The Wife He's Been Waiting For. Dianne Drake

flashed the light in his eye to see pupillary reaction. She studied it for a moment, then did the same for his other eye. Not responsive to light. A very bad sign. “I think we have a head injury here. His pupils aren’t equal and reactive to light. He also has a broken arm, not a compound fracture, though. At least, that’s the best I can tell. And that’s all I can see so far. Oh, and there’s not enough room for two of us.”

      “Sarah,” he called, crouching at the edge of the bus.

      She glanced at him for a moment, glad to see his face, even though it was streaked with worry. “I don’t suppose I mentioned that I’m a doctor, did I?” she asked, knowing full well she hadn’t. These days, if it didn’t come up in conversation, she didn’t bring it up. Even in the company of another doctor. Especially in the company of another doctor. That made avoidance all the more easy.

      “Do you need a cervical collar?” he called back, rather than responding to her confession.

      “To get him out, yes. And a backboard.” She did a quick check of Delroy’s pulse. Weaker. In her gut she knew he had internal injuries, too, some kind of bleeding somewhere, but she couldn’t get a good feel of his belly to check for rigidity. “And I think he’s bleeding inside, so I’ll need an IV set-up ready to go once he’s out of here.”

      “But he’s breathing?”

      “Shallow, rapid. Do you have a blood-pressure cuff?” she called, on the off chance that Delroy’s other arm wasn’t broken and she could take a blood-pressure reading.

      Within seconds, a blood-pressure cuff and stethoscope were tossed under to her. But she was on the wrong side to use them, so she scooted all the way around the boy’s head and over to the left of his body, praying that his injuries there weren’t so extensive. A quick check of his arm revealed it she was safe to use the cuff, so she fastened it on, pumped it up then took a reading. “Damn,’ she muttered, not hearing a thing. She tried it again. “Eighty over forty,” she finally called. Deathly low. She desperately needed to get an IV into Delroy, to give him fluid volume to offset the internal bleed she guessed was causing his blood pressure to bottom out. “What are my chances for an IV right now, before we move him?”

      “None,” Michael called. “We’ve got assistance en route, but it’s going to take a while.”