Redemption(49)

“No. And when I bent down to give her a closer look, I noticed there was someone else inside, but there was stuff in the seat behind her, and I couldn’t get a good look on the other side. I knocked on the window, but she didn’t respond.”

“What did you do then?”

“I pounded again, this time hard enough to make my hand hurt, but she didn’t budge. I tried the door handle, but it was locked. So I screamed for Max and kept hammering on the glass trying to get her to wake up. He didn’t know what all the fuss was about, so he went back to our car to put Ruby, our dog, inside before he came to see why I was yelling. I kept hollering his name. I knew that woman needed help, but I couldn’t get to her. When he saw her, he told me to try the other doors. He grabbed the one behind her while I ran around to the passenger side.” Her Southern accent became more pronounced the deeper she got into her recollection.

“Were you the only two people there?”

“No, but I don’t know how many people had gathered around by that point. I just remember thinking how hot it was, and if we didn’t wake her up or get her out of that car she was gonna die.”

She stopped talking, choked up with emotion. Tears ran down her face, and her shoulders shook as she tried to contain herself.

“Mrs. Bartell, can you tell the Court what happened when you went around to the other side of the car?”

I knew what was coming. I hadn’t heard her version, but I knew what she saw the moment she tried to open the back-passenger door.

“I screamed like I’d never screamed before.” Anguish, pity, sorrow. They all filled her eyes and crossed her face.

My heart crashed in my chest as though I was reliving the agony with her…as if I’d witnessed it first-hand.

“There, in the backseat, was a tiny, little boy, the color of a grape.” She paused to regain her composure. “I knew before we ever touched him, he was gone. But Max tried to get to him anyhow. He raced back to the car to get a tire iron to bust the window, and by that time, people were trying to break the glass with anything they could find.”

“Did Ms. Jackson ever move during the commotion?”

“No, Sir. She was in almost as bad a shape as the little boy.”

“Did you break the window?”

“No. Max did. But not the one next to the little boy. He broke the one in front of him to unlock the doors and not risk cutting him with broken glass. I called 9-1-1 as soon as Max took over.”



*

It was difficult to put the pieces in the order they’d happened, but the lineup of witnesses was called in the order they’d come to the scene, I assumed in an effort to keep the timeline concise for the jury.

“Can you state your name and position for the court?” Jethro had his attention first.

“Drew Sullivan. Andrew Sullivan, sir. I’m a Fire Engineer at Station Twelve on Engine Twelve.” He shifted uncomfortably in the hard, wooden chair next to the judge. Each time he spoke, he leaned into the microphone with hesitation, and his left hand automatically went to the back of his neck worrying the muscles I’m sure were tense.

“How long have you been with the station?” Each attorney either wanted to establish the credibility of the person on the stand or discredit it. These people were fortunate, though; no one was trying to tear apart their words. Jethro wanted to appeal to the depravity of the situation they’d faced that day. He played on their heart in hopes of weakening the jury.

I wasn’t interested in Drew’s tenure as a fireman and tuned out his words to study him instead. There wasn’t a wedding band present on the hand continually massaging his neck. The soft gray eyes followed my attorney as he moved. He hadn’t even begun to tell the court what he’d seen that day, but I was struck by the profound effect this seemed to have on him.

“I was the first one out of the truck. We didn’t have a lot of details on the call, but I knew there was an infant in bad shape.” He hesitated. This was going to be tough. “Those are the worst calls to get.”

This was more than a job to this man. In the few words he’d spoken, I could already discern, this was his life’s calling.

“The car doors were open on both sides of the vehicle, but I went to the back seat where the crowd was heaviest. EMS was only a minute or two behind us, but for a baby that was life or death.” He chewed on his lip, his eyes closed, and his brow furrowed as he recalled that day in the Texas sun. “I’m not good with those belts used to hold babies in car seats, so I didn’t try to get him out. I unbuckled the belt holding the seat in the car and ran back to the truck with the baby still in the car seat. I didn’t know if he had a chance, but if I didn’t get his body temperature down, there would be no saving him. In hindsight, the truck probably wasn’t the best place to go. CPR would have been difficult in the confined space, but the AC was already on, and it had to have been thirty degrees cooler in there than outside.”

“What did the other men on your team do when you rushed to the truck?”

“Began to secure the scene, sir. I assume they got people away from the vehicle and blocked it off. Helped Ms. Jackson. I don’t know, to be honest. My focus was the little boy in my arms.”

“Can you tell the court what Joshua looked like when you reached him?” My attorney used his name repeatedly to make him real to the jury. The prosecutor referred to him as the deceased or victim to detach them from the reality that this was a child. Make it less personal.