It was another fast drive along the M4 for Liana and her night partner, John who was still coughing away as he was recovering from his autumn flu but he knew if he wasn’t quick tonight, a few innocent lives could be lost. He was informed by Nick from the highways agency that some traffic was building up near Heathrow, so John switched on the ever so famous blue lights of his vehicle. There were many thoughts on Liana’s mind as they whizzed past various motorway signs.
Liana was a nurse employed by the NHS who was doing her internship at the Hounslow A&E. Last week she learnt that the Hounslow branch generally responded to emergencies in Middlesex but today she was in an ambulance that was driving like a bullet towards Maidenhead in Berkshire.
In her line of work, Liana knew not to ask too many questions, but even she knew that Maidenhead did not belong to the Hounslow A& E. Then again, she was thinking only for her self because she just remembered how annoyed John was when he was asked to accompany Liana to Maidenhead on this distress call. The first thing that John said was the staple four letter swear word and then a sentence that Liana would only hear in a nasty old western drama.
John was a person who would never go out of his way to do anything. He definitely was in the wrong line of work, Liana thought. Then again, he had served the NHS for nearly 20 years. Maybe he was bored with his job, but what ever it was he had no time to ponder as today’s call came right from the top. The director of the branch, Rebecca Lee herself called John and asked him to drive the ambulance. This was quite odd John thought. But even he knew not to ask too many questions from the director.
John wasn’t happy to have an immigrant intern to be his night partner that day. He was utterly dismayed to see this petite girl getting onto the ambulance with him. For a minute he thought she was not going to make it to the ambulance as she slipped on the long corridor that led to the emergency car park. ‘Careless little girl’ he thought.
Liana had a very steep learning curve in her new job as a nurse. She always saw the good in people and when she was young, everyone used to say she had a kind heart. In the back of her mind, she always wanted to become a doctor. She studied bio science for her A/L’s back in Srilanka, where she was born and bread for over 21 years. Life wasn’t easy for her back then. She lost her father when she was quite young and was brought up by her mother who struggled to make ends meet on her own. Liana had an elder sister who managed to get into a local university in Colombo. She was studying architecture which was one of the lengthiest courses in the local curriculum. Liana on the other hand didn’t get enough marks to get into the medical college, so she did a course in nursing and worked in a private hospital until she was offered a work permit to go to UK. There was massive human resource erosion in the country. Everyone wanted to go abroad and make money. For Liana, it wasn’t the money it self. It had been a struggle for her all through out her life. She did not know a world beyond problems. Her poor mother was now ailing and with her sister still at college, Liana knew she had to become the bread winner of her family.
She met a traveler from the UK called Nathaniel at the A&E in Colombo once. He had tripped over in his hotel room and had a broken wrist. Liana looked after him. He was a young man who had quite a good knowledge about the world. He was quite an interesting character whose charm and wit had taken him a long way all throughout his travels. It was whilst talking to him that Liana found out that U.K had a dearth of qualified nurses. This prompted her to search for more information on visiting the U.K. After 3 months of meeting Nathaniel, Liana’s work permit to U.K was granted and here she was now, working for one of the most prestigious health care services in the world.
The ambulance suddenly came to a screeching halt. If not for the seat belt, Liana would have flown through the windscreen. Some colourful words flew out from Johns’ mouth as he overtook the mini that blocked their way. They passed a massive electronic gantry that said 12 minutes to Maidenhead. The traffic was steadily building up but the speed of the ambulance did not change.
They were just about to turn off to junction 8/9 when Liana spotted a man desperately trying to pull out someone from what looked like an expensive sports car. When the ambulance closed in, this man came running towards it and started yelling. Apparently the man in the overturned sports car had tried to over take his little micra which was now visible on the slip road. According to the owner of the micra, as soon as the expensive sports car overtook the small hatch back, it swerved and toppled over. Liana could see the small micra on the slow lane of the motorway and realized that the on coming traffic might create another accident. She requested the man to move his car to the emergency lane and moved closer to the over turned sports car. Inside was a man who was definitely in his early 30’s wearing a nice suit who was desperately trying to breathe through the smoke. He had deep cuts in one of his arms and legs. Liana managed to free the man from his seat belt and the man slithered through the front passenger side window which was broken into pieces.
