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KwaZulu Union Bay City, May 1^st, 2025

The paramedic deliberately avoided taking the first emergency call she and her partner received that morning, using the excuse that they’d just clocked in. But now she was in the ambulance, on the road, blood pumping, heart drumming. She had remembered her oath: every life matters. She was back.

The ambulance blazed through the well-maintained gated community uptown, where the houses were almost identical, shattering the peace as it screeched to a halt. Trauma kit in hand, the paramedic, Sandiswa and her partner, Sethu, leapt out into the thick morning air of the quiet street and sprinted towards the modest house. The door swung open before they reached it, and a mature woman still in her pyjamas frantically waved them in.

“Ma’am, I’m Sandiswa Mthembu, we’re going to get through this,” the paramedic placed an easy hand on the woman’s shoulder as they rushed through the house. With but a single glance around, she noticed all the minimalistic decoration and pale pastel-toned rooms. She believed a person’s living space could tell more about them than the way they dress, which made it slightly easier for her to understand her patients. A large mirror adorned one of the walls, its edges glowing at the presence of people. Sandiswa stole a glance at it. The light caught and sparkled in her dark brown eyes. She pushed forward through the house, following the woman, each step heavier than the last. Her throat thickened as she walked into the white-washed kitchen, taking in the scene.

A man lay motionless on the linoleum floor, a crimson pool expanding beneath his head.

Sandiswa hesitated, feeling the weight of the moment as her stomach turned over. As she blinked, she saw a different woman on the floor, saw a syringe in her hand, the mistake she’d made haunting her. She closed her eyes and shook it off. In the space of a second, the medic’s eyes darted from the body to the island counter, the sink, the rubbish bin, the door, and back to the body. “Get the stretcher,” Sandiswa whispered to her partner before slipping on a pair of gloves as she knelt next to the man. With a delicate touch, she assessed the man’s condition. Checked his pulse and breathing, noting the shallow rise and fall of his chest. She noticed the ring on his finger, glanced over her shoulder and saw the ring on the woman’s same finger. Gently tilting the man’s head to the side, she inspected the gaping wound, her eyes focused and determined. “Ma’am, I’m going to need your help,” she said as she unzipped the trauma kit and attended to the wound. “Please turn around and take a deep breath.” 

The woman turned away from her bleeding husband.

Glancing over her shoulder for a moment, the medic continued, “You’re doing well. Could you tell me what happened.” 

“I…” the wife choked.

“It’s okay, take a breath, and try again.”

“I don’t know what happened exactly, I just heard him scream. I think he slipped and hit his head on the counter when he fell.”

Sandiswa stopped for a second to look at the edge of the countertop to her left and then the island counter on the right. “Thank you, that’s very helpful.”

Sethu rushed back into the kitchen, rolling the stretcher in just as his partner finished addressing the wound. He hit the button to lower the stretcher while Sandiswa fitted the cervical collar around the man’s neck. Both medics stood at each end of the lowered stretcher, detached the bedding, and carefully slid it beneath the patient. 

“On three,” Sandiswa instructed. “One, two, three,” she swiftly said in a second. They lifted the bedding, moved it onto the stretcher, re-attached it, then allowed it a moment to rise to the transporting level. “What’s your name ma’am?”

“Tatiana,” the wife replied.

“Okay, Tatiana, if you’re coming with us, please quickly lock up the house and meet us outside in a minute. Exactly one minute,” Sandiswa emphasized as she and her partner rolled out the stretcher, leaving the woman scrambling for her house keys.

As soon as they got to the ambulance, they slid the stretcher in a quarter way into the back of the vehicle, hit the button to lift the legs, and then rolled the rest of it in. Sethu closed one door and then returned to his place in the driver’s seat.

“Sorry,” the wife called out as she locked the front door of the house and ran to the ambulance. 

“It’s okay,” Sandiswa showed her a seat on the opposite side of the stretcher, then she closed the door. “Go.”

Siren still blaring, the ambulance pulled off the property and bolted out of the gated community, leaving the few on-looking neighbours behind, heading into the bustling morning traffic. Vehicles moved aside at its sight, allowing it a smooth transit as Sandiswa ensured that the patient was still okay.

“UB General, this is OB4357,” Sethu called through the radio. “We have the patient on board and are en route.” He quickly described the patient and the nature of the injury. “Our ETA is,” he glanced at the GPS on his centre control console, “Two minutes, over.”

“Copy that OB4357. ER is standing by for your arrival.”

Sandiswa took a moment to look out of the small windows of the ambulance’s back door. A poster tied to a streetlight caught her attention:

BRING BACK

OUR GIRLS!

As the vehicle moved further, a poster on another streetlight continued:

WHAT ARE

THE POLICE

DOING?

Then another:

FIND THE

KIDNAPPER!

Swallowing, Sandiswa turned back to the patient. Checked his pulse. Still okay.

Within his estimated time, Sethu brought the ambulance through the gate of the Union Bay City General Hospital, past the security booth, and slowed as it pulled into the Emergency Room carport just outside the ER. With their swift, practiced routine, two nurses rushed out of the ER with a stretcher to meet Sethu as he opened the back of the ambulance. The medics moved the patient out of the ambulance and let their ER colleagues roll him in, leaving the empty stretcher they’d wheeled out.

“He’s going to live, just go with them,” Sandiswa explained to the wife, the adrenaline finally subsiding.

As Sethu loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, an unmarked vehicle that had caught the ambulance’s tail during the rush through the city screeched to a stop. Two men jumped out and approached the medics.

“You’re getting slow in your old age Nxumalo,” Sandiswa remarked at the leading man.

“You’re very funny,” Nxumalo, the older detective replied. His greying beard revealed his age. “What do we have?”

“Indian male, thirty-five, blunt force trauma to the head. The wife says he fell, hit his head against the counter.”

“What do you say?”

“I didn’t notice any blood on any countertops, edges or corners. The sink is clean but wet. The trash bin is empty. But I’m just a medic.”

“You would’ve made a hell of a detective though,” said the younger man, dressed more fashionable than his partner. A toothpick stuck out of the corner of his lips, moved slightly as he spoke. His sunglasses hid his eyes as they lingered on the medic, drinking in her cashew toned skin, travelling the contours of her body. They stopped below the waist. His lips twitched, and then his eyes moved back to her face. “Welcome back,” he grinned.

“Thanks,” the medic smiled back.

“Police work isn’t for paramedics though,” said Nxumalo. “We don’t speculate, we investigate. So we’ve got it from here.”

“Sure,” Sandiswa replied as she looked between the detectives. She nodded before joining Sethu in the front seats of the ambulance.

“You not buying her story?”

“All stories have three perspectives, the victim’s, the perpetrator’s, and God’s perspective. Hers is only one of those three. And this wouldn’t be the first time a woman hit her husband with something in the kitchen.”

“It’s good to have you back.”