“It appears so,” Michael said. “No fire, and no apparent damage to the church, but the stench is awful.”
The group passed his words down to the next group, and soon the entire crowd was buzzing.
Just who were these spectators? Members of the New Life Baptist congregation? Worried relatives of other new firefighters? Surely not just curious bystanders drawn by the sirens—not at four thirty on a cold morning like this.
I could see another car turning into the parking lot, and more headlights farther down the road.
“What’s happening over there?” I pointed to the crowd around the ambulance.
“The guy who found the skunks,” Michael said. “Apparently one of them sprayed him right in the eyes and—oh, here’s your father. Good—the EMTs don’t have a lot of experience with skunk attacks.”
Dad’s familiar blue minivan zoomed past us to park near the ambulance. The sleigh bells he’d fastened to the bumpers and the door handles to amuse Josh and Jamie were jingling madly.
“Did they call him?” I asked. “Or do you suppose he’s been having insomnia again and whiling away the time by listening to the police and fire department bands on his radio?”
“No idea,” Michael said. “But thank goodness he’s here.”
We both headed toward the ambulance.
By the time we joined the cluster of firefighters and police officers at the back of the ambulance, Dad’s familiar black doctor’s bag was sitting nearby and he was bent over his patient, an elderly black man wearing a bulky down jacket over striped pajama pants and fleece-lined bedroom slippers. I recognized him as Nelson Dandridge, the church’s caretaker.
The two EMTs had stepped back, apparently happy to let Dad take over. They stood nearby, holding wads of white gauze over their noses. Some of the other bystanders were doing likewise, while the rest merely wore pained expressions. I didn’t need to ask why—I could smell the reason. Apparently poor Mr. Dandridge had taken a direct hit from the skunk.
“Try not to move your head,” Dad was saying. He was holding one of Mr. Dandridge’s eyes open and peering in with a small flashlight. Mr. Dandridge moaned and stopped trying to toss his head, but he began twitching his feet slightly as if some kind of motion would ease the pain.
“You’ll be fine.” Dad was peering into the other eye.
“But I can’t see!” Mr. Dandridge whispered. “And it burns.”
“Perfectly normal,” Dad said. “And you’ll probably feel some discomfort for the next few hours.”
“Discomfort?” From his tone it was obvious that Mr. Dandridge thought the word wholly inadequate for what he was feeling.
“Let’s continue the ocular irrigation for a little bit before we take him down to the hospital.” Dad turned to the EMTs who, to their credit, only hesitated for a few moments before returning to their patient’s side.
“‘Hospital,’” Mr. Dandridge repeated. He sounded unsure whether to feel happy that his condition was being taken seriously or worried that it might be more serious than Dad was telling him. The medics had taken up posts on either side of his head and were squirting saline into his eyes.
“There’s always a chance of complications,” Dad said. “Skunk spray is very caustic. Occasionally you see corneal ulceration, or uveitis, or conjunctivitis. And occasionally—”
“Dad,” I said. “I think you’re alarming Mr. Dandridge.”
Mr. Dandridge had begun moaning again and moving his head back and forth, impeding the medics’ efforts.
“But all those are very unusual,” Dad hastened to add. “And the best way to prevent them is for us to do a very thorough irrigation here at the scene. Try not to thrash around quite so much.”
With a visible effort, Mr. Dandridge stilled his head, but his feet began twitching again.
“I’ll see if I can arrange for an ophthalmologist to meet us at the hospital, just in case.” Dad stepped aside and pulled out his iPhone.
“That would be Dr. Garza,” I said. “Unless Caerphilly has recently acquired a second ophthalmologist.”
“Doc, can we scrub him with the tomato juice now?” one of the medics asked.
“Please do,” Dad said.
“Tomato juice?” Chief Burke asked.
“We actually carry it in the ambulance just in case,” one of the EMTs said. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen it used before.”
“Do we have an ETA on that change of clothes for him?” one of the medics asked.
“I’ll go check,” Michael said. He ran off—away from the church, I noted with relief.