“Yes, Nurse? What can I do for you?”
“Dr. Golding is asking you not to leave.” The nurse must have run all the way, her words coming out in little rushes of air. “We have a patient coming in, and he’s asking Dr. Haraldson to assist in his care.”
And just like that, Mina’s fury morphed to cold, nausea-inducing fear.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE FROZE.
Heart pounding so hard it made her light-headed, she was barely able to make out what the nurse was saying.
“Scuba diver... Accident... Speargun spear through the thigh... Coming in by ambulance from Barefoot Bay.”
That much she gathered. The rest was lost, drowned out by the buzzing in her ears.
What did the doctor think she could do to help? Since the accident, she hadn’t seen a patient, hadn’t treated or even diagnosed an injury. Without her left hand, she was useless. Why couldn’t everyone come to terms with that, the way she had?
“Mina.” She came to when strong hands closed on her shoulders, and Kiah’s gentle voice broke through the stinging noise in her head. “Mina, the ambulance will be here any minute. We need to go get ready.”
“I... I can’t, Kiah.” The words croaked out, just making it past the jagged ball of terror in her throat. “I can’t help.”
He gave her a little shake, and his voice took on that stubborn, take-no-guff tone she knew all too well. “Of course you can help. You’re a doctor. That’s what we do. And John Golding is young, inexperienced. If he needs help, how can you turn your back on him and the patient?”
“But without my hand...”
He gave her another gentle shake.
“Mina, you lost a hand, not your brain. Don’t you know how valuable the experience, the knowledge you have in your head is?”
The question drew her up, made her think, forced her to focus on Kiah’s eyes, the strength and confidence in his gaze.
And she drew on what she saw there, knowing he was right, even in the midst of her fear.
“Okay,” she said, although her voice still wavered, and she trembled. “Okay. Let’s see what we can do.”
“Good girl.” Kiah smiled, then bent and lightly kissed her lips. “We can be your hands; you just guide us in what we have to do.”
Then he was leading her back into the hospital at a quick walk, as she was trying to forget how wonderful his lips felt against hers, how it was that, not her fears, which was making her heart pound.
She must be losing her mind to even notice such a thing. After all, this was Kiah, and they’d been exchanging platonic kisses like that since they were just kids. Or maybe it was her brain’s way of distracting her from what she considered a scary situation.
If that was the case, it was effective, her fear dissipating as soon as she went back through the hospital doors.
The nurse was waiting there and immediately said, “If you’ll come with me, Dr. Haraldson, I’ll get you some scrubs.”
“Thank you,” she replied, hurrying after the other woman.
Once she’d changed, the nurse led her back to the emergency room and into a cubicle, just as a siren could be heard in the distance.
The man who approached her looked as though he could still be in high school, although his voice was deep and confident as he said, “Dr. Haraldson, thank you for assisting. I’m John Golding.”
She nodded, giving him a slight smile as she went past him to a shelf where the gloves were. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Golding. What can you tell me about the patient?”
“From the ambulance report, the twenty-five-year-old patient, Donovan Exeter, was scuba diving when he was shot through the thigh with a speargun.”
“A through-and-through?” she asked.
“No, the spear is still in situ. It entered through the anterolateral aspect, with the tip and about two inches of the shaft exiting the inner thigh. The paramedics wrapped the leg to keep the projectile as stable as possible.”
“Any signs of distal ischemia, pulse deficit or hypotension?”
“No. The limb is warm, both the dorsalis pedis and posterior tibial pulses are strong, and his blood pressure is high, not low. He is also able to move his toes.”
While they spoke, Mina had pulled a pair of gloves from the dispenser, and it was only now that she realized she had no way to put them on. Not to mention, no left hand to wear one on. Up until then, she hadn’t given a thought to the fact her truncated limb was on display in the scrubs, but now embarrassment threated to make her walk out. Yet, she could hear the clatter of the gurney and knew the patient was almost there.
Gathering all the poise she could manage, she turned to the nearby nurse and said, “Please assist me in putting on these gloves.”
To her surprise, the nurse didn’t even blink, but said, “Of course, Doctor.”
The nurse held a glove, and Mina slipped her right hand into it. But when it came to the left...
“I doubt it will stay on,” the nurse whispered quietly.
The gurney came through the door, Kiah accompanying the paramedics from the bay, and there was no more time to dither.
“Thank you,” she said to the nurse, then moved forward to evaluate the patient, sticking her left arm into the pocket of her scrub top. Hopefully, she’d remember to keep it there.
Then it was an exercise in frustration as she was relegated to watching everyone else do the hands-on stuff, while she could only advise.
It quickly became apparent the only way to know how much damage was done to Donovan Exeter’s leg was via X-ray.
Mina moved to the head of the bed, to explain to him what was going to happen next.
“Mr. Exeter,
