Irreversible Tragedy
July 13, 2009
Stockholm, Sweden
Per Norgaard’s sister Kristina, an emergency flight nurse living in Stockholm, sat before her computer composing a letter to her brother, telling him about the traumatic accident which she’d worked earlier in the day. A van with a group of tourists had lost control on the wet road on the Uddevalla Bridge and tumbled off onto the rocks near where the body of author Horst Hellestrom had been recovered last year. Kristina felt as if she was in a fog. The day’s events relentlessly replayed themselves in her mind as she described them for her brother.
“No one left alive here.”
Kristina’s paramedic Hendrik Mjirnik’s voice had been eerily quiet as he issued that starkly final statement. A van with a group of women and their children had plunged from the road after hitting a slick spot during the recent rainstorm. The accident was one of the worst that Kristina had seen in her 38 years as a nurse. Thirty of those years had been spent as part of the emergency flight team. In that time she’d been part of some wonderful miracles, saving lives that couldn’t have been saved without the assistance of herself and the rest of the emergency flight crew. Those times made Kristina go home elated. Times like this made her want to retire early.
“Shit, it’s probably a good thing none of them survived,” Hendrik remarked. “Mangled as they are, there’s no way they could have had anything close to a normal life again. Man, the little kids! It’s always worst when there’s little kids.”
“Even teenagers,” Kristina said quietly. “My niece and nephew are teens now. Sometimes I see their faces when we work an accident. I think how much they mean to my brother...and to me…”
Kristina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Hendrik, who had become like a brother to her in the six years that they’d worked together, put his arm around her. His eyes were moist.
“It’s ok, Mama Bear,” he said softly. “This one’s gonna stick with me too. I’m gonna go home and hug Vikki and Elke as tight as I can and the whole time be seeing these little ones. Vik’s getting to the age where it makes her crazy how clingy I get after an accident like this. My ten-year-old daughter called me “overprotective” yesterday, Kris. What do you think of that?”
“Tell her that Aunt Krissi says she’s a precocious little runt,” Kristina laughed through her tears. “And I’ll give her a great big annoying hug when I next see her.”
Kristina wiped her eyes again.
“I love you, Moose,” she said. “You’re a great partner. Most of the time when we work together I think that I don’t ever want to retire. Days like this when we find nothing but broken bodies to be collected for the funeral home, I could retire tomorrow and not look back.”
“Hell, Kris, you and I both know we’ll be doing this when we’re ninety if we can. It’s like a fuckin’ drug. Even with times like this.”
“When you’re thirty-five, you think so. But I’m closing in on sixty. Realistically, I want to keep going until I hit seventy, if I can. Then I’m done.”
“All in, Kids,” pilot Nyssa Nielsen called. “Join the fucking party! This is one of the most discouraging flights I’ve ever made. Days like this I feel like going to work with my parents in their exotic imports shop. I’d rather be selling bone china than picking up children with every bone in their little bodies broken.”
“I don’t think Nyss is much longer for this job,” Hendrik told Kristina once they were airborne. “She’s been dissatisfied for awhile now. Nightmares too.”
“Don’t get me started on nightmares,” Kristina said. “My brother Per would have these horrible nightmares when we were growing up. It was hard to wake him from them. You’d have to be careful how you approached him because if he was still in the dream he might hit you, not knowing who you were. He’s really psychic too. Kind of spooky sometimes how he knows just what people are feeling. My father and I have psychic tendencies too but not the way Per does. Pappa can see ghosts. I can feel presences. But Per can both see and talk to them. I knew something bad was coming because of how restless I was all last night, but I didn’t know what it would be. How about you, Hendrik? Any psychic abilities, or just general psychosis?”
Hendrik laughed softly and looked out the chopper window.
“I dreamed about this last night,” he said. “About the van upside down on that ledge. Everything was surrounded by clouds, and the sun was very, very bright. And there was such a feeling of sadness.”
