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CHAPTER FIVE
"911 Emergency."
Silence.
"Is anyone there? Can you talk? Hello?" Margaret Owens, 911 day emergency dispatcher for the city of Chandler, tapped a pencil on the desk she was sitting at. This was the fifty-third call that she and a few other co-workers had received in the past five minutes. She had never experienced anything like this. Most emergencies had fixable endings. You sent a squad car, or an ambulance or dispatched a fire truck to take care of the problem. This time, though, something was different. Too many calls were coming from inside the school, where students where still hiding or trapped. Margaret couldn't fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. She knew there were shots coming from inside the school but,, nobody knew who was shooting them or why. The phone at the desk across from her rang. A fellow dispatcher answered. It, too, was from inside the school. Sweat drops ran down the back of her neck. She glanced at her computer screen, the call she had just answered was coming from inside the school again.
"Hang in there, we have officers on the way. Can you tell me your name?" Margaret could hear heavy breathing and a whimpering.
"It's me."
Margaret glanced at the time. 11:52 A.M. "Me," she thought, "who could 'me' be?" After all, she had fielded a large number of calls in a handful of minutes.
"From the closet."
Immediately it all made sense.
"Yes," she replied back sensitively, "where are you now?"
"Uh, I don't know. Wait. Boys bathroom. Third floor."
"Are you safe?"
"I think. I don't know."
"What happened?"
Silence.
"Are you still there?" Margaret said a number of times. It was her job toalways keep the caller on the line.
"Yes. I was in the janitor's closet." Static again. "A guy from my philosophy class found me. He's been shot in the leg. He's bleeding everywhere. Oh God, he's bleeding everywhere. What do we do?"
"Try to settle down. Where is he now?"
"In the stall next to me. We have our feet up so if anyone comes in they won't see us. But the blood, it's dripping everywhere. It's all over the floor!" She started to cry again.
"You're going to be all right," Margaret reassured her. "All right? I mean it. You have my word. Now, is there anything, like a cloth or something, that you can put over the wound. I want you to try to put something on the wound and apply pressure. Gently, now."
"Uh, uh, I don't know." The girl looked down at her feet. "My socks. One of my cheerleading socks. Would that work?"
"Uh, sure. Just something." Margaret had never advised dressing a wound with a sock, but if there was nothing else it would have to work. She listened closely as the girl struggled to get her sock off, and then moved into the stall where the young man was.
"Now what?"
"Do you see where the blood is coming from?"
"No, I mean yes. Oh, it's so gross. I can't do this."
"Yes you can. You can."
The girl started to sob again.
"Can you raise his leg? Use your sock and apply direct pressure to the wound." Margaret stopped. She heard a tremendous popping noise behind the heavy breathing. "Are you there?"
"Yeah. What was that?"
"Did it sound like the gunshots you heard before?"
"No. It was just one big bang. What was it? What is it?"
Margaret signaled her supervisor over. She grabbed a piece of paper scribbling down something...
I think there are bombs inside. Second floor. Close to the men's restroom.
Her supervisor immediately radioed one of the squad cars in Columbus High's parking lot.Margaret heard another explosion. Then another. A scream from the girl on the other end of the line made the hair on the back of her neck stick up. Another explosion ripped through the phone line, almost causing Margaret to yank her headphone out of her ear. It sounded like it could have been planted somewhere in the bathroom. The phone clicked off and a resonant dead tone told her ears that she wasn't helping any longer. Did she just hear the fate of two young lives?
Margaret grabbed onto her stomach. Her job wasn't just about emergencies now, but getting as many students out of that school as possible. Margaret clicked off. All she could do now was wait. She wanted to bring a message of hope. But, that could only be done in person. For now, she would have to wait. The phone was the closest she was going to get.
"If there's a God in heaven," she whispered to herself, "I pray that you're with that girl. That you're with all of them."
