Resisting Her Rescue Doc. Alison Roberts
still some air in there, between waves.’ Cooper automatically reached out as the woman beside him stumbled on a rock. To his surprise, she caught his hand and held it as they both made their way back to shore as quickly as they could. His brain registered how that wet T-shirt was clinging to her body and he knew that image was going to resurface at a later, and less inappropriate, moment.
They were both soaking wet and should have been freezing given the water temperature and the slight breeze adding a chill factor but, oddly, the only thing that made Cooper realise he might be cold was the extraordinary warmth of that hand he was holding. It wasn’t until she let go, as they leapt out of the last wash of the waves, that he started to shiver.
The toddler and the baby in the car seat were nowhere to be seen so they must have been taken up the bank already. Perhaps the police officers on scene were caring for them in the warmth of one of their vehicles. They needed to get the female driver into shelter as well but it looked as if she wasn’t stable enough for what would have to be a slow journey up the steep slope.
He watched Fizz crouch beside the woman. She had her cheek near the victim’s face and a hand on her abdomen. ‘She’s breathing...just.’ She looked past the group of fire officers nearby. ‘Doesn’t look like we’ve got an ambulance on scene yet, does it?’
‘No.’ Cooper could see his own backpack not that far away. ‘But I’m a paramedic. I’ve got a kit. I’ll grab a stethoscope, shall I?’
It was the first really direct look he had received from her. She had brown eyes, he noticed. Really dark orbs that were assessing him with lightning speed.
‘Get my kit, too, would you?’ she said. ‘It’s over there on top of that flat rock.’
Cooper moved instantly. It felt as if he’d passed an unspoken test of some kind, he realised as he grabbed both backpacks and turned back. Not that it should have made any difference at all to this situation but instinct told him that it would not be an easy thing to gain this woman’s approval. Absurdly, Cooper actually felt a beat of pride in himself that he was being accepted as a temporary colleague.
* * *
He was a big bear of a man, this unexpected assistant that she had. Well over six feet in height and broad-shouldered.
Felicity Wilson believed that he was what he said he was. He’d clearly known what he was doing when he’d taken over getting this woman out of her crashed car and the way he’d told her to stay back until the car could be secured safely was pretty much what most people in the emergency services would have told her.
How could anybody have stood back when you could see that tiny face in the window, though? And yeah... Fizz knew she had a bit of an issue with impulsiveness when it came to dangerous situations but how good did it feel when taking that risk actually worked?
It would feel even better if she could make sure the mother of those children made it out of this disaster alive.
He had big hands as well, this man, but they were clever and nimble. He was opening pockets within the backpacks and extracting all the kinds of things that were going to be needed. Fizz stole the occasional glance as she looked up from doing a rapid primary survey on her patient, who was groaning but not conscious enough to open her eyes or speak to them coherently. She lay in the plastic rescue basket the fire service had provided.
Currently, those officers were setting up a canvas wind shield around them and watching what was happening. Two of them had taken off their heavy jackets and had passed them to the medics. Fizz felt swamped by the size of the garment but she wasn’t about to let it hamper her movements.
‘I’d put her GCS at less than ten. She’s tachycardic at one twenty-four,’ she told the man helping to stabilise her patient. ‘Tachypnoeic with a respiration rate of thirty-two and... I’m not sure I’m getting any breath sounds on the left side. Hard to tell with the noise of the waves.’
‘Pneumothorax?’ The fire-service jacket looked like it was the perfect size for this man. And he looked as if he was well used to a uniform and the authority it conveyed. He had found the small oxygen cylinder in a side pocket of her first-aid kit and was attaching a mask. ‘Is she hypoxic?’
‘Let’s get some oxygen on.’ Fizz nodded. ‘Got some shears?’ She cut at the woman’s clothing when he placed the tool in her hands and then slipped the elastic of the oxygen mask around their patient’s head to keep it in place.
‘Look at that...’ The marks of deep bruising from the seat-belt injury were already visible in dark red patches. Fizz palpated the side of the woman’s chest. ‘Definitely some rib fractures.’
Her partner had his fingers on the woman’s neck. ‘Carotid pulse palpable but weak,’ he told her. ‘Looks like her jugular venous pressure is raised, too.’
Fizz nodded. She could see the veins on the neck were visibly distended. She needed to have another listen to the chest and to check whether the tracheal line was deviated, which could confirm that air trapped in the woman’s chest was developing into the emergency that a tension pneumothorax represented.
Her partner was setting up for an IV, she noticed. He had his own roll that contained cannulas, alcohol wipes, Luer plugs and tape. He also had a litre of saline and a giving set ready to go. And he’d got a blood-pressure cuff on their patient’s arm already.
‘Blood pressure’s eighty-five over fifty,’ he told her. ‘Can’t see any external bleeding. I’ll check that her pelvis is stable in a tick.’
Fizz nodded but didn’t say anything for a moment. She had her stethoscope on her patient’s chest. Right side then left side. Yes...she was sure there were no breath sounds on the left but was it air or blood that was stopping the lung functioning?
‘I’m missing my ED ultrasound,’ she muttered.
‘The portable ones we carry in the ambulance now are great. Love them.’
She gave him a glance that probably looked startled but she knew that it was only the most highly trained paramedics that got to use equipment like portable ultrasound machines or ventilators. This guy not only knew what he was doing but he was very likely to be very good at it as well. It only took the briefest eye contact but she knew that he could tell exactly what she was thinking. His gaze was steady.
I am good at what I do, it told her. You can trust me...
‘What’s your name?’
‘Cooper. Cooper Sinclair.’
He wasn’t local. Fizz would have noticed this man amongst all the emergency services personnel she had worked with in the last few years. Noticed and remembered him. It wasn’t just his size that made him stand out. He had a strong Scottish accent. Not that where he came from or why he was here was of any interest to her right now.
‘What do you need there, Doc?’ A senior fire officer had come close. ‘Ambulance is just arriving on scene now but it’ll take them a minute or two to get their gear down the cliff. They want me to ask you what you need.’
‘The usual,’ Fizz responded. ‘Life pack, oxygen and the kit. I’d like to get her airway secured before we move her.’
‘Her name’s Sonya Greene. We got her bag out of the car and found her driver’s licence. She’s thirty-two years old.’
The same age as she was. With two very young children. ‘Somebody tracing next of kin?’
‘Cops are onto it. I’ll go and help get that gear down to you.’
‘You going to intubate?’ Cooper asked as the fire officer stepped back, talking into his radio.
‘I’ll need to decompress the chest before intubating.’
He nodded. ‘Positive pressure ventilation could make a pneumothorax a lot worse.’
‘I think it’s getting worse, anyway. Does that look like tracheal deviation to you?’