A Consultant's Special Care. Joanna Neil

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘HELP… Oh, please, help me, someone. I think he’s hurt badly…he can’t breathe…’

      Abby heard the distressed cry from where she was sitting, on a sun-warmed golden stretch of sand in the lee of an outcrop of rocks. She had been watching the holidaymakers swimming in the sea, enjoying the rare peace of a summer’s afternoon while she listened to the snatches of laughter and sounds of children playing nearby.

      Now, though, the tranquillity of the day was abruptly shattered. Abby lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and looked over to where the appeal had come from, further along the cove, where a craggy promontory jutted out into the sea, its rock-strewn base dashed by increasingly powerful waves. A fair-haired young woman was kneeling on the beach, and she appeared to be cradling a man in her arms.

      Instinct took over, and Abby scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, snatching up her sandals and canvas bag. The skirt of her cotton dress flapped against her bare legs as she went, creating a faint breeze that cooled her hot skin as she hurried along the shoreline towards the couple.

      Reaching them, she saw that the man wasn’t moving, but was simply lying there as though he had collapsed. He was in his early twenties, she guessed, on the thin side, his body still damp from swimming in the sea, and there were fresh grazes on his chest. Looking at them, Abby frowned.

      ‘I heard you call. What happened? What’s wrong?’ she asked, sinking down on to the sand beside the pair. The mass of her honey gold curls fell across her cheek with the movement, clouding her vision, and she swept them away with the palm of her hand, tucking the silky strands behind her ear.

      ‘He was swimming, and I think he was beginning to get tired,’ the girl said shakily. ‘He’s been ill recently—a kind of flu virus, I think…I knew he was overdoing it and I told him he should stop, but he wouldn’t listen…I don’t know what he was trying to prove. The waves were getting fiercer and I said we should be going.’ Her mouth was trembling, her voice breaking in panic.

      ‘Then all of a sudden a huge wave came and took him by surprise and toppled him over and he was too close to the rocks. I knew he was too close. I think he stumbled and he must have fallen onto them. He was winded—I could see that. It was all he could do to get back to me, and then he collapsed…’ She looked up at Abby, her blue eyes troubled, on the verge of tears. ‘I don’t know what to do. I need to get help, but I can’t leave him like this.’

      ‘I’m a doctor,’ Abby said, her gaze busily moving over the ashen-faced man. ‘I’ll have a look at him, shall I?’

      She said it confidently enough, but if the truth were known, she had not long ago finished a stint as a house officer, and she was still feeling a little unsure of herself. Her next post as senior house officer wasn’t due to start until tomorrow and even that threatened to be a nerve-racking experience.

      She hadn’t met her new boss yet, but Mr Blakesley’s reputation had gone before him. He was known to be sometimes curt, blunt and demanding, and as the consultant in charge of Accident and Emergency at the Roseland Hospital, he was the one who would be supervising her experience of emergency medicine for the next six months.

      Pushing those awkward thoughts aside, she concentrated her attention on the injured man. He was still conscious, but he appeared to be in pain and wasn’t paying either of them very much attention just then. ‘What’s his name?’

      ‘Kieran. I’m Vicky. We just came down here for the weekend. We thought Cornwall would be so romantic…’ Her voice trailed off in despair.

      Abby tried to reassure her patient. ‘Kieran,’ she murmured gently, ‘I’m Dr Curtis—Abby. I’m going to take care of you, but I just need to examine you for a moment. Is that all right with you?’

      Kieran nodded, almost imperceptibly, as though the effort was too great, and Abby quickly checked his pulse. His breathing was laboured, and she looked carefully down at the grazed area of his chest. She watched as he tried to breathe and discovered that there was a part of his rib cage that wasn’t rising and falling as it should. Instead of expanding as he breathed in, that section moved inwards, and when he tried to expel the air from his chest, it shifted outwards.

      ‘I think you have what we call a flail chest,’ Abby explained to him quietly. ‘It means that you’ve probably broken several of your ribs in a couple of places, so that part of the rib cage is moving independently and interfering with your breathing. I’ll do what I can to make you feel more comfortable, and then we’ll get you moved to hospital for a proper check-up.’

      She lifted her gaze to Vicky. ‘I’ll need to go and get my medical bag from my car,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll be just a couple of minutes…it isn’t too far away. Will you watch him carefully while I’m gone? Don’t move him at all, just make sure that he’s comfortable and try to keep him warm. If he should stop breathing, tilt his head back slightly and blow into his mouth. Do you think you can do that?’

      Vicky looked at her