Hijacked Honeymoon

‘We do have a hospital, but I’m afraid it’s a case of “Physician, heal thyself ‘,’ she quoted wryly.

Ryan didn’t respond. He steadied himself, made sure his grip was sure and the splint was supported by his arm and then lifted her into his arms and across to the car. She was a featherweight. She put her arms around his neck in a subconscious gesture of trust that made him feel even more odd.

‘It’s me, me or me,’ Abbey added shakily as he set her down. ‘Or-alternatively-me.’

Ryan gave himself a mental shake. What was it about this girl that was making emotions and memories he’d forgotten flood right back?

‘Well, you can’t put your own leg back into place,’ he said brusquely.

‘I probably can,’ Abbey said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think anything’s broken. Let’s get me X-rayed and then we’ll see.’

‘You have to be joking.’

‘No.’ Abbey perched on the car’s back seat as Ryan lowered her. Then, as Ryan held her leg steady, she hauled herself backwards so that her leg was stretched out straight on the seat. Her voice still wobbled but there was a trace of defiance in the tone. Like-‘Don’t mess with me. I can handle myself!’

‘I stitched up my gashed arm last year,’ she told him. ‘Ten stitches, all by myself. I don’t see that this is any worse. Look, would you mind if we made a house call on the way to the hospital?’ She took a deep breath. The morphine was beginning to cut in and the agony was receding.

‘A house call…’

‘I was on my way to see a patient,’ Abbey told him. Her voice was growing stronger by the minute and Ryan frowned in disbelief. This was one tough lady and she was recovering fast from the shock.

‘You were going on a house call on a bicycle?’

‘Well, why not?’ Abbey settled against the squabs of Ryan’s luxury car and gave a sigh of relief. Once again, there was defiance in her voice. ‘It’s a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. I don’t have anyone really sick in hospital. Mrs Miller’s a non-urgent case and using my bicycle saves petrol.’

‘Abbey…’ This was getting crazier by the minute. Ryan climbed behind the wheel and looked over his shoulder at the girl on the back seat. There was blood on her face and her colour was still sickly. The ‘No Fear’ on her T-shirt looked crazy. Defiant. Like she was. Apart from the life creases around her eyes, she looked about ten. ‘You’re not really suggesting we do a house call before we take you to hospital?’

‘I’d like to do it while the morphine’s still working,’ Abbey said seriously. ‘I’ve been thinking. At a guess, I’m going to find it hard to get around for a day or two now, and Marg Miller wants to see me.’

‘What about?’ Ryan shook his head in bewilderment. ‘You said it wasn’t urgent.’

‘She has an ulcer on her leg that needs dressing.’

‘Surely you have a district nurse who can do that? Or are you the sole medical provider for the whole district?’

‘We have district nurses,’ Abbey said defensively. ‘Three of them. But Marg wants to see me.’

‘But not urgently.’

‘No,’ Abbey said thoughtfully. ‘But there’s something wrong. Not just the ulcer. She wouldn’t have asked me to come unless she was worried. There’s something troubling her.’

Ryan sighed. His hands gripped the wheel tightly.

Good grief! It had been a long flight from New York and he’d worked at full pace right up to the minute he’d left. He’d just had the fright of his life-he’d thought he’d killed her-and now Abbey was suggesting that they go and dress an ulcer that could probably be dressed by the nurse at any time over the next couple of days.

‘No,’ he said in a voice that was implacable. Head-of-surgical-team implacable. ‘If you really are a doctor then you know basic triage. Abbey. I have two patients. One has a dislocated knee which may have a fracture running through it, a grazed face, possible injuries I don’t know about yet and possible delayed shock. The other has an ulcer that needs dressing. I’m sorry, Abbey. You win. Or you lose. I’m not sure which it is, but either way you’re going to hospital.’

They didn’t make it

Abbey submitted to Ryan’s plans-after all, she had no choice as she was hardly in a position to hike off to Marg Miller’s under her own steam-but halfway down the hill to the hospital a phone rang.

A mobile phone. Ryan started at the sound and looked at where his phone lay on the seat beside him. It wasn’t his. Then he looked in the rear-vision mirror and found Abbey removing her phone from her belt.

‘Dr Wittner.’ Her voice sounded professional and sure.

She really was a doctor, then.

But… Had she said Dr Wittner? Ryan frowned as he listened to her speak. His memory hadn’t got her name wrong. Surely she was Abbey Rhodes?

Now wasn’t the time for questions. Abbey was snapping out her own questions.

‘How bad? Still on the beach? OK, send the ambulance and tell them to pull out all stops. No, they don’t have to collect me on the way. I’m in a car now and we’re closer than the ambulance. I’ll tell you why later, but the driver’ll take me straight there. Ring the surf club back and tell them to keep pouring vinegar-as much as they can and just keep it coming. Prepare ICU and make sure the ambulance has anti-venim and oxygen and adrenalin on board.’

Abbey leaned forward to touch Ryan on the shoulder.

‘Ryan, turn around. Now.’

Ryan slowed and stared.

‘Why?’

‘There’s a child been stung by a box jellyfish down on the south beach. He sounds bad.’

‘Abbey…’ Ryan was rendered almost speechless. ‘Abbey, you’ve just been hit by a car. It’s you who’s the patient-remember?’

‘No.’ Abbey’s voice was hard and firm. ‘Same rules of triage, Ryan. This is urgent. I don’t have time to be a patient. I’m the only doctor in this place and unless we get there fast this child could die. Now turn around or let me out and I’ll tell the ambulance to pick me up on the way.’

‘Abbey…’

‘Ryan, surely you remember box jellyfish stings. We’ll be lucky if he makes it. Argue later but just go.’

The child was on the beach a little way south of the surf lifesaving club. Ryan had spent the three minutes it took to reach there working out just how Abbey would cope. He finally figured she couldn’t. And he couldn’t either. Box jellyfish stings were right outside his realm.

Box jellyfish-Chironex fleckeri-were lethal. Almost invisible in the water, their tentacles stretched up to five metres in length and clung with sticky tenacity to everything they touched. Their venom was lethal. What had Ryan read? You either got enough venom to kill you or you didn’t. There was no in between.

Fortunately, the jellyfish were only around in the hottest of the summer months, Ryan remembered, and the popular beaches had stinger nets to keep them at bay. But there were always tourists who preferred to risk swimming outside the nets. That’s what must have happened here, Ryan thought. The beach south of the lifesaving club was just as beautiful as the netted area, and when it was deserted it looked much more enticing.

And the current treatment of jellyfish stings? Ryan couldn’t think. There wasn’t a lot of call for current treatments where he now worked.

Ryan glanced back at Abbey. He was driving fast and the roads were bumpy. The morphine was working but only just. She’d started to regain her colour but was now losing it again.

Ryan’s hands whitened on the steering-wheel, saying a silent prayer that her condition wouldn’t deteriorate. What if she did have a head injury?

Triage… The box jellyfish victim…

Over the next hill the surf beach lay before them as a wide ribbon of sand, bordered with coconut palms. Ryan saw the group of people clustered on the shore, decided that the worst thing that could happen was that he could bog the car in the sand-and gunned the car right down to where the child lay.

The hire-car people would have a fit if they knew, but Ryan didn’t stop until the tyres started spinning in soft sand about three yards from the child.