As Liana tried pulling the wounded man out of his expensive car, John parked the ambulance on one side of the slip road and came running towards the scene of the accident. The moment he saw the face of the slithering creature, Johns’ face turned white. Liana didn’t see this sudden change of emotion in John’s face. She was hoping that the smoke from the toppled car would diminish and the man in the nice suit would be safe. To her surprise the smoke stopped but she could hear an ambulance speeding away from them. This is when she realize that John had sped away in the ambulance. “Why did he do that”? There was no time to ponder. Liana saw the deep cut in the mans arm and tried to find a clean piece of cloth to stop the bleeding. She had no choice but to take a strip of her white blouse as the emergency care kit was in the ambulance. She tied it around the mans wounds to stop the bleeding and then pulled the man away from the accident.
The man was trying to tell something to her but she couldn’t quite make out what he was on about. Suddenly a set of 4x4’s came whizzing towards them and a few people got off and came running towards them. One of them shouted out, “Mr. Dick, are you alright”? Even before the man could reply, there were plenty of flash lights going off. This is when Liana realized that they were surrounded by Paparazzi. These people weren’t interested about the man’s wellbeing. They just wanted a picture of him. Liana had to take immediate action. She ran towards the abandoned micra which still had its keys in the ignition. She drove it towards the mob who was clicking away with their cameras. The paps took cover as she slammed the breaks of the small hatchback. By this time the injured man was up and was looking around to find a known face. Liana opened the passenger side door and signaled him to get in. Without thinking twice, Liana did an impossible 360 and pressed on the accelerator. She drove past the paparazzi frenzy and took a left turn towards the A340. She had been on this road before but never had she driven on her own. There was a mad rush of adrenaline pumping through her body. She knew she had to get this man away from the cameras and to a hospital as fast as she could.
Dick felt a bit dazed and fainted twice in the car. This was due to the loss of blood. He looked at Liana and gave a very bemused look. Liana could now see the massive 4x4’s following her. It reminded her of something out of the discovery channel where a young Deer cub was being chased by a pack of wolves. Liana managed to pass a few traffic lights just in the nick of time and managed to loose the paps for 5 minutes. This gave her enough time to squeeze through the traffic in front. She was now in front of the Hounslow A&E. She drove the car right into the corridor that led to the emergency car park and pressed on the breaks bringing the car to a screeching halt. Luckily there was an unattended wheel chair outside and Liana didn’t spare a moment. She quickly managed to get Dick onto it and pushed him into the A&E. Liana’s colleague Esther who was near the reception and hearing the commotion, came running into help her. Esther managed to open the emergency theatre door where they could see men in masks waiting for their next emergency victim. Liana felt relieved when she saw them. She knew her job was done. Dick held her hand as if to thank her for all what she had done for him.
Everything was coming back to her now. John leaving the scene, the paparazzi, her crazy drive to the hospital… So many questions sprung up in her mind but were disturbed by the loud news bulletin which came out of the ceiling hung TV. The news presenter looked a bit ruffled by what he had to read on the tele prompter. He paused for a minute and then started slowly. “The leader of the British National Party, Mr. Dick Frin met with an accident on the M4 whilst driving back to his constituency after taking part in a controversial BBC news night programme this evening”. Things were beginning to be clear inside Liana’s mind now. She had just saved the life of a leader of one of the most hated political parties in the country; the BNP. Liana just remembered one of her colleagues telling her long time ago that the media should not give these racist parties any coverage. Liana responded to him by saying if they were racists, then the best thing to do was to let them appear on television so that the public would get to know about their real cause and motivations. After all, it’s a democratic country and we should allow freedom of speech, even though this freedom will be categorically misused by them.
Liana still couldn’t understand why John left the scene, leaving her to deal with the situation. Maybe it had to do something with her wife who left him and got married to a staunch BNP supporter. It does sound a bit petty, but John was a very stubborn man.
This whole thing certainly has been a surreal experience for Liana.
The following morning’s papers had some great headlines. One of them had this in its front page as the main headline ‘Indigenous BNP leader saved by migrant nurse’.
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