The door swung hard, and a jagged strip of torn metal—thin and sharp as a razor—slashed deep into her right thigh. The pain didn’t come all at once. First there was only the blunt shock of impact, then a wash of cold, then fire.
Valerie looked down and saw her pant leg split wide open. Beneath it was a long gaping wound running from mid-thigh almost to the knee. It was deep, ragged, with pale strands of damaged tissue showing.
The edges of her vision darkened. She clamped one hand over the wound and grabbed the bumper with the other. She forced herself to breathe slowly, counting each breath: in for four, out for six.
It was an old field trick, one she had used for years to keep from blacking out in shock. Not now. Not here. When the darkness eased a little, she looked more carefully.
Her hand was covered in blood, but it wasn’t arterial. No pulsing spray. Venous bleeding. Bad, but manageable.
She climbed back into the SUV through the passenger side and reached for the field kit behind the seat. Her hands barely worked. The zipper fought her. Finally she got out sterile gauze, antiseptic, and butterfly closures.
She treated the wound as best she could: flushed it heavily, pulled the edges together with the butterfly strips, then wrapped the leg tight with bandage. She worked fast and automatically, the way she had done hundreds of times before—just never on herself.
Then she pulled out her phone. The screen had cracked in the fall, but it still lit up. She tried calling 911. No service.
She raised the phone high, then climbed onto the seat and up through the window onto the roof, balancing on the slick metal. Still no signal. Not one bar. She climbed back down.
She sat on the passenger seat with the injured leg hanging outside. The thigh throbbed with every movement. She looked up at the edge of the gully.
The road was only about twenty feet away, up a steep muddy bank covered in slick grass and scrub willow. For a healthy person, it would have been nothing. For a pregnant woman with a torn thigh, it might as well have been a cliff.
The sun was already dropping behind the trees. Darkness would come fast. Mosquitoes had started their evening shift: first one whining near her ear, then ten, then a whole cloud of them.
Valerie dragged an old canvas car cover from the back and wrapped herself in it as best she could against the bugs and the cold. She locked the door from the inside. Then she lay down across the back seat, folding herself as carefully as she could.
Her belly made everything awkward, but eventually she found a position she could tolerate. The dark came quickly, and the woods came alive. Branches cracked. Something rustled. Water gurgled somewhere close.
Far off, an owl called. Mosquitoes tapped against the glass. The baby moved inside her—once, twice, three times—like a little knock from within.
“I’m here, sweetheart. I know. I know,” she whispered into the dark and closed her eyes.
Morning came gray and unfriendly.
The sky was packed with low clouds, and the light that filtered through was flat and colorless. Valerie woke to a bright stab of pain. Her thigh burned, and the bandage was soaked through with blood and fluid. She carefully unwound it and looked.
The wound edges were red and swollen, hot to the touch. Infection was starting. She cleaned it with what little she had left.
That used up more antiseptic and the last clean bandage in the kit. She closed her eyes and counted supplies. About a liter of clean water, maybe a little more. Half a sleeve of crackers in the glove compartment.
The medical kit was nearly empty now: a rubber tourniquet, one syringe, one ampule of strong pain medication. She decided to try getting out again. Leaning on her hands, she worked her way along the gully, grabbing branches.
The injured leg would not hold her. Every step sent an electric bolt of pain from thigh to lower back. The slope was slick with wet clay.
She made it up a yard or two and slid right back down into the mud. Teeth clenched, she tried again. And again.
On the fourth try, the realization hit her hard: she could not do it. She sank onto the wet ground, pressed muddy hands to her face, and sat that way for a minute or two. She didn’t cry. She simply didn’t have the energy. She just breathed.
Then she made herself stand. “Okay,” she said out loud to no one. “Then we wait.”
And waiting, she knew how to do. In remote field hospitals, wounded people sometimes waited days for evacuation. The essentials were simple: conserve water, stay warm, protect the wound. Everything else was endurance.
