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The man yanked one from a folded stack of beach towels on the backseat and shoved it toward Lara. She pressed it firmly against the wound. “Hold it in place until I get back.” The mother nodded though she continued to sob. “Apply as much pressure as you can.” To the father she said, “Clear out the back of the car.”
She raced for the door of her clinic. Even as she gathered up the paraphernalia for a glucose IV, she called the Flight for Life number at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler.
“This is Dr. Mallory in Eden Pass. I need a helicopter. The patient is a child. She’s in shock, cyanotic, unresponsive, significant loss of blood. Her right arm is almost severed. No sign of head, back, or neck injury. She can be moved.”
“Can you get her to the Dabbert County landing strip?”
“Yes.”
“Both choppers are currently out. We’ll dispatch to you asap.”
Lara hung up the phone, grabbed her emergency bag, and ran back outside. In what must have been a frenzy, the panicked father had emptied the back of his station wagon. The driveway was now littered with deflated air mattresses and inner tubes, a picnic basket, six-packs of soft drinks, two Thermoses, an ice chest, and an old quilt.
“Help me get her into the back.”
Together Lara and the child’s father lifted her from her mother’s lap and carried her to the rear of the car. Lara climbed in and guided the child’s body down as her father laid her on the carpet. The mother scrambled in and hunkered down on the other side of her daughter.
“Get me the quilt.” The man brought it to her, and Lara used it to cover the child to retain her body heat. “Drive us to the county landing strip. I hope you know where it is.”
He nodded.
“A helicopter will soon be there to take her to Tyler.” He slammed the tailgate and ran to the driver’s side. Within two minutes of their arrival, they were under way.
Working quickly, Lara removed the blood-soaked towel from the girl’s shoulder and replaced it with small 4 × 4 sterile gauze pads. She pressed them into the wound, then tightly bound the child’s shoulder with an Ace bandage. The bleeding could be fatal if it wasn’t stanched.
Next she began searching the back of the child’s hand for a vein. The patient began to retch. Her mother cried out in distress. Calmly, Lara said, “Turn her head to one side so she won’t choke on her vomit.” The mother did as she was told. The child’s air passage was clear, but her breathing was thready, as was her pulse.
The father drove like a madman, honking wildly at every other car on the road, racing through intersections, and cursing through his tears. The mother cried noisily and wetly.
Lara’s heart went out to them. She knew how it felt to watch uselessly while your child died a bloody death.
Dissatisfied with the small vein she’d located in the back of the girl’s hand, she made a swift decision to do a cut-down. She pulled the child’s foot from beneath the quilt and, as the mother watched in horror, used a scalpel to make a small incision in her ankle. She located the vein, made a small nick in it and inserted a thin catheter, through which she connected the IV apparatus. Her fingers moving hastily but skillfully, she closed the tiny incision with a suture to secure the catheter in place.
She was dripping with perspiration and used her sleeve to mop her forehead. “Thank God,” she murmured when she saw that they had arrived at the landing strip.
“Where’s the helicopter?” the father screamed.
“Honk the horn.”
A rheumy-eyed man in greasy overalls came hurrying out of the corrugated tin hangar and went straight to the driver.
“You Doc Mallory?” he asked.
The father pointed toward the rear of the station wagon. The mechanic bent down and gaped at the gory scene. “Doc?”
Lara opened the tailgate and got out. “Have you heard from Mother Frances Hospital?”
“They had one chopper picking up a man having a heart attack out at Lake Palestine and the other at a wreck on Interstate 20.”
“Did they notify Medical Center?”
“Their chopper’s at the same wreck. Hell of a pileup, I guess. Said they could dispatch one from somewhere else. They’re putting out the call now.”
“She’s got no time!”
“Oh, God, my baby!” the mother wailed. “She’s going to die, isn’t she? Oh, God!”
Lara looked at the tiny body and saw the life ebbing from it. “God help me.” She covered her face with her gloved hands, which smelled of fresh blood. This was her recurring nightmare. Watching a child die. Bleeding to death. Incapable of doing anything to prevent it.
