Cooper caught her hand and pushed it away from the catch. Then he held the bottom and felt for the release button. Pressing it down hard didn’t seem to be enough, so he held the button down with one hand and took hold of the upper part of the strap with his other hand and pulled. Hard.
He felt the driver of the car slump towards him as the belt was released and he caught her under her armpits, pulling her free of the vehicle and then pushing up through the water. He just had to hope that she didn’t have any kind of spinal injury but there was no way she could have been left in the car long enough for a more careful extrication process because she would have drowned.
He wasn’t even sure that she was breathing now as he lifted her head clear of a breaking wave but there were others taking over. Taking the woman from his arms and putting her into the rescue basket to carry her towards the shore. Beside him, his fellow rescuer had already emerged from beneath the surface and she was dragging in great gulps of air as she tried to catch her breath.
‘Thanks...’ she managed. ‘I was having a...bit of trouble...there.’
Not that she looked at all bothered by the fact that her ‘bit of trouble’ could have actually put them both in danger. She wasn’t looking directly at him, either, as she pushed her hair back from her face and swiftly braided it to get it under control but he could see that her whole face had a glow about it—as if it had been so exciting, she’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Wow...there was something inspirational in that kind of passion. But Cooper had always known that, hadn’t he? She reminded him of...
No. He wasn’t about to go there. Even the nudge in that direction was discomforting, which was probably why his tone was distinctly sharp when he spoke again.
‘It’s lucky I didn’t have to rescue you as well,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
The reprimand in his tone was wasted on her. She didn’t seem to even be listening. She was watching the progress of the fire officers who were carrying the driver back to shore.
‘I need to see if she’s okay.’ She started moving. ‘I’m just hoping...she didn’t start drowning while I was fiddling with that belt.’
‘There was still some air in there, between waves.’ Cooper automatically reached out as the woman beside him stumbled on a rock. To his surprise, she caught his hand and held it as they both made their way back to shore as quickly as they could. His brain registered how that wet T-shirt was clinging to her body and he knew that image was going to resurface at a later, and less inappropriate, moment.
They were both soaking wet and should have been freezing given the water temperature and the slight breeze adding a chill factor but, oddly, the only thing that made Cooper realise he might be cold was the extraordinary warmth of that hand he was holding. It wasn’t until she let go, as they leapt out of the last wash of the waves, that he started to shiver.
The toddler and the baby in the car seat were nowhere to be seen so they must have been taken up the bank already. Perhaps the police officers on scene were caring for them in the warmth of one of their vehicles. They needed to get the female driver into shelter as well but it looked as if she wasn’t stable enough for what would have to be a slow journey up the steep slope.
He watched Fizz crouch beside the woman. She had her cheek near the victim’s face and a hand on her abdomen. ‘She’s breathing...just.’ She looked past the group of fire officers nearby. ‘Doesn’t look like we’ve got an ambulance on scene yet, does it?’
‘No.’ Cooper could see his own backpack not that far away. ‘But I’m a paramedic. I’ve got a kit. I’ll grab a stethoscope, shall I?’
It was the first really direct look he had received from her. She had brown eyes, he noticed. Really dark orbs that were assessing him with lightning speed.
‘Get my kit, too, would you?’ she said. ‘It’s over there on top of that flat rock.’
Cooper moved instantly. It felt as if he’d passed an unspoken test of some kind, he realised as he grabbed both backpacks and turned back. Not that it should have made any difference at all to this situation but instinct told him that it would not be an easy thing to gain this woman’s approval. Absurdly, Cooper actually felt a beat of pride in himself that he was being accepted as a temporary colleague.
* * *
He was a big bear of a man, this unexpected assistant that she had. Well over six feet in height and broad-shouldered.
Felicity Wilson believed that he was what he said he was. He’d clearly known what he was doing when he’d taken over getting this woman out of her crashed car and the way he’d told her to stay back until the car could be secured safely was pretty much what most people in the emergency services would have told her.
How could anybody have stood back when you could see that tiny face in the window, though? And yeah... Fizz knew she had a bit of an issue with impulsiveness when it came to dangerous situations but how good did it feel when taking that risk actually worked?
It would feel even better if she could make sure the mother of those children made it out of this disaster alive.
He had big hands as well, this man, but they were clever and nimble. He was opening pockets within the backpacks and extracting all the kinds of things that were going to be needed. Fizz stole the occasional glance as she looked up from doing a rapid primary survey on her patient, who was groaning but not conscious enough to open her eyes or speak to them coherently. She lay in the plastic rescue basket the fire service had provided.
