Midwives' Christmas Miracles. Tina Beckett
of the paramedics turned around. ‘All bad. We’ve just had a report that they think her membranes might have ruptured. She’s still unconscious and trapped. They’re panicking. They think she’s gone into labour.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘We’ll be there in five minutes.’
Bonnie sucked in a breath. A thousand different potential diagnoses were flying through her head. From Jacob’s serious expression he was thinking the same.
When they screeched to a halt Jacob didn’t wait, he just flung open the doors, grabbed the bag and started running.
The first thing that struck her was the smell. Fire, burning metal, petrol and a whole lot more. There were four ambulances already on-site. A few casualties were sitting on the edge of the road. Two children with blood on their faces, a man cradling his arm and an older woman who looked completely shell-shocked. Police had cordoned off part of the motorway but the speed and noise of the cars still passing by was unnerving. Rubbernecking. That was what most of the passing cars were doing. Any minute now there would be another accident on the other side of the motorway. She shuddered and jumped out of the back of the ambulance, trying to spot Jacob’s bright green jacket in amongst the melee of emergency people.
‘Over here.’ A policeman gestured her towards an upended car. She stepped around the pieces of car debris that littered the road. Somewhere, she could hear someone crying. The wails cutting through the rest of the sounds. It was horrible. It was unnerving.
She landed on her knees next to the upturned car. The only thing she could currently see of Jacob was the soles of his feet. His whole body was inside the car, his feet sticking out through the broken passenger-side window. ‘Do you need anything?’ she shouted through the gap.
She adjusted her position to get a better view. Inside the car a pregnant woman was trapped upside down, held precariously in position by her seat belt. It was obvious she was still unconscious, an oxygen mask to her face and a collar around her neck. Jacob was pushing back her coat and gently easing her stretched top over her abdomen. Bonnie didn’t wait for instructions. She fished out a stethoscope and a foetal monitor and stuck her hand through a gap in the broken window where Jacob could grab them.
Even from here she could see the damp patch between the woman’s trousers. It could be two things. It could be urine or it could be amniotic fluid. She was just praying it wasn’t blood. She didn’t even want to consider that—not under these conditions.
After a few minutes of wrestling around Jacob finally spoke. ‘I’ve got a heartbeat—albeit a little quick. But I’ve just felt her contracting and there’s absolutely no way to do any kind of examination.’
He shook his head as Bonnie tried to hand him the nitrazine strips. The best they could do in this situation was rub one against her damp clothes. ‘There’s no point checking. I’m fairly sure her membranes have ruptured. We need to get her out of here now. She’s at risk of uterine or placental rupture. There’s no way I’m delivering this baby upside down.’
Bonnie stood up and shouted over to the fire and rescue colleagues. ‘We need to get this woman out. She’s about to deliver. Can we have some assistance?’
One of them ran over. ‘Sorry, got tied up trying to lift a car off someone’s chest.’
Bonnie gulped. It was chaos all around them and even though the road seemed full of emergency staff, there probably still wasn’t enough.
The fire-and-rescue guy pointed at the collar. ‘She was conscious for only a few seconds after we arrived and had no feeling in her legs. That’s why the collar’s in place. The trauma doc said not to move her. He was waiting for you to arrive.’
She nodded. ‘Well, tell the trauma doc we’re here and she’s in labour. We need assistance to move her as safely as possible now. Can you get us a backboard?’
She pushed her way around the other side of the car. The driver’s door was wedged up against a van that was on its side. It was a struggle to push her arms through and try and wind a blood-pressure cuff around the lady’s arm. ‘Do we have a name?’ she shouted to Jacob.
‘Holly Burns.’
She pressed the button on the machine. Now she’d squeezed around the other side she could see him a little easier. There were deep furrows along his brow; he was clearly worried about this patient and so was she.
‘BP’s low,’ she said quickly as the result displayed.
A number of the fire-and-rescue crew had collected around them, all talking in low voices. ‘Doc, we’re going to have to move the car. We need to cut the patient free and we can’t do it while the van’s in place. You’ll need to come out.’
Jacob didn’t hesitate. ‘I’m going nowhere. This mother and her baby need monitoring every second. Move the car with me in it.’
One of them stepped forwards as Bonnie wriggled out from the other side. She could see clearly why they would need to separate the vehicles. There was no way they could get Holly out on a backboard otherwise. If she had spinal damage they had to do everything possible to try to minimise the movement.
She shook her head and touched the fire-and-rescue chief’s arm. ‘Don’t waste your time arguing with him. He won’t change his mind and it’ll just get ugly. This woman could deliver very soon and her position makes it dangerous for her life and her baby’s.’
She was quite sure this went against every health and safety check imaginable. But she’d seen fire and rescue, paramedic and police services do similar things before. They all made the patient their priority.
She stood back as equipment was positioned and blankets shoved inside the car as Jacob was told to brace himself and his patient.
The car and van were wedged tightly together. The sound of metal ripping apart made her wince. Nothing about this was delicate. Both the car and van were juddering, wheels spinning in the air. It seemed to take for ever before they were finally yanked apart and the fire-and-rescue crew moved in with their cutting equipment.
It only took seconds for them to cut the side from the car. One of the other trauma doctors appeared with the backboard and had a quick confab with Jacob inside about the best way to cut Holly free from her seat belt and support her spine. It was a delicate operation. Twelve pairs of hands ended up all around her, ready to ease her gently onto the spinal board as the seat belt was cut. ‘Hold it,’ said Jacob abruptly. ‘She’s having another contraction. We’ll have to wait a few seconds for it to pass.’
Bonnie swallowed anxiously. Jacob still had the foetal monitor on Holly’s swollen abdomen. She could see the contraction clearly. As an experienced midwife she knew Holly wasn’t in the early stages of labour, even though she was upside down. A thought flicked through her mind—had Holly already been in labour and on her way to the hospital before the crash? Or was this a trauma-induced labour brought on by the crash? One thing was for sure: as soon as they got Holly into the ambulance, they’d better be prepared for a delivery.
As the seat belt was cut and Holly slid onto the backboard Bonnie glanced around. ‘Does anyone know about next of kin?’ she shouted. They were just about to take Holly away from the accident site. There hadn’t been a chance to get all the information they needed.
One of the policemen appeared at her elbow. ‘We’ve sent someone to contact her husband. Are you taking her to CRMU?’
Bonnie nodded. ‘Can you give me her husband’s name and contact details?’
He nodded and scribbled in his notebook, ripping out the page and handing it to her. By the time she turned around Holly was already being loaded onto the ambulance.
Jacob was ruthlessly efficient. The other trauma doctor secured Holly’s head and neck, checking her airway before he left. He was part of the general team from Cambridge Royal. ‘I have to accompany another patient back with a flail chest. I’ll send an orthopod around to the maternity unit.’ Jacob gave him the briefest nod as he attached the monitoring equipment. Bonnie barely got