Locked Down With The Army Doc. Susan Carlisle
There was a pause, and then he let out a sigh and gave the briefest shake of his head. “Let’s be quick.”
He grabbed a pile of paperwork and walked over to Aaron’s bed. There was no chance of Aaron talking. He was ventilated with the briefest hint of a purpuric rash on his tanned skin. The new antibiotics were feeding into an IV line. If they were going to make a difference they would have to start working quickly.
Jack looked up at Ty. “We’re going to have to ask you questions because you’ve spent the last few days with these guys.”
Ty gave a nervous nod. “Can’t go anywhere anyhow. What do you need to know?”
Amber started firing questions at him. “Where did they sleep? How many other people are there? Do you have names, ages and contact details? Have any left in the last few days? How many are still there? How many people work at the hostel and at the surf school? What have they been doing at nights?”
Once she started she didn’t stop. Every now and then Jack quickly interrupted with the words “And what about Aaron?” ensuring that Ty was answering for both teenagers.
It seemed that there were around twenty people at the surf school. Things were pretty informal. Most had traveled to get there—some from the other Hawaiian islands. The people who worked there were all local. Timescales were important. Two teenagers had traveled back to other states in the USA yesterday, and a third had left for New Zealand in the early hours of this morning.
While all this was going on, hospital staff worked around them, attaching the two boys to portable ventilators that could be pushed out into the corridor with them; oxygen cylinders were attached to the sides of the bed and a portable emergency trolley was positioned near to the door.
One of the hospital administrators appeared and spoke in a low voice. “The patients in Surgical have been moved. The hospital front entrance has been completely cleared.” Of course, it was covered in glass. “Medical CCU is the safest. It’s right in the middle of the building with no windows, but we’ve already moved the sickest of our elderly patients in there. Pediatrics have been moved down to the theaters.”
“Is the basement ready? Do you have the equipment that will be needed?” asked Jack. Transporting these patients would take more than the few nurses that were left in the department.
The administrator looked a little worried. “The staff room down at the laboratory has been cleared in the basement. The corridor down there is one of the most shielded in the building.” The lights flickered around them again.
“As long as we don’t have a power cut,” said Jack warily.
“Let’s go,” said the head nurse smartly as the windows started to rattle around them. “I don’t think it’s safe to wait. We’ve packed up the equipment that we need.”
She gestured to the nurses who were left. “You two with Zane.” She looked at Amber. “You go with him too.”
“Myself, Ty and Dr. Campbell will take Aaron down in the other elevator.”
There was only one hospital orderly to assist—the rest obviously deployed to other parts of the building. How on earth did you lock down a hospital and keep all patients safe from a hurricane outside? She didn’t even want to think about it.
They wheeled the bed out to the elevator, along with the portable ventilator, tanks and emergency trolley. The progress was slow; it was almost like a juggling act getting all the equipment they needed inside the elevator.
A few minutes later they arrived in the basement. This time she was familiar with the surroundings and backed out of the elevator first, pulling the bed with her. The lab staff must have been warned because a room to the right had been cleared. It looked as if it had been the large staff room, as a pile of chairs and large table were at the bottom of the corridor. The nurse guided the bed into the space and they quickly connected monitors to plug points and checked the ventilator was working properly.
It was weird. Amber actually liked being back in a hospital environment—even though this was a makeshift one. It always reminded her of why she did this job. Sometimes being stuck in an office at the DPA was tough. Only communicating with patients and fellow doctors by phone and email wasn’t really how she preferred to work. She liked this. She liked being in the thick of things. She liked to see the patients, talk to them, be on hand when treatments were being tried and tested. A bit more like the role Jack had just done...
There was a weird sound from the corridor. The nurse looked up and frowned as she fiddled with some cables. “Go and check that, will you?”
The lights flickered again as Amber walked swiftly down the corridor. She automatically looked over her shoulder. It was like being in an old-style horror movie—never her favorite kind of entertainment.
The metal doors of both elevators were still closed. Shouldn’t Jack be here by now with Aaron?
The lights flickered once more then went out completely.
Black. Everywhere.
She automatically sucked in a breath and held it.
“Darn it,” came the shout from further down the corridor, followed by the flickering of some kind of light. Must be from a phone.
“You okay, Amber?” shouted the nurse. “We have a backup generator. It should kick in any second.”
Something flooded into her brain. Keeping her hand on the wall, she walked quickly back to the room she’d just come from. The nurse had her phone in her hand and was using the light from it.
“Are the ventilators still working? Do we need to bag him?”
Even though it was dark, Amber moved to the bed, watching for the rise and fall of Zane’s chest. The nurse was at the other side. She shook her head. “We should have three hours’ worth of battery power. Honestly, the backup generator should kick in. Give it a few minutes.”
There was a large thump from the corridor and some muffled voices shouting.
“Oh, no,” said the nurse.
“What?” asked Amber.
“The elevator. I think your colleague’s stuck in the elevator with Aaron.”
Amber’s heart started to thud in her chest. She lifted her hands from the bed. “Okay, you’re okay here? I can go?”
The nurse nodded. Amber pulled her own mobile from her pocket and flicked the switch on as she walked back down the corridor.
The shouts were getting louder. “Jack? Are you okay?”
“Amber? Is that you? The elevator’s jammed and the emergency phone isn’t working!”
Amber ran over to the doors. It was ridiculous. She tried to pull them apart with her hands but it was obviously no use.
Mamo appeared from the lab. “Problems?” He shook his head. “Can’t do much without power down here.”
She pointed to the doors. “We’ve got one of the kids with meningitis attached to a portable ventilator in there.”
Jack shouted from inside. “Is there anything outside you could use to try and pry the doors apart? I can try from in here, but I think I need you helping on the outside.”
There was a strange sound from inside. Almost a whimpering. Oh, no. The nurse inside must be freaking out. Being trapped inside a black box wouldn’t be most people’s idea of a normal working day.
“Hold on.” Amber held her phone up and tried to scan the corridor around them.
Something seemed to flick in Mamo’s head. “Over here. I think there’s an emergency fire ax next to one of the exits. Maybe we could use that.”
Sure enough, on one of the walls there was an ax mounted in a red box behind a breakable panel. Mamo pulled his lab coat over his fist and