Caroline Anderson - Accidental Rendezvous

ABCDE, Sally thought. They’d sorted out her airway, made sure she was breathing, they were running in fluids to protect her circulation, Nick had done a brief neurological check to assess any obvious disability, and the last thing on the list was exposure—seeing the whole patient naked to check for anything else they might have missed. Before the door swung shut behind the radiographer, Sally was busy cutting clothes off, and it was immediately obvious that Jodie’s pelvic injuries were very severe.

The skin over her hipbones was stained dark purple with bruises, and there were sharp spikes of bone pushing up against the skin in places.

‘Nasty,’ Nick said softly. The probability of internal injuries is very high, I think. Circulation to both legs seems good, though, amazingly. Watch her pressure—what is it?’

‘A hundred over fifty.’

‘She’s young, but it’s still very low. Watch it like a hawk, please. I don’t want to miss anything. Pulse?’

‘One-twenty and erratic.’

‘She’s breathing all right for herself still, so hopefully her spine’s intact. Let’s check her reflexes.’

He ran a quick neurological check to see if there was any likelihood of spinal damage, and incredibly she seemed to have been lucky. ‘Looks OK. Wonders will never cease,’ he murmured under his breath.

He gave her a little more pain relief, then bent over her, speaking clearly. ‘OK, Jodie, I’m just going to have a look at your mouth and see what you’ve done,’ he told her, then carefully removed the tape from the neck brace and opened her lower jaw a fraction to make sure there was nothing life-threatening that they’d yet to find. He was gentle, but of necessity thorough, and she moaned softly.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he soothed. ‘I won’t be long.’ He sucked out her mouth, his hands gentle as he probed the shattered jaw, and he shook his head.

‘We need to tape this up to support it but there’s nothing much to tape it to. She’ll need it fixing a.s.a.p., and her tongue needs stitching fairly soon, it’s still oozing. Where’s the faciomaxillary surgeon, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Here.’ The door slapped shut behind him, and he moved up beside Nick and assessed the patient rapidly. ‘OK, I can see why you called me,’ he said under his breath. ‘Has she got a name?’

‘Jodie Farmer.’

‘Hello, Jodie, I’m Tom Kievenaar. Don’t worry, we’ll soon have you much more comfortable.’ He turned back to Nick. ‘Got any plates of this yet?’

‘Right here,’ the radiographer said, snapping them up onto the light box.

The evidence was incontrovertible. ‘Ouch,’ Nick said softly, and Tom gave a short, humourless laugh.

‘Oh, yes, this one’s a lulu. Lower jaw, upper jaw, cheekbone, nose, all the top front teeth—there’s enough material here for a whole symposium. The rest of her skull looks all right, though, by a miracle. What’s her GCS?’

‘Fifteen at the scene, but she might have been KO’d. No deterioration since admission.’

‘OK. No obvious neurological signs?’

Nick shook his head. ‘Nothing so far.’

‘Good—let’s hope it stays like that. OK, let’s get cracking. Anything else you’ve found out?’

‘She’s bitten her tongue—it’s still bleeding slightly and it needs stitches, but it’s not a priority. I haven’t checked the spinal X-rays yet, though, so we need to do that before she’s moved.’

They went over them together while Sally continued to monitor their patient and stabilise her. Her pressure was dropping slightly, probably due to the huge blood loss from her many fractures, and Sally opened up the flow on the plasma expander to maximum and reported the pressure drop to the two men.

‘Is she cross-matched?’ Tom asked, and Sally nodded.

‘Six units on their way.’

‘We’d better make it ten,’ Nick said, running an eye rapidly over her again. ‘Those pelvic injuries are worse than we’d thought.’

‘They seem to have taken the brunt of the impact,’ Tom murmured. ‘The orthos might want to work at the other end while I do her face. I wouldn’t want to move her too much until that lot’s stabilised. Let’s get some more plasma expander into her while we wait.’

It took a few more minutes before the orthopaedic registrar had come down and conferred with them, by which time the blood had arrived. Then Jodie was wheeled away and Sally felt the tension drain from her body as the responsibility for their patient passed on to the next team.

‘Nasty mess,’ Nick murmured, watching the trolley disappear through the double doors.

‘Certainly is. I don’t envy her. I wonder why she jumped?’

‘I don’t know, but the third floor isn’t high enough, obviously. If you’re going to do that, you need friends in higher places.’

‘Or a friend with enough gumption to talk you out of it,’ Sally said shortly, and stripped off her blood-streaked gloves and apron, dropping them into the bin. She glanced up at the clock and did a mild double-take. ‘Good grief, is it really five-thirty?’

‘Looks like it.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Marvellous. I finished at three.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Nick said with a grin.

‘Oh, it’s par for the course round here,’ she assured him. ‘If I ever manage to get home before the rush hour, I’m doing well. I usually fail.’

‘Such dedication to duty,’ he teased, and she glowered at him, not in the mood to be criticised for doing her job properly.

‘Don’t knock it,’ she advised tightly. ‘Some of us have to be dedicated.’

He blinked and backed away a step. ‘Ouch,’ he murmured, his mouth twisting in a rueful smile. ‘That wasn’t criticism.’

‘Better not have been,’ she retorted, suppressing a twinge of guilt. ‘Right, I’m going before anything else happens. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘How about a cup of tea first?’ he suggested, but she shook her head. She was tempted—oh, how she was tempted—but she knew all about his charm. It was lethal, and she had absolutely no defences against it.

‘I don’t think so, not tonight. I’ve got to do some washing, I’ve got no clothes left.’

‘Now that’s an interesting thought,’ he said softly, and his eyes caressed her, jamming the breath in her throat and draining the strength from her legs again.

‘Forget it,’ she advised, and walked away, resisting the urge to weaken and take him up on the offer of tea. All she needed now was to settle down with him for a cosy chat!

Little chats with Nick had a habit of getting much too cosy, and that lazy charm hadn’t diminished over the years, not one iota. Besides, seeing him again after all this time had left her thoughts in turmoil, and she needed time alone to sort herself out.

Sally kept walking.

‘SO, YOU and Sally were quite close at one time, I gather?’

Nick flicked a quick glance at Ryan, but his expression was innocent. ‘We were good friends,’ he said guardedly, unsure what Sally might have told the Canadian consultant and unwilling to fuel hospital gossip at her expense—or his own, come to that.

On the other hand, he was perfectly willing to pump the man for anything he would reveal about Sally’s life now.

‘I haven’t seen her for years,’ he added with truth. ‘It’s good to see her looking so well and happy—I take it she is happy?’

‘Yeah, she seems to be happy—and, no, I’m not going to tell you any more than that,’ Ryan replied with a knowing smile. ‘You want answers to questions, just ask her. I’m sure she’ll tell you anything she wants you to know, she’s usually pretty open.’