He called to Glen. ‘We need to go.’ He rested his hand on Mary’s shoulder. ‘Are you or Barry coming with us or will you follow on your own?’
‘Mary’s going with Susie.’ Barry’s gruff voice cracked on the words. ‘I’m going to go and kill that bloody rooster.’
‘After you’ve done that, pack them both a case, Barry, and we’ll radio you when we get back to Warragurra.’ Kate hugged the usually stoic man and ran down the steps.
Kate gave thanks that the airstrip at Camoora Station was very close to the homestead. Station hands, their dusty faces lined with anxiety, carried the stretcher as if it were porcelain, avoiding jolting the adored Susie, hoping their care would help.
Seven minutes after Baden had issued the order to depart, the PC-12 aircraft was racing down the dusty runway.
Kate did the first set of in-flight observations. Susie’s heart was racing and her breathing rapid and shallow. ‘She’s tachycardic and tachypnoeic,’ she informed Baden sotto voce the moment he signed off from the radio conversation with the paediatric registrar in Adelaide.
He placed his stethoscope on Susie’s back and listened intently. ‘Nothing is getting into the lower lobe of her left lung.’ Deep furrows scored his forehead as he leant across her to check the IV.
The fragrance of spicy aftershave mixing with his masculine scent filled Kate’s nostrils and she wanted to breathe in deeply. Instead, she deliberately leaned back and concentrated on filling in the fluid balance chart. ‘Are you thinking pneumothorax?’
‘I’m certain the lower lobe of her lung has collapsed but at the moment her body’s compensating. I’m not rushing into a needle thoracentesis without X-ray guidance unless I have to.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘It was such a brutal attack. I can’t believe a rooster’s beak could cause such damage.’
‘It wouldn’t have been the beak. It was the spur on the foot. They’re viciously sharp.’
He raised his brows. ‘You seem to know a bit about poultry.’
She shrugged. ‘Born and raised a country girl. What about you?’
‘City boy. Grew up on the Adelaide beaches.’
She laughed. ‘Linton would say that Adelaide and city was an oxymoron.’
Baden raised his brows. ‘From Sydney, is he?’ He chuckled. ‘I’ll have you know that peak hour lasts half an hour.’
His rich laugh relaxed her. ‘Peak hour in Warragurra is Saturday night when the station hands drive into town. Even from Adelaide it’s a big leap.’ She checked Susie’s pulse. ‘What brought you here?’
‘It was something I’d talked about doing for a long time.’ He had a far-away look in his eyes as if he was recalling memories.
She jotted down the volume of the new bag of IV fluid that she had just attached to Susie’s drip. ‘And suddenly the time seemed right?’
His relaxed demeanour instantly vanished. ‘Something like that.’ His voice developed an edge to it, a tone she’d not heard before.
Before she could wonder too much about what that might mean, Susie started coughing. Kate immediately aspirated her mouth but the child continued to gasp, her lips turning blue.
‘She’s obstructing!’ She snapped opened the laryngoscope, the tiny light bulb glowing white. ‘Intubation?’
‘What’s happening?’ Mary’s petrified voice sounded from her seat at the front of the plane.
‘We have to put a tube in Susie’s throat so she can breathe.’ Kate wanted to go and hug the distraught mother but all her attention was needed for Susie.
Mary’s gasp of horror echoed around the plane.
Baden accepted the laryngoscope, a grim expression on his face. ‘I doubt I’ll be able to pass the tube through the swelling.’ He tried inserting the ’scope but a moment later shook his head. ‘No go.’
Kate’s stomach dropped and she swung into emergency action. ‘Right, then. Tracheostomy it is.’ She opened the paediatric emergency cricothyroidotomy kit, which she’d had ready since they’d boarded the flight.
Susie’s small chest struggled to rise and fall, each breath more torturous than the last.
Baden snapped on gloves and grabbed the scalpel.
A sharp incessant beeping from the monitor hammered the air as Susie’s oxygen saturation levels started to fall to dangerously low levels. Each beep told them Susie was edging closer to cardiac arrest.
‘Save my daughter, please!’
Mary’s tortured plea ripped through Kate. She quickly laid the semi-conscious child on her back and extended her neck.
Baden threw her a look, his eyes dark with worry. This procedure on a child was fraught with danger but they had no choice. With a remarkably steady hand he gently palpated Susie’s neck, counting down the rings of cartilage until he found the correct position. He made a quick, clean cut.
Kate immediately cleared the area of blood with a gauze pad. She pulled the sterile packaging of the endotracheal tube halfway down, exposing the top of the tube and insertion trocar.
Baden juggled the forceps and then grabbed the tube, sliding it into place.
Kate swiftly attached the oxygen. A moment later the monitor stopped screaming as Susie’s oxygen level rose. A sigh shuddered out of Kate’s lungs as she injected normal saline into the balloon of the ET tube to hold it in place.
Baden raised his head from his patient and turned toward Mary. ‘We’ve bypassed the blockage and she’s breathing more easily now.’
Mary slumped. ‘Oh, thank you, Baden. Kate. I was so scared that she might…’
Baden nodded. ‘She’ll probably have to go to Theatre when we arrive in Adelaide to repair her lung and trachea, and when the swelling has subsided, this tube can come out.’
He turned back to Kate and spoke under his breath. ‘So much for a quiet first day back at work for you. Nothing like an emergency to pump the adrenaline around.’ He stripped off his gloves. ‘Thanks, Kate. That was excellent work.’ His lips curved upward in a friendly smile. ‘It’s good to have you on board.’
‘Thanks. It’s good to be back.’ Delicious, simmering warmth rolled through her, quickly overtaken by sheer relief. She’d managed to drive away his doubts, the ones that had shone so brightly that morning in his amazing eyes.
Her plan had worked. She’d shown him she knew what she was about, that her medicine was sound. She’d managed to stay one stop ahead of him during the emergency and at times their anticipation of each other’s needs had been almost spooky.
For the first time all day she relaxed. Team Four would be OK. Work would again be the safe sanctuary it had always been—reliable and familiar. No surprises.
Smiling to herself, she adjusted Susie’s oxygen and started to dress her lacerations with non-stick gauze.
‘Prepare for landing.’ Glen’s command sounded in her ears and with one final check of Susie she took her seat, snapping her harness firmly around her.
The paediatric team met them at the airport in Adelaide and within minutes Susie and Mary were on their way to hospital and the ICU unit.
As always happened after a high-powered emergency, Kate’s legs began to wobble. Coffee. She needed coffee. The refrigerated air of the airport terminal hit her the moment she stepped inside. She ordered three coffees to go and some giant cookies so heavily laden with chocolate chips you could hardly see the actual cookie base. Juggling the capped coffees and her bag of treats, she headed back toward the plane. Glen usually liked to get back in the air as soon as possible.
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