There are times when protesters get more than just hurt, she knew that.
You would have to say she was something of a dilettante, a bit of a dabbler. She was never very serious about the issues that sparked any given protest, but she really enjoyed the thrill of being part of the pack. She got a high from the noise and fervour of the mob. In short, she found the whole thing a great deal of fun. For her, this protest would be extra exciting. She always found night protests especially exhilarating. It had been dark for some time with only street lamps to show the way forward. There were a least a couple of hundred marchers in the street, all shouting and screaming. Some holding placards, some wielding clubs. It had to be fate, some random sequence of events, that found her at the front of the crowd, behind only one or two of the leaders. Through them, she had a clear view of the row of police officers in their riot gear, spread across the road. The mob was moving forward slowly.
She was looking at the reflections of the street lamps bouncing off the plastic riot shields when she saw the first Molotov cocktail fly over and land at the feet of the police. She hadn’t really expected this. She felt a sudden frisson, a mixture of fear and delight, as she saw two more flaming bottles sail across the night sky. She was looking up at one of these when the bat struck the top of her head. The man in front was swinging it at police. He hardly noticed what had happened. She went down. Within the moving throng, nobody else seemed to notice either, at first. Virtually unconscious, she wasn’t aware of being inadvertently kicked or trampled by those around her. When it was realised that she was on the ground and seemingly out cold, two men carried her through the frenzy to the pavement. One was about to call for an ambulance when he saw that one of the several standby vehicles was coming forward.
By the time the first aid officers had her on a stretcher and were checking her vitals, one of the police officers came forward, making notes and asking if anyone knew her; nobody did. Then, looking closer, he recognised her. She was a regular troublemaker, he thought, she was involved in most of the protests he had attended. Telling the ambulance officers not to let her take off if she came to, he cuffed her wrist to one of the stretcher’s side bars and disappeared back into the noisy fray. They soon had her in the ambulance where they were cleaning up the visible wounds to her arms, hands and forehead, when the first projectile hit the side window. The crowd had come out of nowhere and were pelting the vehicle with anything they could find. The driver shouted to the two attendants in the back to close the doors and hold on tight, as he intended to get the vehicle out of the trouble zone as quickly as possible.
It was then that the first Molotov cocktail hit the windscreen. Unable to see through the blanket of flames, he got out of the cab and ran to the back. He pounded on the doors and shouted that they should get out. The doors swung open and they jumped out. In that moment of panic, the officers couldn’t see a way of getting the patient out quickly, if at all. All three were being hit by flying debris; one of them received a deep cut to the side of his head. Several louts ran at them, pushing them over and kicking them on the ground for no apparent reason. The madness continued as they slammed the doors shut and began rocking the vehicle from side to side. Eventually it tipped onto its side. This was followed by three more bottles striking the crippled vehicle and exploding. At this, with shouts of crazed satisfaction, the group of hooligans ran off.
The ambulance was lying on its side, engulfed in flames, with the sounds of the angry crowds moving away, and the siren of the fire engine growing louder. The medical team, unable to approach the vehicle, because of the heat alone, stood watching helplessly.
Inside, still anchored to the stretcher that was now on top of her, she slowly came around and tried to make out where she was. It was only moments before the petrol tank blew, that with a fuzzy level of consciousness, she tried to remember what the protest was about.