N'T FALL from the sky... exactly. In reality, it came down stumbling and sliding, but the effect was more or less the same.
Sam was walking upstream, hopping from stone to stone, marveling at the solitude, the gurgling of the crystal-clear water, and the singing of the birds flitting through the thick woods on the right bank of the stream, when a body landed right in front of her.

"Damn it!" he muttered to himself at this interruption of his happy escape. Still, he took off his backpack and ran to help him.

It was a very large body, she realized as soon as she reached the small ledge that had kept the stranger's upper torso from sinking into the stream. Too large for her to move alone.

He looked up, where several crushed bushes and a trail of stones marked the path followed by the stranger, and tried to visualize the map of that part of the natural park.

–Is anyone up there? Hey?

But even as he shouted, Sam knew he had no hope of hearing a reply. It would have been the man's companion, if he had one, who would be calling out to his friend, anxious to know if he was all right.

The companion... or the companion.

A beam of sunlight made the gold wedding ring on the man's left hand sparkle.

His wife?

Thoughts raced through Sam's mind as he took stock of the victim with his eyes. He had landed
on his side on the bank, and decided to leave him that way, because he didn't want to move him before examining his wounds. In any case, it was very similar to the resuscitation position.

There was no doubt he was alive, for he was breathing. His chest rose and fell with a steady, reassuring rhythm beneath a faded khaki shirt that had seen better days. No blood oozed from any open wounds, and at first glance, his injuries were merely a multitude of abrasions. A full beard of curly brown hair had protected the lower half of his face during the fall, and thick, darker, and excessively long hair must have cushioned the blows to his head.

Sam dug her fingers into her own short, strawberry-blond curls and wondered if he suffered as much from his frizzy beard as she did from her unruly hair. Of course, hair wasn't the most important thing right now! Was she putting off the moment when she would have to touch him to examine his injuries?

"Come on, you touch patients every day at work. Touch them. Check for a pulse."

Sam knelt on the rocky outcrop and wondered if he could find a pulse under his chin. With all that beard? He settled on his wrist and felt it through the frayed, buttonless cuff of his shirt.
The intruder's heart was beating slowly. Very slowly, considering hers was beating wildly. She lifted one eyelid, then the other. She couldn't see any noticeable differences in the size of his pupils, but she had a flashlight in her backpack, so she'd check his reaction as soon as she finished the physical examination.

First, the skull. Pushing aside his lingering irritation at having his rest interrupted, he carefully dug his fingers into the dark locks and palpated the scalp for any bruises or fractures. It seemed undamaged, but if doctors had been able to diagnose broken bones by touch, X-rays would never have been invented.