Page 2 of Where the Wattles Bloom

Staring in dismay at the weak signal on her phone, she dialled triple zero. Anchoring the phone to her ear with her shoulder, she sliced through the seatbelt with the knife attachment that came with the window breaker.

‘Do you require police, fire or ambulance?’ The connection was awful, the male voice breaking up, but it was help. Her heart rate decelerated a fraction.

‘Ambulance.’

Finding it hard to get in behind the man with the airbag in the way, she popped it with the knife.

Look at her go—a regular Crocodile freaking Dundee.

‘Hello. What is the exact location of your emergency?’

Good question. Where the hell was she? Think, Rowena. What was the last marker she’d seen?

Think!

‘I’m about fifty kay out from Acacia Junction in the middle of New South Wales, on the B85. On the eastern approach,’ she added with a grunt as she grabbed the man around the shoulders and yanked, his torso falling heavily against her chest.

If she’d had a cervical collar she’d have put it around his neck, but she didn’t, and she couldn’t perform effective CPR with him sitting up, so she hoped like hell the cause of his arrest wasn’t related to a spinal cord compression because she’d probably just killed him for good.

The next response was garbled but Rowena thought it was a request for what had happened.

‘Car accident. It veered off the road in front of me and—’ Rowena grunted again as she dragged the prostrate man from his seat bit by bit, bracing against his full weight as the accident victim slumped against her. She was far from petite but she still struggled under the man’s boneless mass.

Thank god for those gym sessions these past months.

There were more garbled half words Rowena couldn’t catch, and for a moment she wanted to scream as she finally got him out, his feet dropping to the dirt like lead weights. How she managed to not dislodge the phone from between her shoulder and ear, Rowena had no idea.

‘I’m sorry, you’re breaking up and I can barely make you out so just listen.’

She dragged him clear of the vehicle so they could be seen by any passing cars before kneeling beside him, thanking the universe for her jeans as dirt and sharp little rocks abraded her knees even through the denim.

‘There’s just one man. I think he’s had a heart attack. He’s not breathing and does not have a pulse. He doesn’t appear to have any other injuries.’

Rowena briefly left the man’s side to retrieve the first aid kit. She plonked it beside her as she resumed her position, plucking out a pair of gloves and snapping them on. Absently she noticed blood on her arm and realised she’d managed to nick herself, despite using her shirt as protection.

Wherever the hell it was right now.

‘I am an ICU nurse.’ She retrieved the pocket mask from the kit. ‘I have dragged him out of the car and am about to start CPR.’

Probably best not to mention it had been about a decade since she’d performed CPR on anyone bigger than a newborn.

‘I’m going to put the phone on speaker but reception is bad and I am alone out here so I’m going to be busy until help arrives.’

Rowena hit the speaker button, placed the phone on the ground and positioned her knees snug with the patient’s ribs. The guy on the phone was saying something else but her entire focus was on a pair of blue lips as she placed the cushioned plastic mask with the moulded protruding mouthpiece over his nose and mouth.

Forming a seal with her lips, she ignored the faint bitter tang of treated plastic as she performed some rescue breaths. Then, finding the centre of his chest with the heels of her interlocked palms, Rowena delivered her first compressions. Given how big the man was, she really had to put her back into it.

The emergency call taker said what she thought was, ‘The ambulance is on its way,’ and she said, ‘Tell them to hurry.’

Which was stupid. They were hardly likely to dawdle.

Still, if she was fifty kilometres from the nearest ambulance, it would be about twenty minutes going full lights and sirens before help arrived. Thankfully the flat, straight, deserted road was perfect for speeding, because the man’s chances dimmed the longer he was down.

He needed oxygen. And adrenaline. If only she could give him some of hers, which was currently washing around her system in ridiculous surplus.

A monitor would be super handy. A defibrillator even more so. But all he had was her.

‘Don’t you die on me,’ Rowena said, breathing heavily.