The most urgent, like heart attacks or chest pains that might lead to cardiac arrest or the sudden onset of other life-threatening illnesses, along with serious traffic accidents or major catastrophes, were classed as red alerts.
Less serious-sounding accidents, inside and outside the home, were amber alerts, and anything not so urgent, yet requiring the service of am ambulance, were logged as green.
Being prewarned about the seriousness of the incident that they were approaching gave the crews the chance to prepare themselves for whatever lay ahead.
Obviously there were times when a red alert had become amber or even green by the time they got there, or vice versa, but in the main the system worked for both paramedics and patients.
The one they were speeding towards had a seriousness all of its own—a house fire on an estate on the outskirts of the city.
Fire Services were already there and the ground floor of the property was well alight according to the message received at the ambulance station.
Selina had attended fires before with Charlie, and his calm skills had helped combat the horror of what they’d found awaiting them in many instances.
But today another man was in charge, an unknown quantity, and she hoped he was going to be as efficient as his predecessor.
‘Have you been out to a fire before?’ Kane asked crisply as she sat beside him in the passenger seat, deep in thought.
‘Yes. I’ve been to a few,’ she said quietly.
‘Any fatalities?’
‘Some.’
‘Not pleasant.’
‘No. Certainly not!’ she agreed with a shudder and a quick glance at his unrevealing profile.
Was this how it was going to be? Selina wondered. Staccato sentences, fired at her like bullets. Was it the moment to tell him that she’d heard he didn’t like working with women, and if that was so, it was just too bad as up to now she wasn’t over the moon with jovial Charlie’s replacement?
But the comment had come to her secondhand and Selina believed in making her own judgements. Kane had been kind to Josh and herself on two occasions when he’d barely known them, so what it was going to be like working with him was a matter of wait and see.
There was just one casualty, she was relieved to see—a man with burns to the arm and chest. The remains of a sweater of some sort were hanging loosely around him.
He was sitting on the grass verge outside the house while firemen were round the back, tackling the kitchen, which was burning fiercely.
It appeared that he was a night worker who had decided to make himself a meal when he’d got in at seven o’clock that morning. But tired after a long shift, he’d fallen asleep with the chip pan on and had only awakened when the kitchen had been ablaze.
He’d suffered what looked like second-degree burns as he’d tried to put out the fire, but on seeing that it was too widespread he’d run outside only just in time.
‘The wife’s at work,’ he croaked as they helped him into the ambulance. ‘She’ll never forgive me for this. I’ve burnt the house down and frizzled myself, all because I fancied some chips.’
‘She might just be glad that you’re alive,’ Selina said as Kane opened the water-gel kit they carried for emergencies such as this.
It was a big moist blanket made to cover burns, with a twofold purpose. It stopped the skin from drying and tightening and kept the air away from tissue that had been exposed in the fire.
Kane had said little, leaving Selina to offer what consolation she could, but he’d displayed a sort of speedy efficiency that had immediately made her think that Charlie must have slowed down somewhat in latter years.
Here was a man who was really into the job, she thought. It was the kind of call-out that she’d taken part in on many occasions, but with Kane it felt different. He was confident and obviously very experienced, so the fact that he wasn’t into the usual chit-chat didn’t really matter.
By the time they arrived at Accident and Emergency the burns victim was having rigors and Kane eyed him in quick concern.
‘He’s in shock and becoming dehydrated,’ he said as he leapt out of the ambulance. ‘Let’s get him in there fast, Selina.’
When they’d delivered the patient to the A and E staff and were about to return to the unit, Kane said, ‘I noticed that your doctor friend isn’t on today.’
It was said casually, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was a reason behind the comment, and when she said with equal nonchalance, ‘Gavin isn’t my ‘‘doctor friend’’, he’s my brother,’ he actually smiled.
‘Oh, I see. I thought it was handy if you had a boyfriend in A and E. Prompt attention and all that.’
‘I haven’t got a boyfriend anywhere,’ she said stiffly. ‘I have a child to care for, a house to run and a very demanding job, all of which leave me very little time for socialising. I lost my husband just twelve months ago, which isn’t a very long time in which to be thinking of replacing him.’
When the words were out Selina wished she’d been struck dumb before uttering them. Why was she justifying herself to this taciturn stranger? Was it because she felt that she had to make a stance? Clarify her position? Or was it because he had evoked anger in her with his tactless remark?
Kane could be excused for not knowing that Gavin was her brother, but as for the rest of it…Had he been given cause somewhere along the line to think that her sex couldn’t manage without a man?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you and will bear your comments in mind.’
Selina groaned inwardly. Now he was making it look as if she was warning him off. As if she thought that every man she met saw an attractive young widow as easy prey.
Selina had no need to worry about him, Kane was thinking. He’d had enough aggro to last him a lifetime with the Eve Richards business. He was only just beginning to come up for air now that the taint had been removed.
* * *
If the first call-out they’d dealt with together had gone smoothly, it wasn’t to be so with the second. Before they’d got back to base another red alert came through on the dashboard computer.
A child was choking with a foreign object stuck in its throat at an address in a nearby avenue.
They were there within seconds, a flash of white shirts and navy trousers as they hurled themselves up the path with Kane in the lead and Selina following with the smaller of the two response bags.
The front door was already open and in a back sitting room a young mother was holding a small boy from behind. With her fists beneath his breastbone she was making frantic inward and upward thrusts to try to dislodge whatever it was that was choking him.
An agitated neighbour was hovering and when she saw them she cried, ‘Help the bairn, for God’s sake!’
He was blue in the face, eyes rolling in his head, and Selina knew that they only had seconds to free whatever it was.
‘Dean swallowed a plastic toy and it’s stuck,’ the mother screamed at them, becoming hysterical now that help had arrived.
As Kane snapped, ‘Forceps!’ Selina already had them in her hand.
‘Take him!’ he ordered with the same brevity.
Obeying, she grabbed the child out of his mother’s arms. As she did so he went limp.
‘He’s