Matt circled round, helping the team pull the bed away from the wall, issuing instructions as he went. “Find the radiographer—anybody as long as they’re staff.”
He didn’t know the team, but A&E crews rarely did know each other. Mostly they were locums, making two to three times what the die-hard staffers took home. From the looks of some of the baby-faced white coats bringing patients in and out of the exam areas there were a lot of freshly minted newbies on tonight.
“You boys all right to see this through?” Matthew asked the men who’d brought the patient in.
The lead paramedic raised his hands in apology, “Sorry, mate. Busy night.”
And off they went.
It was obvious the man would need immediate treatment. He saw a patient being wheeled out of one of the resus rooms toward Recovery and made a beeline for it with his newly adopted team.
“Can we get some anesthetic on to his wrist?” he asked the nurse who had been securing all the monitoring equipment onto the patient. “Do we have a name?”
“Mr. Rumsey,” the nurse said, swiftly applying a topical numbing agent as Matthew prepared to insert the cardiac catheter.
“Okay, Mr. Rumsey, we’re going to take good care of you, all right?”
The sixty-something gentleman nodded, unable to catch his breath enough to speak.
After a quick scan of the ECG, Matthew lowered his voice to ask the nurse if there was a free cardiac cath lab.
The red-headed man in his twenties shook his head. “There is, but there’s a queue. Always is,” he muttered darkly.
A sharp, solid tone sounded from the monitor.
“He’s coding!”
Matthew gave the patient’s sternum a quick hard rub. No response.
“Need an extra pair of hands?”
Matthew looked up, grateful to see Amanda slipping through the door.
“The more the merrier. You happy to go on top?”
She shot him a sharp look.
If he’d had time to relive that moment when she’d been starkers and climbing on top him as if he was a chocolate-covered Mount Everest he would have—but there was a life at stake.
She climbed onto the edge of the patient’s gurney. “You ready with oxygen?”
Matthew nodded after checking Mr. Rumsey’s airways were clear, feeling for a carotid pulse at the same time. He gave a quick shake of the head. Nothing.
“Beginning compressions.”
“Ready with the crash cart?” Matthew waited until a nurse who’d joined the team gave him a nod. “Pause for air,” he said needlessly.
Amanda, had already raised her hands, saying, “Twenty-nine, thirty...” as she did so.
Matthew held the bag valve mask in place while the nurse gave two full presses of oxygen before quickly applying the defibrillator pads to the patient’s chest.
“How are you doing up there?”
Matt gave Amanda a quick glance. Her cheeks were pinking up as she poured her energies into the powerful compressions required to keep blood flowing into the patient’s heart.
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