“Miss, when will the ambulance arrive? Her fever is pushing 104, and nothing seems to break it…”
“The crews are all out at the moment,” replied a tired female voice. “Please wait.”
Barely holding back tears, Lucy hung up the phone and rushed to her daughter. Little Sophie lay on the couch, covered with a light sheet, struggling to breathe. The five-year-old’s body was burning with a fever, relentlessly nearing 104 degrees.
The doorbell rang unexpectedly loud. Lucy jumped up, nearly stumbling, and dashed to the door.
“The fever’s coming down, the medicine’s working. She’s got wheezing on both sides. I recommend hospitalization,” said a tall, grey-haired man, rubbing his nose wearily while a young nurse packed away a syringe.
“Can’t we manage at home?”
“You can’t. We’ll go to the hospital for monitoring.”
Lucy grabbed her passport and a bag of essentials as she stepped into the hallway. “Let me just get Sophie ready and… wait, who are you?”
Coming through the open door was an ambulance crew: a stocky bearded doctor around forty, a thin paramedic in glasses carrying a medical kit, and a freckled, redheaded intern.
“Did someone call an ambulance?” the bearded doctor asked.
“Yes, but… there was another doctor,” Lucy said, confused.
“Another?” the young intern chimed in.
“He was tall, grey-haired. He got Sophie’s fever down and said we need to go to the hospital…” Lucy replied, still puzzled.
The doctor and paramedic exchanged glances.
“Semonovich!”
“Did two crews get sent to one call?” the intern wondered in surprise.
The bearded doctor turned to Lucy: “Dress the girl. We’ll take you to the hospital.”
Lucy returned to the room. The surprised intern asked the doctor, “Aren’t we even going to examine her?”
“Semonovich doesn’t make mistakes!”
“Who is this Semonovich?”
The paramedic chuckled, “Semonovich was the most experienced specialist on the force. Several times, they tried to recruit him to London, but he always refused. He said he was meant to save lives, not sit in an office.
A year ago, Semonovich’s team was on an emergency call when some idiot cut in front of their ambulance. There were no survivors. But forty days later, odd things started happening in the city.
One time, a young lad was stabbed on the street. They called the dispatcher about a stab wound in the liver area. When we arrived, he was lying there bandaged, with a drip held by some man. We asked who helped him first? The man said, ‘The ambulance was just here, a tall, grey-haired doctor and a very young nurse handled it. The doctor told me how to hold it… I just turned for a second to check if he was breathing, and then you arrived. Where’s the grey-haired doctor?'”
We got chills, because by the description, it was Semonovich with his crew. We took the lad to the hospital, noted in the file that first aid was provided before our arrival but left Semonovich unmentioned. Only later did people start speaking openly about him at the station. We were in shock that day.
“And nobody would have believed us,” chuckled the paramedic.
The bearded doctor adjusted his stethoscope and continued: “A few days later, a worker fell in a warehouse – stroke and head injury. By the time city medics arrived, ‘the tall, grey-haired doctor and the young nurse’ had set up a drip, given oxygen, and announced the diagnosis, only to vanish as if they’d never been.
“How about the childbirth at the traffic light, remember?” the paramedic grinned, adjusting his glasses.
“The ghosts even delivered a baby?” the red-haired intern blurted.
“Watch your words,” the doctor frowned. “I don’t know what ‘Semonovich’s crew’ became, but they’re not ghosts. More like guardian angels for our town.”
“Sorry…” the intern blushed, his ears burning. “So, what happened with the birth?”
“A taxi driver was taking a woman to the hospital: thirty-four, second child, thirty-nine weeks. She went into labor at a stoplight. The driver panicked, put on the hazards, and called for an ambulance. Didn’t know what to do, ran around the car shouting for help. The dispatcher told him to switch the phone to speaker, but he was in hysterics, couldn’t think straight.
That’s when Semonovich and his nurse came to help. The baby was breech, with the cord wrapped around the neck. Without their intervention, the child wouldn’t have survived. Soon after, the ambulance arrived and took the relieved mother and her screaming healthy baby.
There were so many cases like that over the year, couldn’t count them all. ‘Semonovich’s crew’ only shows up for the direst cases. Without them, many wouldn’t have lived to see the city medics.”
“We’re ready,” Lucy said, coming into the hallway with her daughter. The bearded doctor took the bag from her and smiled reassuringly at the little girl, “Everything’s going to be alright now.”
