‘He’s great to work with too, a bit brusque, keeps himself to himself.’ Funny, Jasmine thought, he hadn’t seemed anything other than friendly when she had met him, but, still, she didn’t dwell on it. They soon had their first patients coming through and were alerted to expect a patient who had fallen from scaffolding. He had arm fractures but, given the height from which he had fallen, there was the potential for some serious internal injuries, despite the patient being fully conscious. Resus was prepared and Jasmine felt her shoulders tense as Penny walked in, their eyes meeting for just a brief second as Penny tied on a large plastic apron and put on protective glasses and gloves.
‘This is Jasmine,’ Vanessa happily introduced her. ‘The new clinical nurse specialist.’
‘What do we know about the patient?’ was Penny’s tart response.
Which set the tone.
The patient was whizzed in. He was young, in pain and called Cory, and Penny shouted orders as he was moved carefully over onto the trolley on the spinal board. He was covered in plaster dust. It was in his hair, on his clothes and in his eyes, and it blew everywhere as they tried to cut his clothes off. Despite Cory’s arms being splinted, he started to thrash about on the trolley
‘Just stay nice and still, Cory.’ Jasmine reassured the patient as Penny thoroughly examined him—listening to his chest and palpating his abdomen, demanding his observations even before he was fully attached to the equipment and then ordering some strong analgesia for him.
‘My eyes …’ Cory begged, even when the pain medication started to hit, and Penny checked them again.
‘Can you lavage his eyes?’ Penny said, and Jasmine warmed a litre of saline to a tepid temperature and gently washed them out as Penny spoke to the young man.
‘Right,’ Penny said to her young patient. ‘We’re going to get some X-rays and CTs, but so far it would seem you’ve been very lucky.’
‘Lucky?’ Cory checked.
‘She means compared to how it might have been,’ Jasmine said as she continued to lavage his eyes. ‘You fell from quite a height and, judging by the fact you’ve got two broken wrists, well, it looks like as if you managed to turn and put out your hands to save yourself,’ Jasmine explained. ‘Which probably doesn’t feel very lucky right now.
‘How does that eye feel?’ She wiped his right eye with gauze and Cory blinked a few times.
‘Better.’
‘How’s the pain now?’
‘A bit better.’
‘Need any help?’ Jasmine looked up at the sound of Jed’s voice. He smelt of morning, all fresh and brisk and ready to help, but Penny shook her head.
‘I’ve got this.’ She glanced over to another patient being wheeled in. ‘He might need your help, though.’
She’d forgotten this about Emergency—you didn’t get a ten-minute break to catch your breath and tidy up, and more often than not it was straight into the next one. As Vanessa, along with Penny, dealt with X-rays and getting Cory ready for CT, Jasmine found herself working alone with Jed on his patient, with Lisa popping in and out.
‘It’s her first day!’ Lisa warned Jed as she opened some equipment while Jasmine connected the patient to the monitors as the paramedics gave the handover.
‘No problem,’ Jed said, introducing himself to the elderly man and listening to his chest as Jasmine attached him to monitors and ran off a twelve-lead ECG. The man was in acute LVF, meaning his heart was beating ineffectively, which meant that there was a build-up of fluid in his lungs that was literally drowning him. Jim’s skin was dark blue and felt cold and clammy and he was blowing white frothy bubbles out through his lips with every laboured breath.
‘You’re going to feel much better soon, sir,’ Jed said. The paramedics had already inserted an IV and as Jed ordered morphine and diuretics, Jasmine was already pulling up the drugs, but when she got a little lost on the trolley he pointed them out without the tutting and eye-rolls Penny had administered.
‘Can you ring for a portable chest X-ray?’ Jed asked. The radiographer would have just got back to her department as Jasmine went to summon her again.
‘What’s the number?’ Jasmine asked, but then found it for herself on the phone pad.
Jed worked in a completely different manner from Penny. He was much calmer and far more polite with his requests and was patient when Jasmine couldn’t find the catheter pack he asked for—he simply went and got one for himself. He apologised too when he asked the weary night radiographer to hold on for just a moment as he inserted a catheter. But, yes, Jasmine noticed, Vanessa was right—he was detached with the staff and nothing like the man she had mildly joked with at her interview or walked alongside on the beach.
But, like Penny, he got the job done.
Jasmine spoke reassuringly to Jim all the time and with oxygen on, a massive dose of diuretics and the calming effect of the morphine their patient’s oxygen sats were slowly climbing and his skin was becoming pink. The terrified grip on Jasmine’s hand loosened.
Lisa was as good as her word and popped in and out. Insisting she was done with her ovaries, she put on a lead gown and shooed them out for a moment and they stepped outside for the X-ray.
Strained was the silence and reluctantly almost, as if he was forcing himself to be polite, Jed turned his face towards her as they waited for the all-clear to go back inside. ‘Enjoying your first day?’
‘Actually, yes!’ She was surprised at the enthusiasm in her answer as she’d been dreading starting work and leaving Simon, and worried that her scrambled brain wasn’t up to a demanding job. Yet, less than an hour into her first shift, Jasmine was realising how much she’d missed it, how much she had actually loved her work.
‘Told you it wouldn’t take long.’
‘Yes, well, I’m only two patients in.’ She frowned as he looked up, not into her eyes but at her hair. ‘The hairdresser cut too much off.’
‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s white.’
‘Oh.’ She shook it and a little puff of plaster dust blew into the air. ‘Plaster dust.’ She shook it some more, moaning at how she always ended up messy, and he sort of changed his smile to a stern nod as the red light flashed and then the radiographer called that they could go back inside.
‘You’re looking better.’ Jasmine smiled at her patient because now the emergency was over, she could make him a touch more comfortable. The morphine had kicked in and his catheter bag was full as the fluid that had been suffocating him was starting to move from his chest. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I can breathe,’ Jim said, and grabbed her hand, still worried. ‘Can my wife come in? She must’ve been terrified.’
‘I’m going to go and speak to her now,’ Jed said, ‘and then I’ll ring the medics to come and take over your care. You’re doing well.’ He looked at Jasmine. ‘Can you stay with him while I go and speak to his wife?’
‘Sure.’
‘I thought that was it,’ Jim admitted as Jasmine placed some pillows behind him and put a blanket over the sheet that covered him. After checking his obs, she sat herself down on the hard flat resus bed beside him. ‘Libby thought so too.’
‘Your wife?’ Jasmine checked, and he nodded.
‘She couldn’t remember the number for the ambulance.’
‘It must have been very scary for her,’ Jasmine said, because though it must be terrifying to not be able to breathe, to watch someone you love suffer must have been hell. ‘She’ll be so pleased to see that you’re talking and looking so much better than when