Abigail Gordon - Paramedic Partners

There was just one casualty, she was relieved to see—a man with burns to the arm and chest. The remains of a sweater of some sort were hanging loosely around him.

He was sitting on the grass verge outside the house while firemen were round the back, tackling the kitchen, which was burning fiercely.

It appeared that he was a night worker who had decided to make himself a meal when he’d got in at seven o’clock that morning. But tired after a long shift, he’d fallen asleep with the chip pan on and had only awakened when the kitchen had been ablaze.

He’d suffered what looked like second-degree burns as he’d tried to put out the fire, but on seeing that it was too widespread he’d run outside only just in time.

‘The wife’s at work,’ he croaked as they helped him into the ambulance. ‘She’ll never forgive me for this. I’ve burnt the house down and frizzled myself, all because I fancied some chips.’

‘She might just be glad that you’re alive,’ Selina said as Kane opened the water-gel kit they carried for emergencies such as this.

It was a big moist blanket made to cover burns, with a twofold purpose. It stopped the skin from drying and tightening and kept the air away from tissue that had been exposed in the fire.

Kane had said little, leaving Selina to offer what consolation she could, but he’d displayed a sort of speedy efficiency that had immediately made her think that Charlie must have slowed down somewhat in latter years.

Here was a man who was really into the job, she thought. It was the kind of call-out that she’d taken part in on many occasions, but with Kane it felt different. He was confident and obviously very experienced, so the fact that he wasn’t into the usual chit-chat didn’t really matter.

By the time they arrived at Accident and Emergency the burns victim was having rigors and Kane eyed him in quick concern.

‘He’s in shock and becoming dehydrated,’ he said as he leapt out of the ambulance. ‘Let’s get him in there fast, Selina.’

When they’d delivered the patient to the A and E staff and were about to return to the unit, Kane said, ‘I noticed that your doctor friend isn’t on today.’

It was said casually, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was a reason behind the comment, and when she said with equal nonchalance, ‘Gavin isn’t my ‘‘doctor friend’’, he’s my brother,’ he actually smiled.

‘Oh, I see. I thought it was handy if you had a boyfriend in A and E. Prompt attention and all that.’

‘I haven’t got a boyfriend anywhere,’ she said stiffly. ‘I have a child to care for, a house to run and a very demanding job, all of which leave me very little time for socialising. I lost my husband just twelve months ago, which isn’t a very long time in which to be thinking of replacing him.’

When the words were out Selina wished she’d been struck dumb before uttering them. Why was she justifying herself to this taciturn stranger? Was it because she felt that she had to make a stance? Clarify her position? Or was it because he had evoked anger in her with his tactless remark?

Kane could be excused for not knowing that Gavin was her brother, but as for the rest of it…Had he been given cause somewhere along the line to think that her sex couldn’t manage without a man?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you and will bear your comments in mind.’

Selina groaned inwardly. Now he was making it look as if she was warning him off. As if she thought that every man she met saw an attractive young widow as easy prey.

Selina had no need to worry about him , Kane was thinking. He’d had enough aggro to last him a lifetime with the Eve Richards business. He was only just beginning to come up for air now that the taint had been removed.

* * *

If the first call-out they’d dealt with together had gone smoothly, it wasn’t to be so with the second. Before they’d got back to base another red alert came through on the dashboard computer.

A child was choking with a foreign object stuck in its throat at an address in a nearby avenue.

They were there within seconds, a flash of white shirts and navy trousers as they hurled themselves up the path with Kane in the lead and Selina following with the smaller of the two response bags.

The front door was already open and in a back sitting room a young mother was holding a small boy from behind. With her fists beneath his breastbone she was making frantic inward and upward thrusts to try to dislodge whatever it was that was choking him.

An agitated neighbour was hovering and when she saw them she cried, ‘Help the bairn, for God’s sake!’

He was blue in the face, eyes rolling in his head, and Selina knew that they only had seconds to free whatever it was.

‘Dean swallowed a plastic toy and it’s stuck,’ the mother screamed at them, becoming hysterical now that help had arrived.

As Kane snapped, ‘Forceps!’ Selina already had them in her hand.

‘Take him!’ he ordered with the same brevity.

Obeying, she grabbed the child out of his mother’s arms. As she did so he went limp.

‘He’s barely breathing!’ she said in low voice.

Kane nodded. ‘Lay him on the floor. As long as there’s some inhalation, however faint, I’m going to try to remove the toy before we start to resuscitate, otherwise we’ll be defeating the object. If I can’t get at it with the forceps I’ll have to do a tracheostomy.’

They were both on their knees now, Selina behind the child’s head and Kane at his side. As she held open the boy’s slack mouth, he shone a pencil torch into his throat.

‘Can you see it?’ she asked.

He shook his head.

‘No…Yes! Yes! I can! It’s bright green and oblong.’

‘Can you reach it?’ she gasped.

‘You bet I can,’ he said coolly. ‘Don’t let the boy move, Selina. I don’t want to push it further down than it is already.’

The only sound in the room was the sobbing of the distraught mother as Kane carefully lifted the obstruction out of her child’s throat. He held it aloft triumphantly, before throwing it to one side and ordering, ‘Oxygen, Selina. He’s still breathing but only just.’

* * *

An hour later they were back at the ambulance station. The little boy, with his relieved mother in attendance, had been admitted to the children’s ward at the hospital, where they were going to examine his throat for any damage from the obstruction and would monitor his breathing for twenty-four hours.

It had been Selina’s turn to be silent on the return journey and eventually he’d said, ‘So what’s the problem?’

‘There isn’t one.’

‘Oh, come on!’ he hooted. ‘Let me guess. You don’t like working with me. You prefer cheerful Charlie. You think I was too chatty with the boy’s mother on the way to hospital. Or maybe the opposite—that I’m not sympathetic enough with the public.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she said with a smile that took the sting from the words. ‘How can I know whether I like working with you? It’s only our first day together. As to Charlie, you’re faster than he was, but not as cheerful by any means.

‘And, no, I didn’t think you were too familiar with Dean’s mother. You were just trying to calm her. I haven’t had time to see how you treat the public in general, but it seems clear that you see me as a pair of hands rather than a person. Could that he because you don’t like working with someone of my sex?’

He eyed her sharply at the question.

‘And who might have told you that?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘No. I suppose not. But I’m not keen on having my likes and dislikes discussed in public.’

‘So is it true?’ she persisted.