“Miss, please, when will the ambulance arrive? Her temperature is almost one hundred and four. It’s not going down at all…”
“All our crews are currently on calls,” replied a tired female voice. “Please hold on.”
Holding back tears, Lucy hung up the phone and rushed to her daughter. Little Sophie lay on the couch, covered with a light sheet, breathing heavily. The five-year-old’s small body was aflame with fever; her temperature wouldn’t drop, edging closer to an alarming one hundred and four degrees.
The doorbell rang loudly, catching Lucy off guard. She jumped up, nearly losing her balance, and hurried to the door.
“The temperature is decreasing; the medication’s working. The child has bilateral wheezing. I recommend hospitalization,” a tall, grey-haired man said, tiredly rubbing the bridge of his nose, while a young nurse placed the syringe back into the box.
“Can’t we handle it at home?”
“You can’t manage it. We’ll go to the hospital for observation.”
With her passport and a bag of essentials, Lucy stepped into the hallway.
“I’ll get Sophie dressed and… Oh, who are you?”
A new ambulance team was at the door: a stocky, bearded doctor around forty, a slender paramedic of thirty-two wearing glasses with a medical bag, and a freckled, red-haired intern.
“Did you call for the ambulance?” asked the bearded doctor.
“Yes, but… There was another doctor here,” Lucy said, confused.
“What other doctor?” interjected the young intern.
“Well… a tall, grey-haired one. He lowered Sophie’s fever and said we needed to go to the hospital…” the young woman explained, bewildered.
The doctor and paramedic exchanged glances.
“Could it be Pearson?”
“Two teams sent for one call?” the intern wondered aloud.
The bearded doctor addressed the young woman:
“Get your daughter dressed. We’ll take you to the hospital.”
Lucy went back into the room. The curious intern questioned the doctor:
“Aren’t we even going to examine her?”
“Pearson never gets it wrong!”
“Who’s this Pearson anyway?”
The paramedic chuckled softly.
“Pearson used to be the most experienced medic on the ambulance service. He got offers from London time and time again, but he always turned them down. Said his job was saving lives, not warming a chair in an office. A year ago, Pearson’s team was rushing to an urgent call when a reckless driver tried to beat the ambulance.”
The paramedic paused, eyes downcast. The bearded doctor patted his shoulder and continued:
“There were no survivors in that crash. But forty days later, strange things began happening around town.”
“Some thugs slashed a young lad on the street. An anonymous call came into dispatch: stab wounds near the liver. It was our shift then. We arrive, and there’s the lad on the ground with a bandage, and some bloke holding an IV. We ask who gave first aid? The man says, ‘The ambulance just left, tall, grey-haired doctor and a young nurse helped. They put up the IV. The doctor told me to hold it this way… I looked away for a moment to check if the boy was breathing, and then you arrived. But where did that grey-haired doctor go?'”
“And we get chills down our spines. From the description, it was Pearson and his team who gave the first aid. We took the lad to hospital and noted the first aid was given before we arrived but didn’t mention Pearson. The station started openly discussing him later. That day, we were just shocked.”
“And no one would’ve believed us!” the paramedic chuckled. The bearded doctor adjusted his stethoscope and carried on:
“A few days later, a worker fell in a warehouse: stroke and head injury. By the time the city ambulance arrived, the ‘tall, grey-haired doctor and young nurse’ had provided first aid, administered an IV, given oxygen, and diagnosed him. ‘Then they vanished into thin air.'”
“Remember the childbirth at the traffic lights?” the paramedic smiled, adjusting his glasses.
“What, did ghosts deliver a baby?” the redheaded intern asked, surprised.
“Watch your words,” the doctor frowned. “I don’t know what Pearson’s ‘team’ became, but they certainly aren’t ghosts. More like guardian angels of the town.”
“Sorry…” the intern blushed, his ears burning. “So, what happened with the birth?”
“A taxi driver was taking a woman to the maternity ward: thirty-four, second child, thirty-nine weeks along. He stops at a red light, and premature labor starts. The taxi driver panics, puts on the hazards, calls for an ambulance, but has no idea what to do, running around screaming for help. The dispatcher says, ‘Sir, calm down, put your phone on speaker, and I’ll guide you.’ But the man was in such a state, he couldn’t think straight.”
“That’s when Pearson and his nurse came to the rescue. The baby was coming feet first, with the cord around its neck. If it wasn’t for them, the baby wouldn’t have survived. Then the ambulance arrived and took the happy mom and healthy, wailing baby off.”
“There’s been so many cases like that over the year, it’s hard to even remember them all. Pearson’s team only appears for the toughest cases. Without Pearson, none of those patients would’ve survived until the city ambulance got there. That’s how it is.”
“We’re ready,” Lucy said, coming out into the hallway with her daughter. The bearded doctor took the bag from her and smiled at little Sophie:
“Everything’s going to be just fine now.”
