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fandomweekly2025-02-07 02:25 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2025-02-07 02:25 pm
Entry tags:
[#249] Not Torchwood Business (Torchwood)
Theme Prompt: #249 – Emergency
Title: Not Torchwood Business
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: On the way back to the Hub following a Rift retrieval, the team come across a serious car accident.
This wasn’t Torchwood business, shouldn’t have been anyway, because there was no alien involvement, either technology or actual, physical aliens, no Rift alert… Well, there HAD been a Rift alert, but the item that came through, a completely innocuous piece of statuary, was now in the back of the SUV as the team returned to base, making plans to pick up fish and chips for dinner, because it was late, and they were hungry. They’d just spent two fruitless hours rooting around in a disused quarry by torchlight, trying to find the statue’s missing pieces among the jumbled rocks before finally concluding they must have been missing before it arrived on earth. As Ianto had quipped, their find was relatively armless, even if the ‘arms’ were more like tentacles, three of which were broken.
Being hungry meant that Jack, in the driving seat, was determined to return the team to civilisation in the shortest possible time, which in turn meant that he was speeding, so it was only dumb luck and fifty-first century reflexes that allowed him to swerve and slam the alien tech enhanced brakes on as they came around a bend in the road and saw the accident ahead of them. A massive truck with an unstable load had tipped as it took the bend, rolling onto its side and flattening two, possibly three cars travelling in the opposite direction.
The accident couldn’t have happened more than a few minutes earlier, there were traces of smoke drifting out from the vehicles trapped under the truck’s bed and the heavy pipes it had been carrying, and Jack slewed the SUV sideways, bringing it to a halt barely ten feet from the accident. Immediately he slammed into reverse, backing to a safe distance and turning the flashing blue lights on. Owen was out of the backseat, dragging his medical bag with him, before the vehicle had stopped, and Ianto tumbled out of the front passenger seat soon after, already on the phone to the emergency services, requesting paramedics, fire engines, and police to their location.
Jack tossed his coat onto the driver’s seat and headed after Owen. Ianto sent Gwen around the accident with some flashing hazard lights to set up at the next bend, warning other drivers that the road was blocked. Tosh went to assist Jack and Owen, scanner in hand to search for life signs.
Ianto remained on the phone, relaying information to the emergency services, including some images so they could see what they’d be dealing with, but he wasn’t idle; with his free hand, he was digging through the equipment in the SUV’s boot, dragging out fire extinguishers, emergency blankets, and with a shout of triumph, three sets of antigravity clamps.
It may not officially be Torchwood business, but lives were at stake, and speed was of the essence. Handing his phone to Gwen, so she could coordinate the help that was by now on its way, Ianto gathered up the antigravity clamps and the fire extinguishers and went to join his teammates. There was no time to lose.
The antigravity clamps were immediately put to use, shifting the heavy metal pipes off the crushed cars, clearing the way so that Owen could reach the injured. The truck’s driver was unconscious, so after Owen scanned him and cleared him of serious injury, Jack pulled him out of the cab and dragged him well clear, leaving him in the recovery position, covered with an emergency blanket. Then he returned to Ianto, and with the help of the clamps, they set about trying to get the truck’s bed back on its wheels.
By now, Tosh was assisting Owen with the injured, and Gwen joined them, relaying information to the paramedics enroute, and wielding one of the fire extinguishers, trying to prevent any of the crushed cars from bursting into flame. There were indeed three of them.
It was a scene of organised chaos as, using ropes and a hastily rigged pulley system, the antigrav clamps, and one of the smallest pipes as a makeshift lever, Jack and Ianto struggled to winch the truck’s cab off the third car, a Ford Fiesta so flattened it was difficult to imagine anyone inside it having survived.
Hardly more than ten minutes had passed since they arrived on the scene, and they could distantly hear the sound of sirens approaching as Jack used a pair of bolt cutters to hack away part of the Fiesta’s already badly damaged roof so that Owen could examine the lone occupant, a middle-aged woman with serious injuries. Moving her was out of the question, but Owen was able to wriggle halfway into the wrecked vehicle and stabilise the worst of her injuries.
The family in the first car, a young couple and their two small children, riding in the back in sturdy car seats, were the least injured, the family SUV having done its job of protecting them. The children were shocked and crying, the father had cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder from the airbag not deploying evenly, and the mother had probable whiplash, cuts and bruises, and a broken arm.
The couple in the second car were a mess, the driver, in his late teens or early twenties, hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt. His date had been wearing hers, but her side of the car had taken the brunt of the impact. Owen had done what he could for them, but now it would be down to the paramedics, once the firemen cut their way into the car.
