Page 40 of Ruby’s Outback Love

“Yes, an FDS aircraft.”

“Why was my daughter on the plane, she was with the team this week and they use Drew’s four-wheel drive to get to each of the clinics?”

I explained about the emergency with a young girl and how Ruby was accompanying her back to the hospital where she was to be observed closely following her surgery.

Mr Waters nodded. “Ruby’s okay?”

“Yes, she has a concussion but the doctor expects she’ll be fine, the scans that were done showed everything was normal. The pilot didn’t fare quite as well.”

“Who was it, James or Finn?”

“Neither. It was a pilot by the name of Elouise who was filling in for them this week.”

“How bad?”

“The ambos seemed rather concerned with her blood loss. She had a head wound similar to Ruby’s and a large gash in her leg which was pretty nasty. Ruby told me, Elouise had severed a large vessel and lost a lot of blood.”

“Fingers crossed she’s okay. They’ll take good care of her here. Do you know what caused the crash?”

“No idea. We’ll find out once the air crash investigators have had a chance to inspect the wreckage and talk with the girls. There wasn’t much left of the aircraft so thank God Ruby managed to get everyone out before it exploded.”

“Ruby got them out?”

“Yes. We found all three of them about thirty metres from the burning wreckage. Ruby had managed to move everyone to safety. She took a huge risk. The plane could have exploded at any time.”

Mr Waters nodded. “Ruby would never have left them behind regardless of the risk to herself. She would never only look out for herself; she isn’t wired that way.”

On reflection, I realised how brave my beautiful lady had been and how close I’d come to losing her forever. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. It had been too damn close.

I cleared my throat. “I’m going to go and see if I can find out how Elouise is doing; Ruby will want to know.”

“Okay, son. We’ll stay until you get back. I can see our girl is in safe hands and we need to let the other kids know what’s happened.”

“I shouldn’t be long.” I headed out through the curtain and towards main reception where I was hoping for answers.

***

I approached the reception desk and a young man smiled up at me from where he sat behind a computer.

“What can I do for you, Officer?”

I’d forgotten I was still in uniform, hopefully it would work to my advantage.

“The pilot from a downed plane crash I attended was brought in about forty minutes ago, I was wondering how she’s doing.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Elouise. Don’t know her last name, sorry.”

“That’s okay. It’s not a common name so I should be able to find her.”

The young man who was wearing a badge with the name – Brett - engraved on it, tapped on the keyboard of his computer before lifting his gaze back to me.

“Her name is Elouise Saunders, she’s in surgery at the moment. Do you have any details of her next of kin? According to the notes I have, she regained consciousness enough to give the doctors her name and permission to operate, but that’s all we have.”

“I don’t know anything about her but the FDS would have all the details in her employee file. I’d give them a call.”

“Will do, thanks.”