of attire, suddenly Annie was acutely aware that she was dressed in little more than a towel.
He didn’t even wait her response, just assessed the situation in seconds.
‘You’re the only one small enough.’
The personal trainer went to crouch, his palms pleated together to make a step, but Iosef wasn’t wasting a second, his hands gripping her waist and hoisting her up to the wall where she clung none too elegantly as he let go and placed her waving feet on his shoulders. Thank the Lord she’d at least had time to put on knickers.
‘Can you see anything?’ he demanded impatiently, but the gap was too high and too narrow and until she was on the other side there would be nothing to report.
He was so tall that from her position, standing on his shoulders, it wasn’t that far a stretch to get her right leg over the partition and squeeze through the gap. She looked down to the shower floor below, ignoring his impatient questions as she chose a piece of floor space where she could safely drop. It was not a clear drop, though, as she grazed her left leg on the partition and gave a rather large yelp.
‘What’s happening?’ Iosef called.
‘I just caught my leg!’ Annie snarled through gritted teeth.
‘I meant with the patient.’
She was a large lady, half sitting, half lying against the opposite partition wall, her shoulders wedging the door awkwardly, and Annie noted with disquiet the awkward position of her head was actually half blocking her airway.
‘Completely unresponsive, no signs of injury’ Annie called as she turned the water off. ‘Labored resps. I’m going to have to position her, she’s blocking her airway.’
‘Can you lay her down?’
The door’s going to have to come off! Unless...’
‘Unless what?’ he barked.
‘I might be able to shift her around enough to get the door open, but she could have a neck injury.’
‘She could well be a corpse with a neck injury if we don’t get to her soon,’ Iosef pointed out—and in this instance he was right. Although a patient generally shouldn’t be moved, her position was actually life-threatening and though Annie would do all she could to support her alignment, she had no choice but to move her. She raised the woman’s head a fraction and her breathing was instantly less noisy and labored. ‘I’m throwing a towel over to you—use that under her arms so you can get a grip. Does she have a medic alert bracelet or anything?’
Annie rolled her eyes. ‘I think I might have managed to mention it if I’d seen one.’
‘No time for sarcasm, Nurse!’ She could almost see his smile as he delivered his rebuke, but rather than respond she got on with the job in hand.
‘Here.’ She pulled off a rubber bracelet with a key on it from around the unconscious woman’s wrist and threw it under the door.
‘That’s not an alert—’ Iosef started then stopped, telling the trainer to go to the locker and search it.
‘Could you throw a couple more towels?’ Annie called, and even if Iosef didn’t give a damn as to whether or not the patient was naked, as a few towels were thrown over, Annie knew that no matter how dire the situation she’d want whoever found her to take a couple of seconds to preserve her dignity.
On the other side of the door she could hear Iosef barking orders to her, but Annie wasn’t actually listening—there was no effective advice that could be offered from someone who hadn’t seen and assessed the situation. The best she could do now was rely on her own instinct.
God, she was heavy. The woman’s dead weight and the slippery tiles combined to make the task exhausting, but finally Annie managed to angle her enough that the limp body was leaning against her and, doing as Iosef had said, she placed a towel under the woman’s armpits and gripped her as she leant backwards. She watched with a mixture of frustration and relief as the door opened a few inches, allowing Iosef to look inside.
Why did he have to look so fabulous?
Of course, in theory it shouldn’t have mattered a jot what the doctor on the other side looked like, but just as she had preserved her patient’s dignity, it would have been nice to preserve her own. But, of course, Dr Perfect looked impeccable while she lay sprawled, drenched and positively beetroot with exertion on the floor.
‘Just a few inches more—come on, Annie,’ Iosef ordered.
Which was fine for him