The Heat of the Moment by Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Author:Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton [Cohen-Hatton, Dr Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473558434
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2019-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

7

Mental Preparation

‘Train hard, fight easy.’

Alexander Suvorov

Ayoung mother clutches her child to her chest in the middle of the street. She is screaming; a wail that wavers between shrill and guttural. Tears are streaming down her face, spotting her pastel-blue shirt. She is holding the baby so tightly that I fear she might crush it. The infant is swaddled in a pink-spotted blanket, its face hidden from view.

An enormous, muscular police officer dressed entirely in black points an automatic weapon at the woman and her baby. He is a model of power and dominance; she is one of desperation. He wears a balaclava, a helmet and goggles conceal his eyes. He is unidentifiable except that – even through all his body armour – he carries a very strong and distinctive scent, with notes of sandalwood peppering the air. There is a surreal discord between this faceless behemoth and his human smell.

He shouts at the woman to get down on the floor, to put her hands behind her head. She moves slowly towards him, trembling, pleading for help. A white muslin cloth hangs loose, dragging in the dirt and splashing mud on to her faded jeans.

This woman, dressed in a summery shirt and leather jacket, might be exactly what she seems to be: a terrified civilian. Or she could be another terrorist, another pawn in an elaborate plot, an extremist hiding an explosive device behind an infant, hoping to reach the cordon and detonate it amongst the first responders.

As the mother of a young child myself, I’m instinctively drawn to her. Her fear is inscribed on her face and I can only imagine what she must be feeling: disorientation, panic, that heady mix of adrenaline and terror.

What would I do?

I’m silently begging, pleading with her to get down on the floor because, for fuck’s sake, he’s actually going to shoot you if you don’t. If I were standing where she is, though, with a terrorist running rampage in the shopping centre behind me and a masked police officer in front, both armed with automatic weapons, what would I really do?

Five consecutive gunshots reverberate around the street, immediately followed by more screams. The vibrations rip through the air, echoing in my bones. The woman drops to the ground, wailing, squeezing her baby against her. Everyone ducks, covering our heads with our hands, spinning in position to find the source of the shots.

‘Clear!’ an armed police officer shouts.

The bullets came from the police. Their sniper spotted an opportunity and fired through a ground-floor window. He’s taken out the terrorist.

The ‘hot zone’ is now clear and specialist crews can enter and tend to the injured.

My radio crackles as firefighters and paramedics weighed down by ballistic protection rush into the building, carrying lightweight plastic stretchers and medi-kits.fn1 The building is now a ‘warm zone’fn2 and our objective is to extricate the wounded.

I follow two firefighters who are carrying a stretcher. Their boots pound the floor under the weight of their gear and they breathe heavily under the physical strain.

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