Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

Her heart was somewhere else. Gone. A lifeless thing with no meaning. There were tears streaming down her face and she didn’t check them. She couldn’t.

Hugo.

And then a shout. From Gary, the giant of a young firefighter who was so worried about Sue-Ellen.

‘Over here. He’s over here. In the dam.’

Gary, who obviously knew the lie of the land, had spared not even a glance for the burnt-out shell of the house where it was obvious nothing could have survived, but he’d moved swiftly toward a bank over to the left. Now he stood on the rise and yelled back to them.

‘They’re over here. They’re in the dam. Doc with about thirty bloody goats and a dog and Sue-Ellen. They’re alive.’

Hugo was alive, but Sue-Ellen barely qualified. He’d heard them come but he could do nothing. The girl in his arms needed all his attention. Her eyes were wide but what she was seeing was invisible to him. She was drifting in and out of consciousness. Her blood pressure was way down and her pulse was thready and weak.

He needed equipment. He needed help.

The grass at the verge of the dam was still smouldering. He couldn’t move.

So he lay, supporting Sue-Ellen, partly submerged in the water. Beside them, her half-grown collie lay and whined and whined, and around them Sue-Ellen’s beloved angora goats shifted in anxiety.

The girl in his arms stirred and seemed to focus. ‘I…can’t…’ she whispered.

‘You don’t need to do anything, Sue-Ellen,’ he told her, trying hard to keep his voice reassuring and steady. ‘You’ve done it all. Your goats are fine. You’ve saved your pup. You’re burned but not too badly. You’ll be OK. People are coming. We’ll both be looked after. Your goats. Your dogs. All of us.’

She was no longer listening. She’d dropped again into unconsciousness.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them Rachel was slithering down the bank toward him.

His Rachel.

‘I haven’t been able to help. I haven’t had anything to work with,’ Hugo told her. The fire crew had laid a thermal blanket over the mud at the side of the dam. Gary-appalled beyond belief-had lifted Sue-Ellen’s limp body from Hugo’s grasp and laid her tenderly on the bank. Someone else had run for Rachel’s equipment. Now they were working fiercely in tandem.

Severe burns. Shock. Smoke inhalation. Why hadn’t they been able to get here earlier? Rachel thought fiercely as she checked blood pressure. Eighty over fifty. Hell.

‘Gary, look after Hugo,’ she ordered. As one of the few professional firefighters, Gary would know basic first aid, but Hugo was having none of it. He brushed Gary aside and reached for the IV equipment.

‘I’m fine. I haven’t been able to help but I can now.’

‘Are your hands burned?’

‘No.’

‘Your voice is rasping.’

‘I’m not burned. It’s just from smoke inhalation.’

‘Well, then…’

‘Leave it.’

She cast a doubtful glance at him but his look was grim and determined. She had the sense to let it be, moving to Sue-Ellen’s mouth, tilting her chin so her jaw dropped open.

‘I checked,’ Hugo said briefly. ‘There’s no obvious burns to her mouth. The pharynx isn’t swollen.’

‘Lucky.’ Rachel placed a stethoscope on Sue-Ellen’s chest while Hugo accepted the bag of saline from Gary and swabbed the girl’s bare arm. IV access would have to be ante-cubital-through the elbow-because of deep burns on her hands. She was still deeply unconscious.

‘Oh, God, she’s dying,’ the young firefighter whispered, and Rachel found time to glance up at him.

‘You sound like you love her,’ she said gently, and the young giant nodded. They were working together to rip away clothing and place the bags of saline.

‘We used to go out with each other. When she was diagnosed with schizophrenia she called it off. Said it was unfair to me. I came around last night to see if she needed help and she told me to clear off. But she didn’t want me to. I could tell. And then today I was caught out with the fire truck and couldn’t check. Hell. I didn’t know… I didn’t know…’

He hadn’t known how much he loved her, Rachel thought, with the sudden insight of someone who’d been down just that road.

‘She’ll be right,’ she said gently. ‘Gary, can you find us more blankets from the truck? I know it’s crazy but the water will have chilled her and we need her warm. You’ll find the sheets I brought-they look like a cross between plastic and tin foil. And I have sheets of clingwrap. I want them, too.’

The firefighter nodded, grateful to do anything. Anything! He disappeared at a run.

‘We need to contact air ambulance services,’ Hugo said in a voice that was growing more ragged by the minute.

‘I already have.’ It was the fire chief, appearing over the dam bank with his radio receiver still in his hand. ‘One of the state’s medical evacuation helicopters is available. Apparently our firestorm has upgraded us. Cowral’s become a priority and the chopper will be here in twenty minutes.’

‘If we can keep her alive,’ Hugo muttered, and Rachel shook her head.

‘There’s no doubt.’ She had an oxygen mask on the girl’s face and already Sue-Ellen’s complexion was deepening under the grime to something that looked more healthy. As if on cue, the girl stirred and moaned.

‘Morphine,’ Rachel murmured, reaching behind her for her bag, but it was Hugo who administered it. He was shocked and battered but he was working on autopilot.

‘Let me go. Let me go…’ It was a thready whisper but she was starting to fight them.

‘Haloperidol?’ Rachel queried, and Hugo nodded. If Sue-Ellen was schizophrenic then the whole combination of events might well be enough to push her over the edge. Sedation was imperative.

The fluids were flowing freely now. Rachel took another blood-pressure reading and breathed a bit more easily.

‘A hundred and ten, seventy. See, Hugo? We’ll do it.’

‘You’ll do it,’ he muttered. ‘I couldn’t do it without you. Hell, Rachel, I had nothing.’

‘Because your car went up in flames,’ she said brusquely. ‘It could be said you had an excuse. I don’t think the medical board is going to strike you off for losing your doctor’s bag. And you did save the patient.’

Gary arrived back, sliding down the bank with a bunch of blankets. He looked worried sick.

‘Let’s find the extent of these burns,’ Hugo said. He was starting to sound in control a bit-just a little. He lifted Sue-Ellen’s palms and grimaced. Rule of palm… Take the area of a size of a palm print and measure how many palm prints were burned on the girl’s body. Twenty? Thirty? They were looking at something like thirty per cent burns.

‘We need that fluid coming in fast.’

‘We have it,’ Rachel replied.

‘Have we got dressing packs?’

‘We have everything we need.’ She’d carried her bag with her, and she flipped it open. As Hugo started gently separating burned fingers-imperative in these first few minutes-she started sorting, handing Hugo sachets of specially formulated gel to soak the burns, then gauze to place over them before they wrapped the whole area in clingwrap. It was imperative to get the area sterile and air-free.

At what cost came the time spent in the dam? What infections were in the ash-and mud-laden water? But at least it meant she had a chance.

And a chance was what she most needed. As Gary stooped over Sue-Ellen and her eyes fluttered open and found Gary…as Gary lifted her hand to his face and held…just held, Rachel thought Sue-Ellen had everything she needed right here. Right now.

She was injured almost to death.

But she had her love and one look at Gary told her that it would take more than schizophrenia or bushfires to part them again.