14th October 2012
Steve Rogers
'THE BROOKLYN WRECK' read the headline of that morning's newspaper. I sighed and opened it, curious as to how the media would portray the accident. It was awful, only one survivor, twenty-eight dead on the scene.
A tanker had jackknifed, nothing out of the ordinary until a van ploughed into the side of it, spilling it over the road; the contents just happened to be ethanol. The spark of the metal grinding on the road set the whole thing alight.
A people carrier, with a family inside, had hit the van, then a bus into the back of that. It would have been a horrendous accident anyway if there wasn't an ethanol fire burning around it, but there was, and people were burned alive.
The family in the car had been a mother, a father and two little girls, aged eight and eighteen months. Three had been killed, the mother and father because of an airbag fault, and the eighteen months old because she'd been thrown from her car seat, but the eight-year-old, however, well she'd survived. Somehow, the locking system on her seatbelt had held her in the car, keeping her from the flames. Little Jessica, I soon learned, had suffered severe nerve damage to her legs and spine, but still had most of her movement; the worst injuries would be mental.
The newspaper focused on Jessica Peterson, as the only survivor from such a horrific accident, she became known as the Brooklyn Survivor. The article itself contained little about the rescue effort or any real details about the accident, but I knew enough.
We'd been called out to try and pull any survivors out, and I'd almost declared the whole scene dead, then I'd heard screams.
Jess had been trapped in the car, held prisoner by her seatbelt.
YOU ARE READING
Why me?
FanfictionAfter picking up an intern from a stint as a PE teacher, Steve Rogers wonders whether he has bitten off more than he can chew. First the Brooklyn Wreck, then losing the last person she knows, Jessica Peterson has had more than her fair share of down...
