was almost intact and was one of the few parts of the car which were almost on the road. But inside…
Thank God for the overalls. That and the gloves saved her from the worst of the mess. Because it was a mess. The roof was crumpled. There was blood, bare metal and glass all over the place and she could hardly move without cutting herself.
Her gloves weren’t thick enough.
Outside people were yelling. She could hear Harry, his voice tight with desperation. ‘Get those damned chocks. Someone…I need the bag from the back of our car. The fluid bags. Everything.’
There were people shouting. She couldn’t hear…
And May was thrashing about, yelling, and quite literally trying to crawl out the window.
‘May, no.’ Lizzie caught her hand and held on, gripping hard. Forcing her to be still. Sort of. ‘May, I’m here. May, you must be still.’
The car was rocking. Dear God, the car was rocking.
She couldn’t think of that now.
This was like some ghastly nightmare. The sight of May-
She had to fight with that. She had to stay impartial. She was trying desperately to help, but May was beyond working with her. She wanted out. She was desperate to get out, flailing, moaning…
Out of control.
At least she was making a noise, yelling now. That was a good sign-the only good sign. She was alive and she was conscious and her airways were obviously clear. And she was at least aware enough to know that she didn’t want to be there.
There were people sitting on the hood right in front of her. Stabilising it.
She blocked out the thought of what the car had looked like. How many men did it take to stop a car from toppling over the edge?
Harry was out there. He wouldn’t let it fall.
The thought steadied her. He’d be in here if he could. So she had to work as expertly as he would.
The medical stuff. Training. Think, Lizzie, think.
Check the chest. Has she got good oxygenation? Are the airways clear?
Is the abdomen rigid?
Are there signs of a bleed or sensory loss? Is the blood pressure coming down? Were there changes in colour in the skin or the pupils? Those were all problems where she’d have to intervene hard. Cerebral trauma was an obvious worry, as was spinal damage…
Think! Assess!
Then Harry was there-just outside her door. Behind her. She couldn’t see him but she could hear him.
‘Cervical collar,’ he said, and it was in her hand.
That was hard. May wouldn’t keep still. ‘May, you must…’ But May was past hearing.
But finally she did it, working her way around the twisted metal and broken glass to get May into a cervical collar. Then some oxygen, and eventually she managed an intravenous line into May’s arm for fluids and morphine. She took a quick blood pressure and pulse reading. The numbers weren’t good. The BP was a low 90 and the heart rate a high 120.
Lizzie could see she’d taken a knock to the head. She was disoriented and there was a huge swelling under her right eye so she guessed she’d fractured a zygoma, the arch of her cheekbone. There was a long, full-thickness laceration on the right side of her mouth and an ugly degloving injury had peeled back the skin on the back of her right hand.
She was worried about May’s legs. The low BP was a possible indicator of an active bleed, but she couldn’t see below her upper thigh. The legs could have been crushed.
That was why she couldn’t move. The legs…
‘Stay still.’ Harry’s voice was urgent. ‘They’re hauling the car back. Hold-’
‘May, keep still!’ Lizzie urged, and held onto her as the car lurched savagely sideways, up. And stilled.
‘You’re safe. The car’s stable,’ Harry told her, and she gave him a fast relieved smile that didn’t quite come off.
What about the leg? If she could see…
Harry was almost in the car with her now, fitting a clear plastic soft protection sheet. They still couldn’t come near to getting her out. The dashboard seemed to have almost folded completely around her.
‘We’re cutting,’ Harry said. ‘Get out and let me take your place.’
‘Go find your own car wreck,’ she tried. He didn’t smile. But he didn’t try and force her out either.
May was still moaning. Ten milligrams of morphine and still there was pain. There was a condition in medicine often referred to as the ‘golden hour’. Lizzie knew of it and was afraid of it. It was the first sixty minutes or so when the body appeared to compensate for whatever had happened to it. Internal haemorrhage initially could be hidden as the survival mechanism kicked in. Heart rate and blood pressure could rise, adrenalin flowed and the victim would seem to be coping. But the bleeding inside could continue and the patient could crash. Hard.
There was a machine working outside-horrible. Resembling nothing as much as a great, silver-crabbed claw, its job was to chew away metal. Glass was spraying inwards and the sound was terrible. In the confined space every noise was magnified and Lizzie couldn’t stop May’s fear from escalating. ‘Soon,’ she told her. ‘Soon. Harry will get us out.’
‘Tom…’
‘Tom and Harry will get us out,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘Our men.’
And then they did it. The rescue ram seemed to just bulldoze the dashboard away, and with the pressure gone May started to lift her legs.
‘Immobilise first,’ Harry was saying urgently, but May was having none of it.
‘Tom. Tom. Tom,’ she was crying over and over again as she tried again to haul herself free. Harry was on her other side now; together they were trying ever so gently to turn her.
‘No!’ She screamed against their struggles and her legs suddenly lifted.
Harry’s eyes met Lizzie’s, urgent, and she knew what he was asking. They had the equipment. In one swift movement Harry had the concave spinal board under May’s rear, and thirty seconds later they had her out of the car and into the waiting van that served as the local ambulance.
Her leg was bleeding fiercely from a jagged gash. Harry had a pressure bandage on it almost as soon as it was visible.
But still May fought him, incomprehensible in her terror. ‘More morphine,’ Harry decreed.
And finally-finally-she relaxed and her eyes fluttered closed.
‘Now we find the real damage,’ Harry said grimly. ‘Let’s go.’
Three hours in surgery. Three hours of intense, silent work, while both of them came to terms with what had happened-and what had nearly happened.
Three hours while the world changed for both of them.
And when they were finished and had stepped back from the table, all pretence was stripped away. They knew what was between them. Now all they had to do was decide where to take it.
If they took it anywhere at all.
CHAPTER NINE
THEY went out to the waiting area where Tom was. Of course he was waiting. He was grey-faced and sick.
Harry had sent out news before, but one look at Tom told Lizzie that he hadn’t believed the good news.
He had to believe it now, though she could scarcely believe it herself.
‘Tom, she’s going to make it.’ Harry hauled off his theatre mask and knelt in front of Tom. The big man was ashen, his cheeks lined with tears. He’d been leaning over, his face in his hands, and Lizzie could see the pressure
