Fiona Lowe - Newborn Baby For Christmas

Doubling back, she rushed towards the sound and arrived at the kitchen at the same moment as Dennis. He was swearing more loudly than his employees.

A white cloud of dust was settling around the young apprentice who lay sprawled and groaning on the floor surrounded by half of Georgie’s ceiling. He was on his side with one leg lying at an odd angle. She instinctively looked up as if she’d forgotten the ten-foot height and needed to calculate the drop. ‘Get my medical bag from my car. The silver four-wheel drive,’ she shouted to no one in particular. ‘My keys are on the hallstand seat.’

‘On it.’ One of the workmen hurriedly left the room, the loud thud of his workboots hitting the polished hall floorboards and reverberating back to her.

‘I promised your mother I’d look after you, Mitch,’ Dennis said, his face tinged with green. ‘She’s going to kill me.’

Clearing a space by swiping her foot back and forth through the debris, Georgie pulled her sundress over her legs for protection and knelt down next to the teenager.

‘Mitch? Who am I?’

His face was twisted in pain. ‘Sorry about your plaster, Dr Lambert.’

‘Right now I’m more worried about you. That was quite a fall.’ She looked at his pupils, which were thankfully the same size as each other. ‘Did you hit your head? Black out?’

‘I dunno. One minute I was on the beam and the next minute I was here.’

‘Can you open and close your eyes for me?’

He looked at her as if she was slightly deranged but did as he was told, and Georgie was pleased to see his pupils reacting to light. She picked up his wrist, feeling for his pulse, and he yelped in pain. ‘Sorry. You probably landed on this when you instinctively put it out to protect yourself. Sadly, we don’t land as well as cats.’

Mitch moaned. ‘Me hip’s killing me.’

Reaching out her hand, she took his carotid pulse and counted for ten seconds. It was fast but relatively steady and she hoped the speed was due to pain and not internal bleeding. Only time would tell. ‘Dennis, call an ambulance.’

The builder nodded, fishing his phone out of his overalls pocket and making the call.

Georgie examined Mitch’s legs, which were bloody from cuts and scratches. One ankle was swelling before her eyes and his leg was rotated outwards, which wasn’t a good sign. She added it to the growing list of injuries but possible fractures were the least of her concerns at the moment.

‘Mitch, I need you to listen very carefully to me and only move when I tell you.’

The fear of getting into trouble morphed into a fear of a different kind and his entire body stiffened. Suddenly he looked a lot younger than his seventeen years. ‘It hurts to move.’

‘Good,’ said Dennis. ‘You won’t be tempted to do any more stupid things.’

Despite the gruffly spoken words, Georgie could hear the worry and concern in the boss’s voice and he had plenty to worry about. A fall like the one Mitch had just sustained meant a strong possibility of fractured vertebrae and a compromised spinal cord, along with a host of other injuries. ‘Can you feel your fingers and toes?’

‘Yeah.’ He wiggled his fingers but flinched when he tried his toes. ‘Me right leg feels wrong.’

At least he could feel it.

‘Here’s your bag, Doc.’ Dennis knelt down opposite her and handed her the medical kit, which Greg, the carpenter, had just passed him.

‘Thanks,’ she called out to Greg. ‘I need towels and sheets, please. They’re in the linen press in the hall.’

‘Sure thing.’

As he left the room, Georgie pulled the green whistle out of her bag—the emergency analgesia that patients sucked on for pain relief. ‘Mitch, put this in your mouth and take deep breaths and it will help with the pain.’

The young man did as he was asked and Georgie started to assemble a cervical collar. ‘I’m going to put this around your neck for support and then Dennis and I are going to roll you onto your back like you’re a log. It might hurt.’

‘That don’t sound good.’ Mitch’s voice sounded small and scared.

‘Sorry, mate, but until I know exactly what damage you’ve done to yourself, we’re protecting your spine.’ She started measuring for the collar, using an imaginary line from the top of his shoulder to where the collar would rest and then another from the chin. Putting as many of her fingers that fitted into the space, she used them to measure the distance.

A moment later with a series of clicks and clacks she adjusted the collar, using the locks, until it was the correct size. ‘Dennis, I need you to hold Mitch’s head like this.’ She demonstrated.

‘Can do.’ Dennis’s usually loud and beefy voice quavered slightly and his face had stayed white tinged with green. Despite that, he did exactly as he was asked, using his burly hands—one on each side of Mitch’s cheeks—to keep his head in a neutral position.

Mitch wore a silver skull on a chain around his neck. ‘I have to take this off,’ she said, pulling back on the clasp, ‘but I promise it will be safe.’ She slipped it into her pocket and then slid the back portion of the collar behind his neck and folded the loop of Velcro inwards on top of the foam padding. After attaching it to the chinpiece, she tightened the collar, using the tracheal hole as the anchor point. Mitch’s chin protruded over the collar, which was a good sign.

‘Is it comfortable?’

‘Yes. My neck never hurt. Just everything else.’

She needed to examine him fully but she wasn’t prepared to do that until she’d protected his spinal cord. She patted his arm and said, ‘Take another couple of deep breaths on the green whistle.’

Greg had dropped onto the dusty floor two fluffy towels and her brand-new one-thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets she’d bought to celebrate moving into her own home. Linen she’d not even used yet.

She silenced her moan of disappointment as she rolled a luxury towel and inserted it between Mitch’s knees to keep his legs apart and the head of both his femurs in their hip sockets. Using one sheet, she tied his ankles together and then wrapped another one around his hips. She’d stake her bottom dollar he’d fractured his pelvis and, with the close proximity of his bladder and bowel, that was a real concern. ‘How are you travelling, Mitch?’

His eyes fluttered close to closing. ‘This whistle’s good stuff.’

She gave a vote of thanks for Australian ingenuity and inventions and smiled, having heard similar stories from injured patients in the past. Mitch was going to need all the help it could give him.

Glancing up at Dennis, she said, ‘We need to move him very carefully. You hold his ankles and support his legs and, Greg, you put your hands on his hips and I’ll take care of his neck. On my count we’re going to roll him very slowly onto his back.’

She waited for the men to get into position. ‘Mitch, are you ready?’

‘I guess.’ He sounded hesitant and scared.

‘Right, fellas. One, two, three.’

Mitch slowly came onto his back, his body in alignment, and the moment they took their hands away he sucked down another deep draft on the whistle.

‘Great work, guys. Thanks.’ Georgie rechecked Mitch’s pulse and then took his blood pressure. Both were up. Was he bleeding?

She quickly primed an IV line by folding the plastic cord in half before breaking the solution seal and letting the fluid roll down without air bubbles. ‘Can someone go out and wave down the ambulance so they know which house?’

‘I’ll go,’ said Greg.

‘Dennis, cut off Mitch’s jeans, please.’ She tightened a tourniquet around Mitch’s upper arm and then flicked her fingers against his inner elbow. A vein rose up against her finger. ‘Just the prick of a needle,’ she said as she slid the cannula into place.