The Doctors' Christmas Reunion

by Meredith Webber

  ‘We’re nearly through with the communication cable,’ one of the engineers said to her, ‘and we’ll soon find out how the guys are.’

  It still seemed to take for ever for the small hole to be drilled through the fall, but eventually the engineers were able to speak to the survivors on the other side.

  ‘Two injured,’ the man on Ellie’s end of that fragile wire said. ‘One badly.’

  ‘I’m putting the doctor on the line,’ she heard him say, then took the old black receiver and held it to her ear, introducing herself as Ellie in response to Dave at the other end.

  ‘It’s Eddie,’ he said. ‘He’s lost his hard hat and there’s blood all over his face, and he’s mumbling at us.’

  ‘It may be less serious than it seems,’ she told Dave. ‘Head wounds bleed a lot, even from small injuries.’

  ‘Okay!’

  ‘Is he breathing?’

  ‘Yes, and he’s got a pulse. We checked that first.’

  ‘Are you in a safety area and if so, what first-aid things have you got?’

  ‘There’s a big red box with lots of wrapping type stuff,’ Dave told her.

  ‘Something you can use to clean him up? There’ll be sterile water in little clear plastic packs. Just rip the tops off them, and wet the cloth and try to clear all the blood from around the wound. Go gently so you don’t worsen the injury.’

  There was silence for a while, although she could vaguely hear conversation in the background, presumably Dave giving orders to the other men.

  ‘Doing that,’ he said. ‘It seems the wound is on his head at the hairline above his right eye.’

  ‘Have someone keep pressure on it with a pad of cotton while you feel gently around it. See if there’s a lump from the bump.’

  ‘Not much of one.’

  ‘Okay!’ Ellie was thinking fast.

  ‘Now run your fingers all over his head, gently but firmly. You’re feeling for any movement in his skull or swelling anywhere else.’

  Silence as the man felt his mate’s head, but Ellie had thought of something that should help.

  She turned to one of the men clustered near her.

  ‘Do you have one of the big red first-aid boxes somewhere here?’ she asked, and watched as someone ducked away, returning with the box and setting it at her feet.

  She opened it up and was surprised at the amount of first-aid equipment in it, the contents listed by number on a sheet of paper inside the lid.

  She was checking the contents when a voice said, ‘He seems all right.’

  ‘Okay! Now I have a box with me. Do you see the green gauze pads labelled twelve and a rolled bandage labelled twenty-four?’

  ‘Got ’em both,’ her new friend at the other end of the line said cheerfully.

  ‘Then use the gauze to cover the wound and keep it there by wrapping the bandage around his head. The bandage is self-adhesive so when you’ve done a few firm turns just cut it off and it will stick to itself and stay there.’

  She waited while Dave gave instructions for the bandage, then said, ‘I need you to take his pulse again. Can you time it? Does one of you have a watch with a second hand.’

  They must all be able to hear her voice for several voices offered the use of theirs.

  ‘Then count the beats. You need only do it for half a minute then double it to get beats per minute.’

  ‘It’s very hard to feel, it’s kind of weak.’

  ‘Try the carotid artery just below the angle of his jaw. If you feel around there, you should get it.’

  ‘Tom’s got it! He’s the fit one of us, he goes to the gym and takes his own pulse all the time to make sure he’s alive. He says it’s ninety.’

  ‘Not too bad,’ Ellie said, trying desperately to picture the situation at the other end of the line.

  ‘Has he any other injuries that you can see or feel?’

  ‘No, we checked that first of all. Just all the blood on his head.’

  ‘Okay, now, is he conscious? Can you ask him his name?’

  ‘He just mumbles. He must hear our questions because we asked him earlier where he hurt and those kinds of things, and made him move his feet and hands, but anything he says isn’t making sense.’

  Ellie thought she heard a mumbled protest at this stage, but it seemed he’d been lucky, and escaped with nothing more than concussion.

  ‘I want you to keep talking to him, keep him responding even if it’s only mumbles. It’s probably just concussion from the knock on the head, but don’t move him anyway.’

  She was about to pass the phone back to the man who’d given it to her when she remembered someone had said there were two injured behind the fall.

  ‘Who’s the other injury?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s Pete, but he’s nearly always injured.’

  The men’s laughter came clearly through the phone.

  ‘In what way?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Ankle this time! His boot got stuck in the fall and we had to dig him out. We’ve taken off the boot and bound his ankle up. There’s instructions in the first-aid box about bandages and things, and we just did what it said and told him to sit down and shut up his whining while we looked after Eddie.’

  ‘There are painkillers in the box inside a blue plastic box. The ones labelled eight are paracetamol. You could give him two of them, and another two after four hours, but no more than eight in twenty-four hours.

  ‘Yep, I can see them, but he says they’re no better than spit and he needs something stronger.’

  ‘You could give him a couple of those to begin with,’ Ellie said firmly. ‘And if you really believe he needs more pain relief, the tablets labelled ten are codeine and paracetamol, but you’re still looking at no more than eight in twenty-four hours, and that’s counting the first two.’

