With their two litter bearers, Tim Fiore and Marcy Delacorte pounded down the bridge as fast as their feet would carry them.
When they reached the end of the bridge, three ambulances were already pulling away-packed with injured.
Tim yelled to an NYPD officer about twenty feet ahead, “Stop that ambulance!” but the officer knew there wasn’t room in any of them for even one more person.
“There’s more ambulances on the way,” he shouted back.
“We can’t wait,” replied Marcy as she flashed her credentials. “ U.S. Secret Service. We have a priority injury here.”
“The ambulances are gone, ma’am. There’s nothing I can do.”
Fiore tilted his head in the direction of the officer’s squad car, and Delacorte knew exactly what he was thinking.
“We need your patrol car.”
“I can’t do that,” said the officer.
“And I’m not asking,” replied Marcy as she raised her weapon.
The cop put up both his hands. “Okay, okay. It’s yours.”
“Let’s get her into the car,” Tim said to the two men who were helping them.
They rushed to the patrol car, and as the officer watched them place Amanda on the backseat, he asked, “Is that-?”
Fiore nodded his head. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”
“Beth Israel,” replied the cop. “Fifteenth and First. The NYU hospital downtown is going to be overloaded.”
“You can’t drive,” stated Marcy as she got in the back with Amanda. “You don’t know your way around.”
Tim looked around and then spotted something on the dash of a car idling in the gridlock not far from where they were. Running toward it, Fiore removed his credentials and held them up when he reached in the window and grabbed the device. “U.S. Secret Service” was all he said.
Sprinting back to the squad car, Tim propped the Garmin iQue GPS handheld on the dash, fired up the vehicle, and hit the lights and siren. Motorists tried to get out of their way, but the effort was useless. There was nowhere for them to go. The traffic was absolutely locked down.
Aiming for the sidewalk between two parked cars, Fiore yelled, “Hold on,” and hit the gas.