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ehead, leaving his hand covered in a sooty black mess. He shrugged. ‘Down the mine.’
She shook her head and moved into professional mode. ‘What have you got?’
He jumped out and pulled the gurney. ‘Rufus Bahn, miner. Serious penetrating chest injury.’
She pointed straight ahead. ‘The resus room is waiting—once you’ve washed.’
He nodded and walked quickly. Gabrielle’s hair was pulled up in a ponytail on the top of her head. She had on a dress and a pair of strange clogs. She caught him staring and shrugged. ‘I didn’t have time to change. One of the nurses loaned me her spare shoes.’
Two nurses were waiting in the resus room. Both looked frazzled. Gabrielle gave him a smile as she acknowledged what he’d seen. ‘St George’s has never dealt with a major accident before. We had to call in some staff from a few surrounding hospitals.’
‘Any with trauma experience?’
She shook her head as she put a probe on Mr Bahn’s finger, checked his airway and slipped an oxygen mask over his face. As Sullivan tried to wash the worst of the soot and dust off, she scanned Mr Bahn’s body, found the cannula she was obviously looking for and drew up some drugs. ‘What’s he had?’
He pulled on a paper gown and some gloves. ‘Just a litre of IV saline.’
‘I’m going to give him some morphine for the pain and some steroids for the swelling around his chest area.’
He nodded in agreement. He wasn’t quite sure of the last time Gabrielle had dealt with an emergency situation. Any medic working for Doctors Without Borders could experience just about any situation.
Gabrielle seemed calm and confident, that was good enough for him. She’d tell him if she was feeling out of her depth.
She looked at the penetrating chest wound as he motioned to the radiographer. The mobile X-ray machine was wheeled in and Gabrielle glanced over at him.
He pointed to the door. ‘You go out, I’ll monitor his airway. I don’t want to leave him alone.’ He slipped his hand into the proffered lead apron and one minute later the machine was wheeled back out.
He picked up the wires for the cardiac monitor. There was no way electrodes could be fixed to this patient’s chest—parts of his skin were missing. He motioned to Gabrielle. ‘Help me sit him forward and I’ll put these on his back. I want to try and keep an eye on his heart rate as well as his blood pressure.
She shook her head. ‘No, wait a second.’ She jogged out of the room and he could see her heading to the stairs. He kept an eye on his patient as one of the nurses came in with a check list. He scanned the list. There were twenty-one patients, including their injuries and current status.
‘Where did the Chinese worker with a leg fracture go?’
The nurse looked at him anxiously. ‘They took the rest of the patients to Princess Elizabeth’s—it’s one of the other private hospitals. It has a few specialist eye surgeons and an orthopaedist. Princess Gabrielle arranged it.’ The nurse glanced around at the quiet chaos in the surrounding department. ‘She was worried we wouldn’t have enough theatres or staff.’
Sullivan nodded carefully. She’d triaged the patients as they’d come in. He’d been doing it at one end—and she’d been doing it at the other. It seemed that in emergency situations Gabrielle Cartier kept a clear and rational head. He ran his eyes down the list again. ‘Okay, we seem to have the majority of patients with burns and explosive injuries.’
The nurse bit her bottom lip. ‘Princess Gabrielle said you would be able to handle those. She’s arranged for two plastic surgeons to join you. I think they’re familiarising themselves with the theatre arrangements.’
‘Perfect.’ She really had thought of everything.
The door to the stairs swung open and Gabrielle jogged back towards them, her ponytail swinging madly. She had a sealed surgical pack in her hands that she waved at him.
‘They do a lot of cardiac surgery here. They have proper packs in Theatre. These leads can go on the patient’s back instead of their chest.’
Of course. They were in a state-of-the-art hospital. They probably had equipment that he’d not even seen yet.
They placed the leads on the patient’s back as the chest X-ray was slid onto the light box by the radiographer. She didn’t wait for Sullivan’s diagnosis. ‘Large penetrating injury to the right lung. No wonder his sats are poor. He has a pneumothorax.’
The radiographer was right. Sullivan just wasn’t used to people reading his X-rays for him. He glanced at the monitor. ‘If we have a theatre available I’d rather deal with the pneumothorax in there. It makes sense to be next to the anaesthetist when our next step is to remove what’s causing the lung collapse and then deal with the burns.’
Gabrielle’s dark eyes met his own. ‘That’ll be a long surgery.’
He nodded. ‘It will.’
She could see her biting the inside of her cheek. ‘What is it?’