The emergency services arrived, sirens blaring, and immediately set to work. Owen assisted, while the resat of the team gave their slightly edited accounts to the police. The antigravity clamps were already back in the SUV, brute force, ingenuity, and desperation were being credited for the fact that the team had managed to shift the pipes and tip the truck back upright.
Thanks to Torchwood’s quick actions, there was a good chance everyone would survive.
The End
Being hungry meant that Jack, in the driving seat, was determined to return the team to civilisation in the shortest possible time, which in turn meant that he was speeding, so it was only dumb luck and fifty-first century reflexes that allowed him to swerve and slam the alien tech enhanced brakes on as they came around a bend in the road and saw the accident ahead of them. A massive truck with an unstable load had tipped as it took the bend, rolling onto its side and flattening two, possibly three cars travelling in the opposite direction.
The accident couldn’t have happened more than a few minutes earlier, there were traces of smoke drifting out from the vehicles trapped under the truck’s bed and the heavy pipes it had been carrying, and Jack slewed the SUV sideways, bringing it to a halt barely ten feet from the accident. Immediately he slammed into reverse, backing to a safe distance and turning the flashing blue lights on. Owen was out of the backseat, dragging his medical bag with him, before the vehicle had stopped, and Ianto tumbled out of the front passenger seat soon after, already on the phone to the emergency services, requesting paramedics, fire engines, and police to their location.
Jack tossed his coat onto the driver’s seat and headed after Owen. Ianto sent Gwen around the accident with some flashing hazard lights to set up at the next bend, warning other drivers that the road was blocked. Tosh went to assist Jack and Owen, scanner in hand to search for life signs.
Ianto remained on the phone, relaying information to the emergency services, including some images so they could see what they’d be dealing with, but he wasn’t idle; with his free hand, he was digging through the equipment in the SUV’s boot, dragging out fire extinguishers, emergency blankets, and with a shout of triumph, three sets of antigravity clamps.
It may not officially be Torchwood business, but lives were at stake, and speed was of the essence. Handing his phone to Gwen, so she could coordinate the help that was by now on its way, Ianto gathered up the antigravity clamps and the fire extinguishers and went to join his teammates. There was no time to lose.
The antigravity clamps were immediately put to use, shifting the heavy metal pipes off the crushed cars, clearing the way so that Owen could reach the injured. The truck’s driver was unconscious, so after Owen scanned him and cleared him of serious injury, Jack pulled him out of the cab and dragged him well clear, leaving him in the recovery position, covered with an emergency blanket. Then he returned to Ianto, and with the help of the clamps, they set about trying to get the truck’s bed back on its wheels.
By now, Tosh was assisting Owen with the injured, and Gwen joined them, relaying information to the paramedics enroute, and wielding one of the fire extinguishers, trying to prevent any of the crushed cars from bursting into flame. There were indeed three of them.
It was a scene of organised chaos as, using ropes and a hastily rigged pulley system, the antigrav clamps, and one of the smallest pipes as a makeshift lever, Jack and Ianto struggled to winch the truck’s cab off the third car, a Ford Fiesta so flattened it was difficult to imagine anyone inside it having survived.
Hardly more than ten minutes had passed since they arrived on the scene, and they could distantly hear the sound of sirens approaching as Jack used a pair of bolt cutters to hack away part of the Fiesta’s already badly damaged roof so that Owen could examine the lone occupant, a middle-aged woman with serious injuries. Moving her was out of the question, but Owen was able to wriggle halfway into the wrecked vehicle and stabilise the worst of her injuries.
The family in the first car, a young couple and their two small children, riding in the back in sturdy car seats, were the least injured, the family SUV having done its job of protecting them. The children were shocked and crying, the father had cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder from the airbag not deploying evenly, and the mother had probable whiplash, cuts and bruises, and a broken arm.
The couple in the second car were a mess, the driver, in his late teens or early twenties, hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt. His date had been wearing hers, but her side of the car had taken the brunt of the impact. Owen had done what he could for them, but now it would be down to the paramedics, once the firemen cut their way into the car.
The emergency services arrived, sirens blaring, and immediately set to work. Owen assisted, while the resat of the team gave their slightly edited accounts to the police. The antigravity clamps were already back in the SUV, brute force, ingenuity, and desperation were being credited for the fact that the team had managed to shift the pipes and tip the truck back upright.
Thanks to Torchwood’s quick actions, there was a good chance everyone would survive.
The End