  ‘He’s grumbling that there should be something stronger. He’s saying there should be morphine.’

  ‘There probably is,’ Ellie told him, having already found some in her red box. ‘But we don’t know how he’d react to it, so it’s best administered by a doctor.’

  ‘I reckon you’re right. We’ll keep an eye on him and if he starts to look bad, we’ll talk to you about it.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said, then hesitated for a moment.

  ‘Is Logan Grant’s dad with you?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s me,’ a new voice said. ‘You’re Dr Ellie, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am, and I’m very pleased to hear your voice. I’ll get on to your babysitter. If she can’t manage the kids, they can come to my place. I’ve got some adults staying there who should be able to handle them.’

  ‘Handle young Logan, you’ve got to be kidding!’ someone said, and Ellie smiled.

  ‘One of my visitors is a six-foot-tall rugby player. Logan might just have met his match.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Logan’s father said. ‘I’ve been worried to death about them. Our young babysitter is good, but overnight is hard, and Logan runs rings around her even in the daytime. As you know.’

  ‘Well, rest assured they’ll be well looked after.’

  She checked on the welfare of the rest of the men, then phoned Andy.

  ‘Will you tell Jill to expect the kids? Chris is here somewhere. I’ll get him or Zeke to help them pack a few things and take them over to our place. Just warn Harry that Logan needs careful watching.’

  ‘They’ll all be okay,’ Andy told her. ‘I’ve got some old video games Logan might like to play, and Jill’s already getting grandmotherly about Chelsea’s baby so they’ll be good practice for her.’

  There was silence for a moment, before Andy continued, ‘Are you all right? Are you still in the safe assembly area?’

  Ellie had just assured him she was when a noise like thunder rolled along the tunnels, and she quickly
hung up lest Andy hear it and start to worry.

  She waited, wondering what had happened, but no one around her seemed particularly alarmed, until someone snapped, ‘Hey, watch what you’re doing!’

  The voice came from one of the men stabilising the tunnel ceiling and it wasn’t so much the words as an ominous creaking that had everyone move forward.

  ‘Keep back!’

  The sharp command had Ellie backing as quickly as she could, though she could still hear the man in charge, only this time he was speaking on the phone.

  ‘You guys back there—you’re all in a safety pod, aren’t you? Right in it?’

  Affirmative noises came through, and Ellie wondered just what was happening to make everything much more urgent.

  The creaking noise had stopped, but somehow the silence seemed much louder.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she murmured to the man closest to her.

  ‘Something’s moving and we don’t know whether it’s this end or the other.’

  ‘Or in another tunnel altogether,’ someone offered.

  As all but the trapped men were out of the mine, Ellie realised the danger must be to those trapped, hence the questions about where they were.

  The rescue team working on securing the top of the tunnel had retreated towards the group at the lifts, then another roaring noise filled the air with dust, which finally settled to reveal a further fall.

  The men in charge began discussing what this meant, and as far as Ellie could make out, the prediction was that they would have to work more slowly and it could be another two days before they freed the men.

  And their fragile telephone link to the men was no longer working.

  ‘We should get you back up to the top,’ someone said, realising Ellie was still in their midst. ‘Although...’

  He paused.

  ‘Although?’ Ellie prompted.

  ‘I was thinking of the air shaft.’

  ‘You can’t ask a woman to go down that,’ one said.

  ‘And a small worker could do it just as easily,’ another added.

  ‘But there are injured men in there,’ Ellie reminded them, ‘and we’ve only got reports that they’re okay. I’m happy to go in that way. After all, it’s only two days until they’re free, you say. I’ll be home for Christmas!’

  The group of men moved a little away from her as a furious, whispered argument took place but in her heart she knew she should be the one to go.

  Even Andy called her a skinny little runt at times. This was a time when size did matter.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she told them. ‘Just tell me what I need to do.’

  The whole group was now looking at her.

  She smiled at them.

  ‘I’m happy to do it.’

  ‘You’ll need a canister of air and a mask over your face. The air vent will be lined with coal dust that’ll be everywhere once you disturb it,’ one of the engineers told her. ‘I’ll send a team up to clear the machinery at the top of it. And we’ll have you double roped, with one rope attached to a safety harness and another you can stand on as you go down.’

  He seemed excited, but worry was creeping into his voice again as he discussed the practical side of things.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘I am,’ she assured them all. ‘But I’ll need a few things lowered down as well. My medical bag, and perhaps a container of water, and some chocolate as treats for the men. I could go first and you could lower other stuff down to me.’

  And although he’d been the one to send the order about removing the machinery from the top of the shaft, the engineer still seemed doubtful.

  ‘What if it’s blocked?’ he said.

  ‘Then you can pull me up,’ she told him, ‘but you know it isn’t blocked. The men have told us the air is fresh.’

  ‘You’re a champ,’ someone said, while another man patted her shoulder.

  Then everyone was moving, some taking Ellie back to the surface in the lift, and as they did so were discussing the mechanics of what lay ahead.

  It was probably best if she didn’t listen to that part.

  Again, she considered phoning Andy, but she knew he’d forbid it, and then be furious with her for doing it anyway.

