After turning off the radio and closing the car door, I walked over to the front door. Standing in the
doorway so I could keep an eye on Beauregard, I asked Nessie Rhoer, “How does he look?”
Glancing up form what she was doing Nessie said, “He got hit by Bird Shoot, thought the individual injuries
and particularly bad there are a lot of them. I really can’t say what his chances are.”
My ears twitched slightly at the sound of approaching sirens as I told her, “Do what you can, the ambulance is
almost here.”
* * * * *
Only a few minutes later an ambulance accompanied by half a dozen police cars. Pointing a pair of cops toward
were Beauregard was, he tried to start his rant again but only managed to say a few incoherent syllables, I
moved over to where Officer Barnes was being loaded into the waiting ambulance.
Officer Howard stopped me as I was about to hop into the back of the ambulance saying, “Officer Wayne I need
to talk to you.”
Spinning on the spot I could here the slight hint of lingering anger in my voice as I told him, “I’m sorry Sir
but right now my biggest concern is what is going to happen to Officer Barnes.” With that I jumped in, closed
the door and we were off as fast as possible with the siren blearing.
The ride to the hospital can best be described as a high speed blur. It consisted primarily of trying to keep
out of the way of the EMT, a man by the name of Jeff, and keeping pressure on wad of gauze to try to slow the
blood loss. In what seemed to be about five minutes but was likely much more we arrived in font of the
emergency room.
Jumping out, I followed the procession of people into the emergency room entrance. As the whisked Officer
Barnes off to an operating room, a nurse directed me to a waiting area. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I
sat, eventually a nurse came out and informed me that Officer Barnes was out of surgery and had been moved to
the ICU. He was in critical condition but looked like he was going to survive.
Speaking to the ER surgeon later I found out that Officer Barnes came very close to death because the shotgun
had caused massive internal injures.