A whine of a turbine engine could be heard overhead. Fairfax looked up. Another helicopter had appeared. This one, though, was from the state-controlled TV company – and there to film the aftermath of the crash.
Fairfax bawled: ‘Fucking parasites. One of you … go and grab some kind of screen – a tarpaulin, a blanket, sheet, anything.’
Fairfax turned his attention back to Sabatino. On his cue, the six medics attempted to roll what little remained of the Ptarmigan, while Fairfax and the nurse, together, held Sabatino's head and the precarious brace, trying to protect her neck against any sharp movement.
Slowly, the car was righted.
A stretcher was brought up and laid on the ground alongside.
One medic made to undo her harness, while another tried to position himself – astride the car where the air intake used to be – gently pushing his hands down behind Sabatino's shoulders, looking for purchase under her armpits. The intent was to try and lift her free of the cockpit.
A sheet had been found. It was held tight by a medic at each corner to form a canopy over the heads of the other medics and the stretcher. Some privacy, at least, could now be afforded against the prying camera circling overhead.
More arms came forward to help support Sabatino's weight as her completely limp body emerged from the car. Six people were needed to extract her from the cockpit. Coordinated by Fairfax, she was finally lifted away from the monocoque and laid down gently onto the stretcher. Awkwardly, the canopy was moved at the same time to try and keep the operation screened from above.
The doctor instructed one of Sabatino's sleeves be removed, to clear the way for a drip. As the inside of her elbow was exposed, the nurse swabbed Sabatino's skin and made to insert a cannula.
Sabatino suddenly stiffened.
And then started juddering.
Violently.
Uncontrollably.
Fairfax dived down and carefully lifted her visor. Peering through the gap, he instantly saw something in the muscles of Sabatino's face.
‘She's hypoxic,’ he declared urgently but calmly, ‘she's swallowed her tongue.’ Except that with her helmet still on, and the risk of spinal injury, there was no way he could get to her mouth. ‘Get me a scalpel, a trachie tube, gloves, a load of sterilizing wipes. Bring the suction in close … quick!’
Another nurse dived into Fairfax's aluminium case, and extracted a knife. As he took it from her, the nurse asked him: ‘Where's the tube?’
Over his shoulder he said: ‘Under the tray to the left. Can you work the suction?’
Fairfax, bending back down over the convulsing body, had to remove the neck brace he had just fitted and was now slashing through Sabatino's clothes around her neck and throat – through the turquoise of her overalls and then the white balaclava underneath. He reached bare skin. Shouting: ‘Sterilize!’ he held up the gloved fingers of his left hand. Seconds later, a nurse rubbed them down with a sterilizing wipe. Once clean, Fairfax returned that hand to Sabatino's neck and held back the cloth of the balaclava with the fingers of his left hand. Leaning in close to find the right spot, he positioned the scalpel on Sabatino's neck and plunged it straight down and through into her windpipe before slicing firmly downwards. Using the gloved fingers of his left hand, he stuck them into the wound and splayed them – to hold open the gash he had just made through her throat.
Rasping sounds and short sprays of blood indicated that Saba-tino was now breathing safely through the emergency tracheotomy. Fairfax saw her chest moving up and down.
‘Suction!’ he shouted.
The nurse handed Fairfax the end of the pump. The doctor quickly stuck it through the gash in Sabatino's neck and tried to extract the blood and any mucous in her windpipe. Handing the suction pump away, he said: ‘Trachie?’
A hand appeared holding the tracheotomy tube. Fairfax leant down and, still holding the wound open with the fingers of his left hand, fed the tube down into Sabatino's windpipe.
‘She's breathing again,’ he declared. ‘Can we give her oxygen?’
A short supply was rigged up and the mask placed over Sabatino's throat.
Fairfax had several foam blocks placed and strapped around Saba-tino's head to stop any movement in her neck, not knowing what might be broken.
‘Right. Let's get her down to the chopper.’
On his command, the stretcher was lifted, the mask kept over her throat and the drip held and carried directly over her arm. All the while, the stretcher party was shielded from above by the sheet held over their heads, supported by a medic at each corner.
The stricken Formula One driver was carried down the grassy bank. Each foot had to be placed carefully; the slope being covered in bodies, body parts, and uneven ground cut up by the impact.
The stretcher reached the edge of the track surface. All this time the helicopter's engine had continued to run, its rotors still turning. It was standing no more than fifty yards away. Sabatino was carried quickly towards it and lifted aboard. Fairfax handed the oxygen mask and the drip up to one of the medics already in the aircraft, before climbing in himself.
The pilot lifted the helicopter into the air. In a matter of seconds it was heading for the circuit's designated emergency hospital, four miles away across Moscow.
Sabatino had been kept alive so far. Her medical support team, though, had no idea of her injuries, let alone any damage she might have sustained to her brain.
ELEVEN
Quartano watched the coverage in the saloon of The Melita, stunned by the ferocity of the crash.
He switched the feed to show picture-in-picture; Dr Nazar's face appeared in a window to the bottom right of the screen: ‘Tahm,’ he said to the caller, ‘I’m so sorry – this is awful.’
Quartano, still casting an eye on the main television image, saw a change of shot away from the endless replays of the accident – to an overhead view of the crash site. An army of medics could now be seen swarming across the grassy bank tending the injured. Exactly what was going on, though, was not clear: a number of white tents had been erected, shielding the scene from prying eyes.
In his precise Indian lilt, the principal of the Ptarmigan Formula One Team replied: ‘It is quite dreadful. Modern F1 doesn’t have ghastly accidents like this.’
‘How many people are injured?’
Tahm Nazar went quiet. ‘There are no official figures. Rumours have it twenty-five are dead.’
‘God have mercy.’
‘There's no hard news, though.’