  Besides, he’d worry...

  * * *

  Andy heard the news from Chris when he delivered Logan and his sisters to the house.

  ‘She’s going down an air shaft? Whoever thought of such a crazy idea? Nobody knows if they’ll get those men out of there. She could be trapped. There could be another fall!’

  Chris’s reassurances that all would be well and that the mine engineers had it all under control fell on deaf ears as panic spread through Andy’s body.

  His imagination was only too willing to supply him with plenty of ‘worst’ scenarios: Ellie trapped in the air shaft; another rockfall; the trapped men... He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—think of any scenarios including them...

  His heart was stuttering in his chest, and for all he knew there were things he should be doing, like calling Maureen to cancel the morning’s patients, but his mind couldn’t move past the image of his wife trapped a mile or so beneath the ground.

  And suddenly all they’d been through seemed so trivial he could have cried. The time they’d wasted, the pain they’d caused each other. What if something happened and he couldn’t hold her again, tell her he loved her, explain his panic about having another baby?

  Moving like an automaton, Andy did what had to be done: he saw to the guests; phoned Maureen; and finally went back to work. Not that he could stay there, not when his wife was—

  No, he wasn’t going to start that again, but at least if he waited at the mine, he’d hear all the latest news, maybe even get a message to her. Would they send a message saying ‘I love you’?

  And would that be enough when there was so much more he needed to say?

  He told Andrea to contact him if he was needed, and headed back out to the mine.

  * * *

  Offering to be lowered down a long, dark ventilation shaft was one thing. Doing it, Ellie soon realised, was entirely different. For a start, it wasn’t a darkness she’d ever experienced before. It was as if the blackness was physical so it seemed to press against her.

  And the shaft seemed to grow narrower as she went down, although she knew this was her imagination.

  Then light appeared and before she knew it, eager hands were helping her stand on firm earth again, undoing her harness and generally welcoming her presence.

  She stepped away from them and stripped off the filthy overalls she’d worn down the shaft, which were now black with coal dust.

  ‘We’d better stand clear, there’s more coming,’ she said, and smiled when the men looked puzzled.

  ‘Extra water because I thought Pete’s ankle might need an open cast.’

  She waited until the bundle arrived before mentioning chocolate, which had the desired effect of lifting the men’s spirits, especially as it came in the form of little chocolate Santas.

  Her rescuers clustered around her and the only one she recognised, Logan’s dad, gave her a hug.

  ‘Hey, I’m the patient here,’ someone complained, and Ellie guessed it was Pete, lying on the floor with his ankle bandaged.

  ‘I’ll just check Eddie then come back to you,’ Ellie promised.

  Eddie was still and quiet, but as far as Ellie could tell the injury hadn’t been severe, and the pupils in both eyes reacted equally to light.

  ‘Just sit by him in case there’s any change,’ Ellie told the man nearest to her. ‘You can talk to him if you like, or not. He’ll have a crashing headache and might not feel like responding. But stay near him, check his pulse every ten minutes or so, and let me know if anything changes.’

  She looked at the few men clustered
around her.

  ‘You can do that? Take turns?’ she asked, and was assured they’d stay close to him, one of them settling beside Eddie to begin telling him a long story about when they were kids, asking Eddie questions to which he sometimes mumbled an answer—or what might have been an answer.

  Ellie went to kneel beside Pete, handing him a green whistle to suck while she unwrapped the bandage.

  She suspected he could have broken the ends of his tibia and fibula when the rocks had landed on him, which meant he had reason to complain. She’d checked the big red box before she’d come down the air shaft, and knew there was treated cloth in it. She could fashion it into an open cast for his ankle and lower leg, and hold it in place with the bandages.

  It would allow for swelling and its rigidity would prevent further displacement of the bones.

  It took all her concentration to get it right, but around her she could hear the jokes and quips of the men and was pleased at how high their spirits seemed to be, although, to a certain extent what was to her a grim, dark, rather frightening tunnel was a second home to them.

  With both patients checked, Ellie turned her attention to the other men. Kane Grant in particular was showing evidence of stress.

  ‘My family will take good care of your children,’ she told him, but it didn’t ease his concern. His main lament was that he should have got a different job so he could be at home more often with his children.

  ‘But any job will take you away from them for part of the day,’ Ellie reminded him, ‘and mining’s been your life.’

  ‘But Logan’s going to be in trouble wherever he goes,’ Kane lamented. ‘I should have done better with him.’

  Ellie knew she had to listen but other men had worries as well.

  ‘When did you last sleep?’ she asked Kane, who shook his head.

  ‘I’ve no idea! I’ve been sleeping badly even at home and haven’t slept down here since the cave-in.’

  Ellie opened her own bag and found an anti-anxiety drug to give him. Even if it didn’t make him sleep it would calm his nerves.

  Kane accepted the tablet and the water Ellie offered him, then took her advice and went over to one of the hammocks the men had rigged up out of their overalls, climbed in, swung back and forth a bit, then fell deeply asleep, unaware of the men setting up a game of poker practically underneath him.