Currently, those officers were setting up a canvas wind shield around them and watching what was happening. Two of them had taken off their heavy jackets and had passed them to the medics. Fizz felt swamped by the size of the garment but she wasn’t about to let it hamper her movements.
‘I’d put her GCS at less than ten. She’s tachycardic at one twenty-four,’ she told the man helping to stabilise her patient. ‘Tachypnoeic with a respiration rate of thirty-two and... I’m not sure I’m getting any breath sounds on the left side. Hard to tell with the noise of the waves.’
‘Pneumothorax?’ The fire-service jacket looked like it was the perfect size for this man. And he looked as if he was well used to a uniform and the authority it conveyed. He had found the small oxygen cylinder in a side pocket of her first-aid kit and was attaching a mask. ‘Is she hypoxic?’
‘Let’s get some oxygen on.’ Fizz nodded. ‘Got some shears?’ She cut at the woman’s clothing when he placed the tool in her hands and then slipped the elastic of the oxygen mask around their patient’s head to keep it in place.
‘Look at that...’ The marks of deep bruising from the seat-belt injury were already visible in dark red patches. Fizz palpated the side of the woman’s chest. ‘Definitely some rib fractures.’
Her partner had his fingers on the woman’s neck. ‘Carotid pulse palpable but weak,’ he told her. ‘Looks like her jugular venous pressure is raised, too.’
Fizz nodded. She could see the veins on the neck were visibly distended. She needed to have another listen to the chest and to check whether the tracheal line was deviated, which could confirm that air trapped in the woman’s chest was developing into the emergency that a tension pneumothorax represented.
Her partner was setting up for an IV, she noticed. He had his own roll that contained cannulas, alcohol wipes, Luer plugs and tape. He also had a litre of saline and a giving set ready to go. And he’d got a blood-pressure cuff on their patient’s arm already.
‘Blood pressure’s eighty-five over fifty,’ he told her. ‘Can’t see any external bleeding. I’ll check that her pelvis is stable in a tick.’
Fizz nodded but didn’t say anything for a moment. She had her stethoscope on her patient’s chest. Right side then left side. Yes...she was sure there were no breath sounds on the left but was it air or blood that was stopping the lung functioning?
‘I’m missin
g my ED ultrasound,’ she muttered.
‘The portable ones we carry in the ambulance now are great. Love them.’
She gave him a glance that probably looked startled but she knew that it was only the most highly trained paramedics that got to use equipment like portable ultrasound machines or ventilators. This guy not only knew what he was doing but he was very likely to be very good at it as well. It only took the briefest eye contact but she knew that he could tell exactly what she was thinking. His gaze was steady.
I am good at what I do, it told her. You can trust me...
‘What’s your name?’
‘Cooper. Cooper Sinclair.’
He wasn’t local. Fizz would have noticed this man amongst all the emergency services personnel she had worked with in the last few years. Noticed and remembered him. It wasn’t just his size that made him stand out. He had a strong Scottish accent. Not that where he came from or why he was here was of any interest to her right now.
‘What do you need there, Doc?’ A senior fire officer had come close. ‘Ambulance is just arriving on scene now but it’ll take them a minute or two to get their gear down the cliff. They want me to ask you what you need.’
‘The usual,’ Fizz responded. ‘Life pack, oxygen and the kit. I’d like to get her airway secured before we move her.’
‘Her name’s Sonya Greene. We got her bag out of the car and found her driver’s licence. She’s thirty-two years old.’
The same age as she was. With two very young children. ‘Somebody tracing next of kin?’
‘Cops are onto it. I’ll go and help get that gear down to you.’
‘You going to intubate?’ Cooper asked as the fire officer stepped back, talking into his radio.
‘I’ll need to decompress the chest before intubating.’
He nodded. ‘Positive pressure ventilation could make a pneumothorax a lot worse.’
‘I think it’s getting worse, anyway. Does that look like tracheal deviation to you?’
His head came very close to her own as he leaned over to get into a position to be able to see the line of their patient’s neck and chest. Fizz could feel his body heat, which struck her as odd because she knew how cold they both had to be, despite the thick jackets over their wet clothes. She made a note in the corner of her brain that they should probably wrap some foil sheets around themselves at the first opportunity. But she wasn’t going to mention it just yet. Somehow, she knew that this Cooper was not going to be any more interested in his own protection from hypothermia at the moment than she was.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Tension pneumothorax?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’
The new medics on scene arrived moments later.
‘Want me to get an IV in, Fizz?’ one of the paramedics asked.
‘We’re good for the moment. You’ve got that, haven’t you, Cooper?’
‘Yep.’