“That sounds like the kind of dreams Per has,” Kristina said. “He’s a funny guy, my brother. He acts goofy and silly so much of the time, trying to make everybody laugh, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that he’s actually a very sensitive soul. I’ve been thinking about him a lot the past few days. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
“He’d let you know if there was, don’t you think?”
“Not necessarily. He doesn’t like to trouble people. I’ll call him tonight. I’m probably just working myself into a state. This call really took the wind out of my sails.”
“Mine too. I hope they’ll let us go home after decompressing us.”
“Decompressing?” Kristina laughed. “Hendrik, you’d think we’d been deep-sea diving the way you talk!”
“That would be a hell of a job, huh? Ocean rescue. Did you ever think about doing water rescue, Kris?”
“No, because though I don’t get airsick, I get seasick and violently so. Per always loved going on sea cruises when we were kids. I had to stay ashore with Aunt Belva because I’d end up puking the whole time. Then Per would come back and make me so jealous, telling me about all the great sea life. Narwhals and walruses and such. Then I’d make him jealous telling him about all the fun I had with Aunt Belva, going to theatre and to lovely restaurants. I came to find out later that the only reason Mum went on those trips was because she was worried sick that Per was going to do something stupid and fall off the edge of the boat if she wasn’t there to watch him. He was always monkeying around and Dad, wonderful though he is, was often in his own world dreaming up new inventions while Per ran wild. Mum always said that I was the sensible one and that Per was too much the daredevil. Now the tables are turned. Per stays put nice and stable on the ground in London and I’m riding in helicopters. Funny how things turn out sometimes.”
“That’s the thing about kids. Just when you think you know them, they throw you a curve. I often think Vikki does it on purpose. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know my own daughter. I always thought she was such a little princess. Then, the other day, she springs on me that she has designs on being a helicopter pilot like Nyssa. Still, I’m so grateful to have these surprises. Today there will be several fathers receiving the news that they won’t get to watch their kids grow up.”
Hendrik’s voice cracked and his eyes filled with tears. Kristina reached for his hand and gripped it tightly as he broke down.
“Sometimes I hate this fucking job!” he sobbed.
The helicopter approached the hospital rooftop. Kristina suddenly felt angry. Why bother going to the hospital? These poor souls were quite dead. Stupid fucking formality and stupid fucking paperwork to follow. She didn’t want to hang around the hospital filling out reams of paperwork. Right now she just wanted to go home and curl up with a glass of wine and some chocolate and then sleep for a long, long time. Later, or maybe tomorrow, she would call her parents and her brother and find out how they were doing. Then she would call Hendrik and maybe he and his wife Celia could join Kristina and her partner Tafui for dinner and the healing could begin for them.
At times like these, Kristina thought that the world was a rather awful place and her faith was tainted by the fear that the benevolent deity she usually believed in was actually either cruel or apathetic. Such thoughts were counterproductive, serving only to make her panicky and depressed, so she pushed them to the back of her mind and concentrated on the clinical aspects of what needed to be done next.
The chopper touched down. Attendants stood by waiting to bring the bodies inside. There was no rush of helpful medical personnel ready to save lives, for there were no lives to be saved. The only things to come were the anguished sobs of family members given the news that they would never see their loved ones alive again, and the covert weeping during post-trauma counseling of those who had wished there was something they could do to help. Though they would never forget the situation, these helpful professionals would usually be able to move on to the next step in their lives. The families of the accident victims wouldn’t begin healing for a long time and would really never fully do so.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as Kristina and Hendrik helped the hospital personnel unload the shrouded bodies, and everything remained dreamlike until Kristina was at last home where she could release her anguish in a protracted, helpless scream.
Kristina’s face was soaked with tears. She wished that Tafui would hurry and come home. She was so desperate to be held and comforted that she put the disconcerting thought that Taffi seemed to be pulling away from her out of her mind and clung to the illusion of love that she so desperately needed right now.
