The blonde blinked as if waking from a fog, but then took the phone. “Of course.”
“Good.”
She put his phone to her ear and said, “Hello?”
“Where is Mr. Tindal,and who am I speaking to?” the dispatcher asked.
Mr. Tindal, that was his name.She filed his name away in her memory as the man who’d saved her life. “He’s checking for wounded, but I’ll stay on the line,” Christie said. “I’m Christie.”
“All right, Christie. Stay with me until the police arrive, and let me know what’s happening.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Christie watched Mr. Tindal moving quickly, his glance going up and down aisles, while he reassured theater patrons that everything was over and would be okay now. His expression hardened when he found the man who’d called out that he’d been shot.
The dispatcher asked, “Ask Mr. Tindal how many are injured?”
“Okay. Hang on. I have to move down to where he is right now. He’s with a man who got shot.”
“Keep talking to me. Tell me what’s happening.”
“Well, I won’t really know ‘til I get down there.”
“Okay, just stay on the line.”
“I will.” Christie started moving down toward where Mr. Tidal was. The wounded man who’d shouted out was in a theater seat and Mr. Tindal was getting the nearby patrons to move out of the way so he could get to him.
As Christie got nearer, she saw the man had been shot in the arm. Blood was everywhere and the man’s skin was pale as if he’s already lost too much blood. And the man in the row behind him, also shot, bleeding from his arm. She breathed in sharp, the images nearly stopping her.
The dispatcher, who’d been listening said, “What is it? Christie are you all right?”
Nausea hit her stomach and she pressed her free hand to her belly to try to calm it back down. She couldn’t get sick at the sight of blood, she had to pull herself together. “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “There’s just a lot of blood. Two men have been shot. I’m down here with Mr. Tindal now.”
Mr. Tindal pulled something out of his pocket then started to unwind a strap of some kind. He opened the thing into what looked like a circle.
“He’s got something he’s making into a circle.”
“That’s probably a tourniquet.”
“I feel like I should be helping him,” Christie said.
“Do you have any medical training?”
“No.”
“If he’s in the Navy, he may have been trained as a corpsman. He’ll know what to do until the ambulance arrives. You just stay on the line.”
In the distance, Christie could hear the sirens. “I hear sirens now.”
“They’re almost there. You just hang on.”
Christie reached Mr. Tindal, and he glanced up and gave her a nod. “Put the call on speaker, so you can put it down and help me.”
“Okay.” She tapped the speaker setting and said, “You’re on speaker phone now, so you can hear both of us. I need to help him.”
“Tell me what’s happening,” the dispatcher said.
Mr. Tindal responded, “We’ve got two men shot, both in the arm. Need tourniquets. I have two with me.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out another tourniquet, and handed it to Christie. “You’re going to put this one on that guy while I do this guy.”