‘We have other patients who will require surgery. I think we’ll have enough staff to have two teams. Do you want to triage the patients?’
Ah. That was it. He got it. She’d felt confident enough to categorise the patients and send them to the most appropriate hospital. But she wasn’t a surgeon. She didn’t want to step outside her field of expertise. It was up to him to prioritise the surgical cases.
‘Absolutely.’ He looked down at their clothes. ‘And I guess we should both find a pair of scrubs.’
This time she smiled. She was used to him joking when they were at work together. In fact, this was the most normal things had felt between them in the last thirty or so hours. He felt like a fish out of water in the palace. Here? Even though he didn’t know this hospital, this healthcare system or the staff, he felt much more at home.
And even though this was an emergency situation, Gabrielle seemed more relaxed too. Being a doctor was second nature to her. She could adapt to any situation. It brought out the best in her. It was her home too.
Even though they’d barely been there a day, she’d seemed fraught with tension in the palace. As he looked at everyone hurrying to and fro in the emergency department he leaned over and put his hand on her shoulder.
‘I have no idea just how much you’ve done here, or how many promises you had to make to get these two hospitals to take the patients from the mines, but, Gabrielle, without these facilities a lot of these miners could have died.’ He took a long slow breath. ‘I think your negotiation skills will have to continue. Lots of the people affected will have a long road to recovery. I have no idea how the healthcare system works here, but you could have a tough time ahead.’
‘Not as tough as these patients.’ Her voice was firm and determined. ‘Let me worry about that.’ She gave him a soft smile. ‘I’m just glad you were here, Sullivan. Today needs a trauma surgeon and a burns specialist and that’s you. I know these patients are in safe hands. That’s the most important thing in the world.’ She gave a nod of her head. ‘Now, check over the patients for me, then go to surgery. I’ll see you later.’
He bent lower and brushed a tiny kiss on her cheek. ‘Proud of you,’ he whispered, and as he raised his head he saw her eyes glisten with unshed tears.
It was the first time he’d kissed her since they’d got there. For the briefest second he could see a million things flashing in her eyes. Attraction. Sorrow. Worry. Then he saw her suck in a breath and move away quickly.
It only took ten minutes to review the other patients with one of the nurses. ‘This man next, he has full-thickness burns to twenty per cent of his body. I’ll take him once I’ve finished with Mr Bahn. This patient goes to the other team; he has semi-thickness burns that will require cleaning and a skin graft. This lady, Arona Jibel, put her on the other team’s list too. She has multiple small penetrating wounds that all need to be debrided. Put a note she’ll need X-rays in Theatre to make sure th
ey’ve got everything. And this man with the hand injuries and burns to his thighs, I’ll do him third. The two patients with facial injuries—cheeks and foreheads—put them on the list for the other team. I think Gabrielle said there are two plastic surgeons on that team. If I’m finished before them, I can take one of those patients.’ The nurse nodded and scribbled notes furiously. Sullivan held out his hand towards her. ‘And thank you. Everyone here today has been great. I know this isn’t what you’re used to.’
She gave him a smile and she shook his hand. ‘Actually, it reminded me how much I liked to be challenged at work. I’d think I’d forgotten for a while. Now, get going, I’ll organise everything else and make sure these patients are monitored.’
Sullivan glanced back out into the corridor and leaned back, stretching his back muscles. There was no sign of Gabrielle. But that was fine. For the next twelve hours he would probably be very busy.
The difference between the Gabrielle he saw here and the Gabrielle back in the palace had given him a lot to think about.
* * *
Fourteen hours later Sullivan finally left Theatre. Half of Gabrielle’s personal palace staff had arrived at one point or another at the hospital. The director of St George’s had been charm itself, and had invited them to use his own personal suite. But Gabrielle wanted to be near the patients that she considered under her care. She’d taken a quick car ride to Princess Elizabeth’s and checked on the patients and staff there too.
A whole array of directors had arrived from the mining corporation. Gabrielle had directed her staff to deal with them. ‘Find out contact information for all their workers—there’s a huge variety of nationalities—and make sure the hospitals have the information they need. If we need translators, arrange that too.’ She glanced at Franz Hindermann. ‘There’ll need to be an investigation into how this accident occurred. I have other priorities but I expect our government to act appropriately. Make sure the mining corporation know that they will be footing the bill for all expenses. All expenses,’ she emphasised. ‘They should have insurance to cover it—I’m not sure all their workers will. We’ll talk about that later too.’
