her in the suddenly spinning world and her panicked thoughts eased momentarily.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘C-Carrie.’
‘Hi. I’m Charlie.’ He smiled. ‘I need you to slow your breathing down, OK? Do you think you can do that?’
Carrie nodded mutely but she still couldn’t get enough air.
‘Come on, Carrie, like this.’ He breathed deeply in and out himself. ‘Breathe with me, like this.’
Carrie forced herself to slow her breathing. It was hard at first, her oxygen-starved lungs protesting but she clung to the calm timbre of Charlie’s voice, mimicked his deep steady breathing — in and out, in and out. His hand on her shoulder was immeasurably comforting and, slowly, the tingling subsided.
‘OK, now. Good. This is good.” He smiled encouragingly. “Much better. Well done.’
Carrie was aware somewhere inside her jumbled thoughts that he was talking to her like she was a frightened child, the way she spoke to Dana during a thunderstorm. And she was also aware that behind his calm façade his eyes kept flicking down to check the inert man on the ground.
Their patient was in bad shape and she had to pull herself together.
‘I need to keep going here. Will you be OK? Just keep breathing, OK? In and out. All right?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m g-good now. I’ll breathe.’
Charlie searched her face. She still looked scared but the panic was gone. ‘That’s great.’ He nodded and turned his attention back to his patient.
What first? He needed a collar to stabilise the patient’s neck before he manipulated it to improve the airway. He didn’t have one. He made a mental note to put a collar in the kit for future use and moved to plan B. He knelt so that the patient’s head was between his legs, his knees and thighs providing support for the head and neck.
He experimented with some gentle jaw support and chin extension and was relieved to hear the breathing become much less noisy. He reached for his portable suction unit, pushed the mask aside and placed the sucker inside the man’s mouth. Blood slurped into the tubing.
Carrie startled at the loud mechanical noise. The red fluid tracked down the tubing and she looked away quickly. Nausea roiled through her intestines again and for an awful moment she thought she was going to disgrace herself – more than she had already - and lose her dinner. Her heartbeat spiked and she coughed on a rising surge of bile.
Charlie glanced up quickly. ‘How you doing?’ He could hear fear in the rattle of her breath as she struggled to keep herself in control. ‘In and out, Carrie. This is nearly over.’
Carrie nodded, forcing herself to breathe, opening her mouth to ask the question burning through her mind. ‘Do...do you think he’s going to d-die?’
Charlie was surprised to hear her talk. But that was good. Maybe she needed conversation to distract her from the grim reality of the situation?
He had two choices. Truth or gloss.
‘Probably.’ He’d never much been one for gloss. ‘He’s got a significant head injury and multiple fractures, including probable facial, which is compromising his airway. His pupils are fixed and dilated. He has a major arterial haemorrhage.’
Carrie nodded. Through the fog of her jumbled thought processes she knew just one of these alone was a significant, life-threatening injury. Combined...?
‘But it’s OK, I’m a doctor. I’m not giving up yet.’
He grinned despite the circumstances, and relief flowed cool and easy through her system. Maybe his confidence was wrong in the face of the severity of the situation but it helped calm her a little.
The wail of a distant siren interrupted their conversation and they both cocked their heads. Carrie had never heard a more beautiful sound.
‘See?” Charlie smiled again. “Not much longer.’
A fire engine arrived a minute later. It wasn’t quite what Charlie was after but it meant more hands. ‘What happened?’ asked a thin young man in a navy uniform, jumping out of the truck.
Charlie filled them in. Within a minute the car was being dealt with, a road block was being set up to manage any traffic and Charlie’s request for light had been efficiently dealt with. He even commandeered someone to assist. Second rule of triage — the most experienced person on scene managed the airway.
But Charlie needed to get a line in and he couldn’t do that from the head of the patient.
He let one of the crew take his place, stressing the importance of neck stability while he quickly placed an IV in the crook of the patient’s elbow. He