Cilka's Journey(69)

“I’m coming, hold on. Keep talking.”

“I’m here! Keep walking.”

By the light of her lamp, Cilka sees a hand waving at her. Scanning the area she sees three other men, not moving. She hurries to the man who had been calling out.

“I’m Cilka Klein.” She kneels and gently lays a hand on his shoulder. “Are you trapped?”

“My legs, I can’t move them.”

Cilka examines the man, seeing that his lower legs are pinned by a large chunk of rock. She gently pushes him down flat and checks the pulse in his neck as Pavel arrives beside her, opening the container.

“What’s your name?” Cilka asks the injured man.

“Mikhail Alexandrovich.”

“Your legs are under a boulder, but I think we can move it as it’s not that big. You have a nasty cut on your head, which we can wrap up to stop the bleeding. Mikhail Alexandrovich, I need to go and see to the other men. Do you know how many of you were in here when the collapse began?”

“Four of us. The others had gone for a break. We were loading the last wagon.”

“I can see three others,” she says, waving her lamp around.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Check on the others. I was calling their names but none of them answered.”

Cautiously, Cilka steps over the rubble covering the floor of the mine tunnel. On reaching the first man she checks for a pulse, finds one. Pulling back an eyelid, she holds her lamp above his eyes—one reacts. Running the lamp over his body she sees he is not pinned down, just unconscious.

“Pavel Sergeyevich, go back and convince that miner to come and help us. Take this one first. He’s unconscious but you can move him.”

“Be right back,” she hears as Pavel heads back to the lift.

Cilka finds a second man. Immediately she can see he is trapped under fallen rock. She finds no pulse.

The third man groans as she holds her lamp above his face.

“My name is Cilka Klein, I’m here to help. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

The man groans again.

“It’s all right. I’m going to have a look and see if I can find your injuries.”

She quickly identifies a badly broken arm, twisted in an unnatural position. A large rock is pressed up against his side. Gently, Cilka pushes on the man’s chest, from side to side, then further down his abdomen. He cries out in pain. With difficulty she pulls at his clothing, undoing his coat so she can see. Pulling his shirt and undergarments from his trousers causes him immense pain. Cilka sees the crush injury below his rib cage.

She hears the crunch of footsteps in the tunnel and Pavel is back with the miner, each carrying a stretcher. She scrambles over to the unconscious man.

“Load him up and get him out of here,” she says. “And then there’s another who can be taken out, but you need to go carefully. He’s badly injured and in a lot of pain. Get both of them out of here and I will tend to him in the ambulance.”

As they take care of those two men, Cilka goes back to the first man she spoke to, the one who is trapped.

“I’m sorry—one of your friends is dead.”

“The others?” he asks.

“They’re alive and we’re moving them out. Now we have to think about how to move this rock off your legs.” She stands, looking around in the gloom, feeling helpless.

“Don’t go, please.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I can’t move it though, it’s way too heavy for me, and I don’t want to roll it off. I think it needs to be lifted off, so it doesn’t do any more damage. Hang in there, Mikhail Alexandrovich, I’ll get something for your pain also.” She hunts for the supplies that Pavel had placed in the tunnel and finds the pain relief. She returns to Mikhail.

“Mikhail Alexandrovich, I’m going to give you an injection to help with the pain,” she says. “And then, when the men come back, we’re going to gently lift the rock from your legs and load you onto a stretcher. The ambulance is outside the mine and we’ll take you to the hospital.”

Mikhail painfully raises a hand and brushes it against Cilka’s face. She smiles reassuringly at him. She takes scissors from the container and cuts through his coat and shirt, exposing his upper arm. She injects him slowly and watches as he relaxes, his pain diminishing.

Cilka sits in the gloomy, quiet tunnel, waiting, coughing regularly. Eventually, Pavel and the miner come back.

“All right,” she says, “you need to slide your hands under each end of the rock and when you have a good hold lift it off cleanly. Do not roll it or drop it on him.” She holds her lamp up for them. She holds her breath.

The men lift the rock, wobbling slightly, and drop it down to the side, panting with exertion. Cilka looks at Mikhail’s legs—bone protrudes through the skin of his right shin.

Pavel and the miner place Mikhail on the stretcher and they all hurry back down the long tunnel to the lift and up and out of the mine. The dead man will have to be removed when it is safer.

With Mikhail loaded into the ambulance along with the other two injured men, there is no room in the back for Cilka. Kirill leers at her. “You’ll just have to ride up front with us. Get in.”

Squashed between Kirill and Pavel, Cilka has to constantly remove Kirill’s big hairy hand, which is attempting to creep up her thigh. She winces at the cries that come from the injured men in the back as they are bounced around, Kirill showing no compassion or care for their injuries. She offers up words of comfort, telling them they are nearly there, nearly at the hospital, where doctors and nurses will take care of them.