The Fling That Changed Everything. Alison Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ caught her bottom lip with her teeth to stop her saying anything. Like confessing that she had started the day in exactly the same way. The French braiding of her hair hadn’t been nearly as easy as she’d implied to Ana. It had taken ages and it had been Sam she’d been thinking of as she’d stared into the mirror and tried to perfect her professional look.

      Had he done the same thing with that pristine-looking coat?

      And if so...why?

      To impress her?

      He was still within sight on the walkway. In fact, he’d stopped in his tracks and was staring at something outside in the garden. Lia had been entranced by the flock of rainbow-coloured parrots she’d seen earlier and had had to point them out to Jack, but he’d been far less interested because it was something he saw every day so they would be unlikely to have attracted Sam’s attention, either.

      ‘Ana?’ Sam’s call was calm but they could all sense the urgency. ‘Grab the resus trolley, will you? I can see someone lying on the path.’

      He disappeared behind the greenery of the lush shrubs hedging the walkway and Lia’s reaction was automatic. As Ana raced down the walkway to vanish through a door, Lia ran in the opposite direction—to follow Sam. She could hear the rattle of trolley wheels behind her as she pushed through the hedge to where Sam was now crouched over a sprawled figure.

      ‘Is he breathing?’

      ‘Can’t tell. Help me roll him over.’

      He was a large man and it needed them both to roll him onto his back. Lia immediately tilted his head to make sure his airway was open and then she put her cheek close to his face and laid a hand on his diaphragm to feel for any air movement.

      ‘He’s not breathing.’

      Sam had his fingers on the man’s neck. ‘There’s no pulse.’

      Ana had had to go further down the walkway to find a gap to get the trolley through, and Jack was helping her, but there was no time to wait until they were there with the life pack and the bag mask. Lia already had her hands positioned in the centre of the man’s chest and she began compressions without waiting for any instruction from Sam.

      ‘I wonder how much downtime there’s been already.’

      ‘Not much, I hope. I think it was the sound of him falling that made me look over the hedge. He broke a few branches on the way down.’

      She could feel Sam watching her as he spoke. Assessing her performance. Fair enough. This was a big man and it took a lot of strength to be able to make sure she was pushing hard enough to create an output from his heart. She could feel a sweat breaking out but she kept her arms straight and kept pushing. Hard and fast. At least a hundred compressions a minute, she reminded herself. And a third of the chest for their depth.

      Ana threw a bag mask to Sam as she stopped the trolley. He caught it easily and in one swift movement had the mask over the man’s nose and mouth. He hooked his fingers under the chin to help press hard enough to create a good seal and then flicked a glance at Lia, who paused her compressions to allow him to squeeze the bag and deliver a couple of assisted breaths. The chest rose and fell twice and she started compressions again as soon as she saw the chest falling for the second time. Her arms were aching with the effort now but she knew she couldn’t slow down, even as Ana was cutting the man’s T-shirt to pull it clear and sticking the defibrillator pads on the side just below his heart and beneath the collarbone on the other side.

      She began counting aloud to let Sam know when it was time to deliver another breath. Jack had attached the oxygen bottle to the mask.

      ‘Twenty-eight...twenty-nine...thirty...’ She held her hands clear as another two breaths were delivered.

      The static on the defibrillator screen was settling and they could all see that their patient was in the potentially fatal rhythm of ventricular fibrillation.

      ‘Come and take over the airway,’ Sam instructed Ana. ‘I’ll get an IV in after the first shock.’

      Lia could hear the tone of the life pack charging.

      ‘Stand clear,’ Sam ordered. ‘Shocking now...’

      The rhythm didn’t change.

      ‘Do you need a break, Lia?’ Sam was pulling IV supplies from the trolley.

      ‘No. I’ll let you know when I do.’

      ‘You’re doing a good job. I’ll take over after the next shock.’

      The praise was enough to banish the ache in her arms and to ignore the sting of perspiration getting into her eyes.

      Clearly hampered by his white coat, Sam stripped it off and shoved it onto the bottom of the trolley. Then he moved swiftly enough to have an IV line inserted and the first dose of drugs on board before the end of the two minutes of CPR that meant another shock was due to be delivered.

      ‘Who is he, do you know?’ Jack asked.

      ‘He’s Rangi’s brother, Keoni,’ Ana said. ‘And I think he had an outpatient appointment this morning. Sam wants to test the whole family for diabetes.’

      ‘Stand clear,’ Sam ordered again.

      Lia sat back on her heels this time, ready to move out of the way so that Sam could take over the compressions.

      But this time the spike of the shock being delivered on the life-pack screen gave way to a blip of a normal beat. And then another and another.

      ‘He’s gagging,’ Ana said a moment later. ‘I’ll take the airway out.’

      ‘We’ll need a bed,’ Sam said. ‘And a few extra hands to move him.’

      ‘I’ll get Matt,’ Ana said, scrambling to her feet. ‘And anyone else I can find. Or do you need me here, Sam?’

      Sam caught Lia’s gaze. ‘No...you go, Ana. We’re fine.’

      The eye contact was only there for a moment but Lia felt like she’d passed some sort of test.

      And she’d got good marks.

      It was always a bonus to cheat death like this and have a successful resuscitation from a cardiac arrest but this felt even sweeter than usual. And the good marks went both ways. This success had been a team effort and Sam had shown himself to be a calm and competent leader.

      ‘We’ll get him into our intensive care unit,’ Sam said. ‘You may as well join us, Lia, and start your tour of the hospital with the pointy end.’

      ‘I’ll help you move him,’ Jack said. ‘And then maybe I should let them know that the outpatient clinic will be starting a bit late.’

      ‘Give Keanu a call. He can come in early and get things started.’ Sam was adjusting the wheel on the IV tubing to change the rate of fluids being delivered from the bag of saline he was holding up. His smile was wry. ‘It looks like it’s going to be another one of “those” days, all right...’

      There was a gleam in his eye that suggested that СКАЧАТЬ