She described the scene to the operator, who told her the ambulance was about 10 minutes away, yet. “I don’t know how long she can hold on, though,” Bette said.

“Since you got that far… can you try to see if you can get a little closer?  Keep talking to her, keep her alert,” the operator said.

Bette set the emergency kit down and carefully made her way to the passenger side, using the rocks along the way to keep her from sliding,shouting encouragement to the woman the whole way.

As she got closer, she pointed her flashlight to the driver side.  The driver’s head was bent in an unnatural angle, and, was faced away from her,his body inert.  Bette swallowed, as she quickly described it to the operator.

“Yeah…ok.  That doesn’t sound good, then.  Keep talking to the woman, the ambulance is less than 5 minutes from the site.”

Bette kept up her chatter, and injected a more encouraging tone as she saw the flashing lights of the emergency vehicle round the corner,coming from the same direction she and the ill-fated driver had come from. She heard shouts from the emergency personnel, and she called back, waving her flashlight.

The men who approached her hurriedly waved her to move to one side, as they followed the path she’d taken to get to the car, to assess how to extract the woman from the car.

Ten minutes later, the emergency vehicle peeled away,transporting the woman.  After an exchange with them, Bette had indicated she’d stay back with the body of the driver.  The men looked at each other, then back at Bette.  “He’s dead miss.  There’s nothing more you or we can do for him,” one of them said.

“I know.  But if you can please just carry him away from the scene, some place away from the possible gasoline leak?,” Bette asked. “I’ll wait until the other emergency vehicle comes to get the…um…body.”

The men were shaking their head as they carried the driver to the side of the road, away from the crash site, then set up flares 30 feet away from the site, to warn incoming traffic.

The operator clicked back in to check on what was going on,“Have they left, Bette?”

“Yeah…yeah.”

“Ok, thanks for everything. You took some chances there….wait a second, I’m told that you’re still in the site?