‘She was feeding the chooks with her big sister, like she does every afternoon. Kelly said she heard Susie scream and she turned around to find the rooster had knocked her flat. I can’t believe a rooster could knock a child over.’ Incredulity marked her face. ‘I’ve spent all my life on a farm and I’ve never seen that happen.’
Kelly bit her lip. ‘The rooster was on Susie’s chest and pecking her and I ran at it but it wouldn’t let go. I threw the bucket at it but while I was picking her up it flew at her again.’ She gave a quiet sob. ‘It was really scary.’
Kate squeezed Kelly’s shoulder. ‘You did a great job, Kelly. Dr Baden and I will soon have the blood cleaned up and it won’t look so scary.’ She opened up normal saline and began to clean Susie’s face with gauze so they could clearly see the extent of the damage.
Susie’s petrified screams pulled at her. The little girl’s face seemed to be swelling under Kate’s fingers as she wiped the blood away. Her puffy eyes were slits in her face and her cheeks were increasing in size.
Baden’s long fingers gently sought a pulse in the wriggling child’s neck, which he counted against the second hand of his watch. ‘Susie, I’m just going to listen to your chest with my stethoscope.’ He bent down so he was at the same level as the little girl and showed her the round end that would lie against her chest.
Susie’s crying halted for a moment but then she started to cough—probably induced by the hysterical screaming. The coughing eased and she lay exhausted in her mother’s arms.
Apprehension skated through Kate as her trauma radar tuned in. Something wasn’t quite right. Superficial lacerations didn’t usually cause swelling like this. As she grabbed more gauze she caught Baden’s worried expression.
He felt it, too—the aura of disquiet seemed to blanket them both.
She quickly and deftly used the gauze to clean away the large amount of blood on the child’s neck. Blood oozed out as fast as she could clear it. ‘Baden.’ She hoped he could decode the tone of her voice.
He immediately pulled the earpiece out of his ear, his concentration firmly on her. ‘Yes?’
‘There’s a really deep wound on her throat and her neck is swelling fast. I’m worried about her airway.’
‘So am I. Her air entry is diminished.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mary’s voice wobbled. ‘It’s just a few scratches, isn’t it?’
Baden carefully examined Susie’s throat, his fingers gently palpating around the base of her throat. ‘There’s air under her skin.’
‘Air? That can’t be good.’ Kate reached for the walkie-talkie.
He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It’s subcutaneous emphysema. I think the rooster has perforated her trachea—the tube that takes the air to the lungs—and now air is escaping into the skin.’
Mary’s hand flew to her own throat. ‘Can she breathe?’
‘She’s breathing on her own at the moment but the risk is that the bleeding and swelling will block the tube. We’re going to have to get her stable and then evacuate her to hospital.’
Kate immediately called Glen on the walkie-talkie. ‘We need the stretcher, Glen. Susie Sanderson needs oxygen and evacuation, over.’
‘On my way, over.’ Glen’s voice crackled into the dry, hot air.
Mary, her eyes wide with fear, looked frantically at them both as Baden’s words finally sank in. ‘She’ll go to Warragurra Hospital, won’t she?’
‘No, I’m sorry but she needs to go to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide.’ He rested his hand on Mary’s for a brief moment. ‘I’m going to need to examine her fully.’
‘Glen’s on his way with the stretcher, which will double as a treatment bed.’ Kate pulled out the paediatric oxygen mask and unravelled the green tubing, making it all ready to connect the moment the stretcher and oxygen arrived.
‘Give us a hand, Kate.’
Glen’s voice hailed her from the bottom of the stairs. She quickly ran to meet him and helped to lift the stretcher up onto the veranda.
Baden’s strong arms gently transferred Susie onto the stretcher, sitting her up to aid her laboured breathing. ‘Kate’s going to put a mask on you to help you feel better and Mummy’s here to hold your hand.’
His tenderness with Susie touched Kate. Not all doctors were at ease with kids. But he was a father and had probably spent a few nights walking the floor.
‘I want a drink,’ Susie sobbed between fits of jagged crying.
Kate adjusted the clear mask to Susie’s face, making sure it was a snug fit by pulling on the green elastic. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, you can’t have a drink but I’m going to give you a drink in your arm.’ Kate checked with Baden. ‘Normal saline IV?’
He nodded, a flash of approval in his eyes. ‘Yes, saline. You all right to insert it?’ He paused for a moment in his examination of Susie’s back.
For a brief moment she was tempted to say no. She’d been out of the field for six months and Shane’s parents’ campaign against her had dented her confidence. But she had to show Baden she was a team player and totally reliable. ‘Sure, no problem.’
You’ve done this hundreds of times. Don’t let the Kennedys invade work.
‘Susie, this will sting just a little bit, OK? You squeeze Mummy’s hand really tight.’ She adjusted the tourniquet and palpated for a vein. Her fingers detected a small rise and she swabbed the little girl’s arm, the alcohol stinging her nostrils.
‘OK, here we go.’ Carefully she slid the intravenous cannula into the vein, controlling the pressure so there was enough to pierce the skin but not too much that she put the needle through the vein.
‘Mummy, stop her,’ Susie squealed as the needle penetrated the skin.
Kate bit her lip. ‘Nearly there, Susie.’ Holding her breath, she withdrew the trocar. Blood.
Yes. She released her breath and taped the needle in place. ‘IV inserted, Baden.’
He gave her a wide smile of acknowledgment—a smile that raced to his vivid blue eyes and caused them to crinkle at the edges.
A smile that melted something inside her and sent spirals of molten warmth through her, reaching all the way down to her toes.
Stop it. Thank goodness he was married and off limits. Otherwise that smile could batter all her resolutions about staying single. She found her voice. ‘Do you want a bolus of three hundred millilitres?’
‘Yes, good idea. I’m worried about bleeding.’
‘What about pain relief?’ It was a tricky situation.
‘Morphine would be good for the pain so she would be more comfortable and start to breathe more easily, but it also depresses the respiratory system. It’s catch-22.’ He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck, the same action he’d used when he’d told Mary about the perforated trachea. ‘We’ll titrate it in through the IV and that way we can control it and pull it if we need to.’
‘Mary?’ Kate got her attention. ‘How much does Susie weigh? I need as accurate a weight as possible.’
The distraught mother spoke slowly. ‘I…It’s been a while since I weighed her but she’d be about twenty kilograms, I think.’
‘Baden?’ He’d lifted her onto the stretcher.
He nodded. ‘That’s about right.’ He gave Susie’s knee a rub. ‘You weigh the same as the sacks of flour I buy to make bread.’
Susie gave