July 13, 2009
Stockholm, Sweden
Per Norgaard’s sister Kristina, an emergency flight nurse living in Stockholm, sat before her computer composing a letter to her brother, telling him about the traumatic accident which she’d worked earlier in the day. A van with a group of tourists had lost control on the wet road on the Uddevalla Bridge and tumbled off onto the rocks near where the body of author Horst Hellestrom had been recovered last year. Kristina felt as if she was in a fog. The day’s events relentlessly replayed themselves in her mind as she described them for her brother.
“No one left alive here.”
Kristina’s paramedic Hendrik Mjirnik’s voice had been eerily quiet as he issued that starkly final statement. A van with a group of women and their children had plunged from the road after hitting a slick spot during the recent rainstorm. The accident was one of the worst that Kristina had seen in her 38 years as a nurse. Thirty of those years had been spent as part of the emergency flight team. In that time she’d been part of some wonderful miracles, saving lives that couldn’t have been saved without the assistance of herself and the rest of the emergency flight crew. Those times made Kristina go home elated. Times like this made her want to retire early.
“Shit, it’s probably a good thing none of them survived,” Hendrik remarked. “Mangled as they are, there’s no way they could have had anything close to a normal life again. Man, the little kids! It’s always worst when there’s little kids.”
“Even teenagers,” Kristina said quietly. “My niece and nephew are teens now. Sometimes I see their faces when we work an accident. I think how much they mean to my brother...and to me…”
Kristina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Hendrik, who had become like a brother to her in the six years that they’d worked together, put his arm around her. His eyes were moist.
“It’s ok, Mama Bear,” he said softly. “This one’s gonna stick with me too. I’m gonna go home and hug Vikki and Elke as tight as I can and the whole time be seeing these little ones. Vik’s getting to the age where it makes her crazy how clingy I get after an accident like this. My ten-year-old daughter called me “overprotective” yesterday, Kris. What do you think of that?”
“Tell her that Aunt Krissi says she’s a precocious little runt,” Kristina laughed through her tears. “And I’ll give her a great big annoying hug when I next see her.”
Kristina wiped her eyes again.
“I love you, Moose,” she said. “You’re a great partner. Most of the time when we work together I think that I don’t ever want to retire. Days like this when we find nothing but broken bodies to be collected for the funeral home, I could retire tomorrow and not look back.”
“Hell, Kris, you and I both know we’ll be doing this when we’re ninety if we can. It’s like a fuckin’ drug. Even with times like this.”
“When you’re thirty-five, you think so. But I’m closing in on sixty. Realistically, I want to keep going until I hit seventy, if I can. Then I’m done.”
“All in, Kids,” pilot Nyssa Nielsen called. “Join the fucking party! This is one of the most discouraging flights I’ve ever made. Days like this I feel like going to work with my parents in their exotic imports shop. I’d rather be selling bone china than picking up children with every bone in their little bodies broken.”
“I don’t think Nyss is much longer for this job,” Hendrik told Kristina once they were airborne. “She’s been dissatisfied for awhile now. Nightmares too.”
“Don’t get me started on nightmares,” Kristina said. “My brother Per would have these horrible nightmares when we were growing up. It was hard to wake him from them. You’d have to be careful how you approached him because if he was still in the dream he might hit you, not knowing who you were. He’s really psychic too. Kind of spooky sometimes how he knows just what people are feeling. My father and I have psychic tendencies too but not the way Per does. Pappa can see ghosts. I can feel presences. But Per can both see and talk to them. I knew something bad was coming because of how restless I was all last night, but I didn’t know what it would be. How about you, Hendrik? Any psychic abilities, or just general psychosis?”
Hendrik laughed softly and looked out the chopper window.
“I dreamed about this last night,” he said. “About the van upside down on that ledge. Everything was surrounded by clouds, and the sun was very, very bright. And there was such a feeling of sadness.”
