happy as she was in her love affair. She would never forget the thrill of that first time Jason had said he loved her…not in a million years. Even hearing the echo of his words in her head was enough to create the most delicious tingle that ran the length of her spine.
The latches on the resuscitation kit clicked into place and Laura pushed the box behind the end of the stretcher so it wouldn’t cause mischief with fast cornering. She managed to shut off any latent personal worries as her pager sounded to announce a new job. The worst-the very worst-thing that could happen would be that they would lose Megan. It would be hard, awful, but she and Jason could always have children of their own, couldn’t they? If Jason lost full-time custody of Megan, he might be very keen to start a family of his own as soon as possible.
It was Tim’s turn to drive. Laura was checking the map reference as he pulled the door open, dropped the extra supplies on the floor beside the handbrake and picked up the remote to activate the huge roller doors on the garage.
‘Abdo pain,’ he said. ‘What do you reckon? Appendicitis? Ovarian torsion? Or do we get to deliver a surprise baby for someone this afternoon?’
‘It’s at a restaurant.’ Laura said. ‘That posh one on the corner of Frampton and Davies roads. Food poisoning, maybe?’
‘Priority one?’ Tim activated the beacons and siren as they entered the dense stream of traffic heading into the city centre looking for some Friday night entertainment.
‘I imagine the manager of any restaurant would be pretty worried if someone looked sick after eating their food.’
The manager of Framptons looked more than worried. He was waiting on the road for the ambulance and the frantic waving as they approached suggested that the call might be for something rather more serious than food poisoning.
Tim leapt out to open the back doors of the ambulance while Laura slipped out of her seat and straight into the back to start throwing equipment onto the stretcher. They’d take the lot. Life pack, oxygen, resuscitation and suction units. She could hear the restaurant manager’s voice as Tim opened the doors.
‘She’d finished her meal. They stood up to leave and then she just doubled over, clutching her stomach.’
Tim helped lift the stretcher, laden with gear, to the ground.
‘We sat her down and got her a glass of water but she looked terrible.’
They were walking into the restaurant now. Past tables shrouded in crisp, white linen, gleaming silverware and soft, flickering light from small candelabra illuminating bowls of white roses. The venue looked like the perfect setting for a wedding breakfast.
‘There was a nurse having dinner at another table. She laid her down on the floor and put her legs up. She started to feel better but then she sat up and kind of fainted.’
‘Sounds hypotensive,’ Tim commented to Laura.
‘Yes, but why?’ Waiting staff were hurriedly clearing a route through the dining room, shifting empty chairs and pushing tables together. A group of diners was being moved to a table further away from the scene of the woman’s collapse and they stared at the ambulance crew as though they were responsible for the interruption to their meal. Laura ignored the stares. This woman’s abdominal pain might actually be epigastric pain from a heart attack. Or something equally serious.
Their patient was lying on the floor near the back corner of the restaurant, a cushion under her head and two more under her feet. An anxious-looking man was holding her hand and a slim, well-dressed blonde woman had her hand on the other wrist.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Kathryn Mercer. I’m a nurse.’
‘Hi.’ Tim’s smile was fleeting. ‘I’m Tim and this is Laura.’
Laura didn’t acknowledge the introduction. The patient looked shocked. She was pale, sweaty and barely conscious. Thankful that she had grabbed one of the high-concentration oxygen masks from the floor, Laura jammed the tubing onto the cylinder outlet. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Jillian,’ the man beside her answered.
‘Jillian, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me.’
The only response was an incoherent groan.
‘No radial pulse,’ Tim reported. ‘Airway’s clear.’
Laura started connecting up the leads for the life pack. A very shiny pair of black shoes appeared behind her elbow and her gaze flicked up for a second, expecting to see the restaurant manager moving in to watch proceedings. The pair of immaculate, pin-striped grey trousers belonged to a stranger, however.
‘Come on, Kathryn. It’s time we left. There’s no need for you to be involved here any longer.’
Tim looked up swiftly from where he was wrapping the blood-pressure cuff around Jillian’s arm. He ignored the man in the nice suit. ‘How long has she been like this?’
‘Only a couple of minutes. She seemed to come right after I got her to lie down and put her feet up. Then she insisted on sitting up and started to look shocked very quickly. Her radial pulse was palpable until her GCS dropped.’
Laura was sticking on electrodes. She heard what seemed to be an exasperated sigh as the shiny shoes disappeared. She paused for just a moment to rub a knuckle on her patient’s breastbone. ‘Jillian? Open your eyes.’
The response to the painful stimulus was another groan and an uncoordinated attempt to push Laura’s hand away, but Jillian’s eyes remained closed.
‘I’d put the GCS at 7,’ Laura said to Tim. She looked up at the other people, her gaze taking in both the nurse, who looked to be about her own age, and Jillian’s husband, who was well into his sixties. ‘Any medical history?’ she queried. ‘Does she have a heart condition? Diabetes?’
‘She’s got high blood pressure,’ her husband responded. ‘Has done for years. She’s not having a stroke, is she? Oh,
The restaurant manager was almost wringing his hands with anxiety and Laura caught his eye. ‘Could you take care of Jillian’s husband for the moment? It’ll be a few minutes before we’re ready to leave.’
The manager looked relieved to have a task. He put his arm around the man’s heaving shoulders. ‘Come with me, sir. Let’s get you sitting down just for a minute. Jillian’s in the best hands possible right now.’
‘It didn’t look like a stroke.’ Kathryn shook her head. ‘She was quite alert earlier and she didn’t complain of a headache. I didn’t notice any speech difficulties or obvious neurological deficit.’
Tim released the valve on the sphygmomanometer and the air rushed out of the cuff with a hiss. ‘BP’s 70 over 40,’ he reported grimly. ‘What’s her rhythm like?’
‘Sinus,’ Laura said. ‘Seventy beats per minute.’ Oddly normal, in other words.
‘I’ll get an IV in.’ Tim reached into the kit for supplies and Laura picked up a penlight torch and lifted Jillian’s eyelids.
‘Pupils are equal but both dilated and sluggish.’
‘Kathryn.’ The clipped word from somewhere behind Laura was a command for attention, but the blonde woman had her gaze fixed on Tim.
‘Is there anything else I can do to help?’
‘You’re a nurse, you said?’
‘Yes. I used to work in Emergency, though it’s been a while. I’m just a general practice nurse now. Part time.’
‘Could you do a blood sugar for us maybe? That is, if…’ Tim’s raised eyebrow was intended to question the advisability of her staying to help.
‘That’s fine.’ Kathryn raised her head only for a moment. ‘Just give me a minute or two, Sean. Please?’
‘I’ll get a second IV in,’ Laura decided. ‘She needs fluids, stat. What are you using, a 14 gauge?’
‘Yeah. The wider the bore the better right now.’
Kathryn had opened the BGL kit. She held one of the woman’s fingers, used the lancet to elicit a drop of blood and then deftly collected the tiny sample on the end of the Glucocard. The meter beeped as it started its calculation.
‘You’ve done that before.’ Tim glanced up as he secured a luer plug to the IV cannula he’d just inserted.
‘It’s one of the few invasive procedures I get to do these days.’ The blonde woman’s smile was wry. ‘I envy you guys.’ The meter beeped again and she picked it up. ‘BGL’s in normal range. It’s 5.6.’
