled around their son, talking to him and watching for
any tiny movement. Clara stroked his face, and David told him
stories from the current Major League Baseball season, about how
the Cincinnati Reds would be in a dog fight all year with the Los
Angeles Dodgers for the National League West crown. They did all
this to give Dan some comfort assuming he even knew they were
there, but mostly to avoid thinking about how bad he might be hurt
and why it was taking so darn long for help to arrive.
     
    Finally, an ambulance from
the Pickens County Hospital screamed to a stop on the driveway
between the school building and the ball diamond, and the driver
backed the rig up through the grass and parked along the fence, as
close as possible to home plate. Two paramedics hopped out of the
vehicle and hurried to the huddle of people in front of the
backstop. Seeing them, David took his wife by the hand and helped
her stand to the side.
     
    While one of the medics
checked Dan’s vital signs, the other unfolded a stretcher in the
grass beside the boy and began palpating his
extremities.
     
    “ Shallow breaths, and a
slow, unsteady heartbeat,” the first said.
     
    The second nodded and
said, “I don’t find any displaced fractures, and he isn’t showing
any edema. Let’s get him loaded up and get a mask on
him.”
     
    “ What’s going on?” Clara
wanted to know. “Is he going to be OK?”
     
    The first paramedic
answered as they were straightening Dan’s body and moving him onto
the stretcher.
     
    “ We don’t know the extent
of his injuries yet, ma’am,” he told her. “For now, we need to make
sure that he’s getting enough oxygen and transport him to the
hospital so the emergency room doctors can check him out more
thoroughly.”
     
    “ We’ll follow behind you,”
David said and guided his wife away from the field. As the
paramedics lifted Dan up on the stretcher to carry him away, Clara
reached out to touch his arm and blew him a kiss he never
saw.
     
    “ Come on, honey,” David
said, tugging on her arm.
     
    On the way to the parking
lot, David stopped to tell Gabbie their plan. She wanted to ride to
the hospital with the Hodges, but David reminded her that her
mother would soon return to the school to pick her up. Meg Jordan
would be panicked if she showed up to find Gabbie gone. Gabbie
finally agreed to wait for her mom, but vowed to come to the
hospital later.

CHAPTER SIX
    Slow Motion
    The Hodges made the
10-mile ride to the hospital in silence, except for the screeching
siren of the ambulance in front of them and Clara’s gentle sobs
from the passenger seat.
     
    When they arrived, David
angled their sedan into the visitors parking lot, and then the
couple hurried toward the ER entry way where the paramedics were
already unloading Dan and speaking with doctors. Clara started to
call out to them, but David pulled her back and said softly, “Let’s
let them do their jobs for a minute. We can follow them when they
take him in, OK?”
     
    Tears were still falling
from her eyes, but Clara managed to nod. Once the medics had handed
off Dan to the physicians and moved the ambulance out of the
unloading zone, David led Clara across the driveway and caught up
with the doctors. As they approached, one of the physicians nodded
toward them and went back into the hospital. The other turned to
face them.
     
    “ Dr. Parks!” Clara
exclaimed. She had not recognized him from the back and through her
emotion, but she was relieved to find their family physician on the
scene to take care of her son.
     
    “ Hello, Clara,” Parks
said, then, nodding toward David, “David.”
     
    Parks grabbed hold of the
sides of Dan’s gurney and wheeled it toward the hospital , where
the other doctor and a nurse were holding open the front doors.
“Come,