“That sounds like the kind of dreams Per has,” Kristina said. “He’s a funny guy, my brother. He acts goofy and silly so much of the time, trying to make everybody laugh, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that he’s actually a very sensitive soul. I’ve been thinking about him a lot the past few days. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
“He’d let you know if there was, don’t you think?”
“Not necessarily. He doesn’t like to trouble people. I’ll call him tonight. I’m probably just working myself into a state. This call really took the wind out of my sails.”
“Mine too. I hope they’ll let us go home after decompressing us.”
“Decompressing?” Kristina laughed. “Hendrik, you’d think we’d been deep-sea diving the way you talk!”
“That would be a hell of a job, huh? Ocean rescue. Did you ever think about doing water rescue, Kris?”
“No, because though I don’t get airsick, I get seasick and violently so. Per always loved going on sea cruises when we were kids. I had to stay ashore with Aunt Belva because I’d end up puking the whole time. Then Per would come back and make me so jealous, telling me about all the great sea life. Narwhals and walruses and such. Then I’d make him jealous telling him about all the fun I had with Aunt Belva, going to theatre and to lovely restaurants. I came to find out later that the only reason Mum went on those trips was because she was worried sick that Per was going to do something stupid and fall off the edge of the boat if she wasn’t there to watch him. He was always monkeying around and Dad, wonderful though he is, was often in his own world dreaming up new inventions while Per ran wild. Mum always said that I was the sensible one and that Per was too much the daredevil. Now the tables are turned. Per stays put nice and stable on the ground in London and I’m riding in helicopters. Funny how things turn out sometimes.”
“That’s the thing about kids. Just when you think you know them, they throw you a curve. I often think Vikki does it on purpose. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know my own daughter. I always thought she was such a little princess. Then, the other day, she springs on me that she has designs on being a helicopter pilot like Nyssa. Still, I’m so grateful to have these surprises. Today there will be several fathers receiving the news that they won’t get to watch their kids grow up.”
Hendrik’s voice cracked and his eyes filled with tears. Kristina reached for his hand and gripped it tightly as he broke down.
“Sometimes I hate this fucking job!” he sobbed.
The helicopter approached the hospital rooftop. Kristina suddenly felt angry. Why bother going to the hospital? These poor souls were quite dead. Stupid fucking formality and stupid fucking paperwork to follow. She didn’t want to hang around the hospital filling out reams of paperwork. Right now she just wanted to go home and curl up with a glass of wine and some chocolate and then sleep for a long, long time. Later, or maybe tomorrow, she would call her parents and her brother and find out how they were doing. Then she would call Hendrik and maybe he and his wife Celia could join Kristina and her partner Tafui for dinner and the healing could begin for them.
At times like these, Kristina thought that the world was a rather awful place and her faith was tainted by the fear that the benevolent deity she usually believed in was actually either cruel or apathetic. Such thoughts were counterproductive, serving only to make her panicky and depressed, so she pushed them to the back of her mind and concentrated on the clinical aspects of what needed to be done next.
The chopper touched down. Attendants stood by waiting to bring the bodies inside. There was no rush of helpful medical personnel ready to save lives, for there were no lives to be saved. The only things to come were the anguished sobs of family members given the news that they would never see their loved ones alive again, and the covert weeping during post-trauma counseling of those who had wished there was something they could do to help. Though they would never forget the situation, these helpful professionals would usually be able to move on to the next step in their lives. The families of the accident victims wouldn’t begin healing for a long time and would really never fully do so.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as Kristina and Hendrik helped the hospital personnel unload the shrouded bodies, and everything remained dreamlike until Kristina was at last home where she could release her anguish in a protracted, helpless scream.
Kristina’s face was soaked with tears. She wished that Tafui would hurry and come home. She was so desperate to be held and comforted that she put the disconcerting thought that Taffi seemed to be pulling away from her out of her mind and clung to the illusion of love that she so desperately needed right now.
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