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‘Yes. Are you?’
‘Yeah.’
He wrenched his door open, and Thea followed suit, practically tumbling out of the car. An ambulance had been turning right into the hospital, across a lane of traffic, and it looked as if it had been hit by a car coming the other way. Its side had been stoved in, and the impact had pushed it out of control and into one of the brick pillars that supported the gates.
People were running. A group of nurses who had been chatting and laughing together, off duty for the night, had dropped their bags and coats and were legging it across the road towards a silver car, which had spun across two lanes of traffic and crashed into someone’s front wall. Lucas sprinted past her and Thea followed him.
‘The ambulance driver…’ he called to her, before making his way around to the back of the vehicle. There was a doctor already running to the car, and Thea opened the driver’s door of the ambulance.
‘Are you all right?’ The driver seemed dazed, but she had been held firmly in her seat by her seat belt and protected by the air bag.
‘Think so. He came out of nowhere…’ The young woman suddenly snapped back into coherence, and she twisted around to look through the glass into the back of the ambulance. ‘Dave? My partner’s in the back.’
And he would have been sitting right where the ambulance had taken the most impact. ‘There’s someone back there already.’ Thea leaned over and released the woman’s seat belt. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Lisa. I’m okay, you don’t need to go through all that with me.’
‘Indulge me.’ Thea helped Lisa down from the cabin and walked her to a bench by the hospital gates. ‘Sit.’
Lisa rolled her eyes but did it anyway. Thea beckoned to a nurse who had just arrived to help and left her trying to keep Lisa under control while she hurried to the back of the ambulance.
Lucas was struggling with the doors, which had been bent out of alignment by the impact. She could hear someone crying for help now from inside. One great heave, accompanied by a roar of effort, and the doors opened and Lucas levered himself upwards into the back of the ambulance.
Inside, a man was sitting upright on a carry chair, still secured in place by the straps across his body. On the other side, where the impact had been, it was a different story. The wall of the ambulance was twisted and buckled, and a man in uniform, who had to be Lisa’s partner Dave, was lying on the floor. In the silence, the beep of a monitor sounded loudly.
‘Help him. Please, help him…’ The man on the chair was conscious and seemed lucid, more worried about the crew who had brought him here than himself. Thea scrambled up into the ambulance to get a better view, as Lucas quickly checked Dave out. He wasn’t breathing and already going into cyanosis. Blood covered his face and the front of his shirt, and his jaw was obviously broken.
‘We won’t get a line in to intubate. You’ve done a temporary crike before?’ Lucas looked up at her.
‘Yep.’ A cricothyroidotomy was easier to do than a full tracheotomy in an emergency situation, and the results were more reliable. This close to the hospital, the question of how long it would remain stable was irrelevant.
Lucas had already located the kit and broken it open, half filling the cannula with sterile saline. Handing it to Thea, he moved Dave’s head back.
Her hand shook. She’d done this before, but never with the thought that a whole hospital full of medical professionals would be assessing her every move the next morning. The sudden thought that she might fail, and what she’d say to them if she did, paralysed her.
‘You’re good to go, Thea.’ Lucas’s voice was calm.
Dave was going to die if she didn’t do this. That was more important than anything that anyone could possibly say to her afterwards. She positioned one hand around Dave’s neck, holding both sides of the airway, and slid the needle in. Bubbles rose into the body of the cannula, indicating that she’d found the airway.
She held the needle in place, while Lucas removed the syringe and attached the oxygen tube. After an agonising moment Dave’s chest began to rise and fall.
‘Looks as if there are some chest injuries as well.’ Lucas glanced up at the paramedic who was outside the doors of the ambulance, talking to the other passenger, keeping his attention away from the lifesaving procedures that she and Lucas were undertaking. ‘We need to get him out of here as soon as he’s stable.’
‘We’ll be ready to move him in a few minutes,’ the paramedic replied quickly and then turned his attention back to his charge. There seemed to be no lack of resources at this particular accident scene.
Lucas opened Dave’s bloodied shirt, and she caught sight o
f a little gold St Christopher around his neck. She swallowed hard, pulling her gaze away, concentrating on the injuries she could see. Dave’s breathing was fast and shallow, and his chest was rising and falling unevenly.
‘Flail chest?’ She nodded to the area that seemed to be moving in the opposite direction of everything else.
‘Yep.’ Lucas covered the area with a wad of dressing, keeping his hand firmly over the area. Dave’s breathing stabilised, and Lucas gave a grim smile of satisfaction. ‘Is the gurney here yet?’
‘We’re ready.’ A call came from outside, and Lucas acknowledged it with a nod.
‘Okay. We need to do this carefully. You’ll make sure the needle doesn’t move?’ His gaze met Thea’s for a moment.
‘Yes. You keep up the pressure on his chest. The guys will move him.’