It was someone else’s turn to look startled. Fizz gave him a brief nod. ‘Cooper here is an advanced paramedic, Jack,’ she told the new arrival. ‘I was lucky he was here. We nearly didn’t get to save this woman. And right now, I need to decompress her chest and I want to do a finger thoracostomy rather than a needle decompression. Can you draw up some local?’ She looked at the second crew member. ‘Could you get the monitor on, please? I’d like to know what her oxygen and CO2 levels are.’
All four of them were kept very busy for the next fifteen minutes but Fizz was satisfied that it was safe to transport their patient by that point. The chest decompression had dealt with the breathing emergency and both the pulse and breathing rate had dropped to an acceptable level. Blood pressure was coming up and the airway was controlled.
‘Good job.’ She nodded, as the paramedics secured their patient in the basket for the journey up the steep bank. ‘I’ll come with you in the ambulance and get a police officer to get my car back into town.’
There were plenty of fire officers ready to help lift the basket stretcher and pass it up the chain of people on the bank. Fizz shoved things back into her pack and zipped it shut. She could tidy and restock it at the hospital. Cooper was collecting his own kit.
‘Thanks for your help,’ she told him. ‘Couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘It was a pleasure.’ Cooper smiled at her and, to her surprise, Fizz found her breath actually catching in her throat.
Wow...that was some smile...
‘Yeah...thanks, mate.’ Jack, the paramedic, was slipping the straps of his large pack over his shoulders. ‘You here on holiday or something?’
‘No. I’m actually starting work here tomorrow. At the Aratika Rescue Base?’
‘Oh, wow...choppers?’
‘And the rest.’ Cooper’s shrug was modest. ‘Coastguard work. Police operations. Specialist Emergency Response Team stuff.’
The glance Jack threw over his shoulder, as he went to catch up with the progress of the stretcher, was impressed.
Fizz had to admit she was pretty impressed herself. The members of that team on the rescue base were an elite group of people. She’d love to be an official, full-time member of that team herself but she loved her hospital work too much to give it up. Right now, she had arranged her life to give her the best of both worlds, by devoting her spare time away from ED shifts to the base and she got to work with some amazing people in both arenas.
It looked as if a new and very interesting person had just arrived in one of her worlds.
‘Guess I’ll be seeing you around,’ she told Cooper. ‘I try to be available to help on as many shifts as I can with the base.’
‘Good to know,’ he said. ‘I’ll be able to find out the end of this story. I hope it’s a happy ending.’
‘I specialise in happy endings wherever possible.’ Fizz threw him a grin as she headed towards the bank. The stretcher was more than halfway up already. They would be on the road and heading for the biggest emergency department in the area within a few minutes.
She turned her head once more as she stepped onto the first rung of the ladder that was now secured to the bank.
Cooper wasn’t that far behind her.
‘Hey,’ he called.
‘What?’
‘Just wanted to say that your name suits you. See you around, Fizz.’
She didn’t say anything in response. She didn’t look back again as she climbed to road level and then into the back of the ambulance. It was time to put the big, Scottish paramedic right out of her mind and focus on keeping her patient stable until they reached the hospital and got her to Theatre, if necessary, as quickly as possible to sort out that chest injury.
Fizz knew she would see him around sooner or later.
Hopefully, it would be sooner...
CHAPTER TWO
‘IT’S A FANTASTIC LOCATION.’
Cooper was standing in front of the glass wall that made up this central, third-floor office area of the Aratika Rescue Base. He could see the helipad directly below them with people working around two bright yellow aircraft. It looked as if one of the helicopters was being refuelled and someone—presumably a pilot—was walking around the other one, doing a detailed external check.
‘They’re Kawasaki BK117s, yes?’
‘With every bell and whistle you could wish for.’ Aratika’s manager, Don Smith, sounded proud. ‘We’ve got a backup Squirrel in case both the BKs are out at the same time and there’s no way of getting to another job by road or sea, but that’s actually never happened during my time here.’ He rapped his knuckles on the window sill. ‘Touch wood. If I needed saving I’d want it to be a BK showing up. They’re awesome rescue aircraft.’
‘They’re exactly what we used at the base in Scotland. Love working in them.’
‘You’ll be very familiar with the layout, then, which is a bonus. How many years have you got un
der your belt now? Ten?’
‘Close enough. I got into helicopter work as soon as I could after I graduated as a paramedic. It was always my burning ambition. Ever since I saw a crew at work when I was a teenager, up in a mountain range in Scotland.’
But it hadn’t been the overwhelming relief of seeing the helicopter arrive at that accident scene that had instilled an unwavering determination to be like the members of that crew. It hadn’t even been the astonishingly technical level of care that had been provided for the victim of that horrendous fall that had made him feel like he was in an episode of some high drama medical television series. No...what had stayed with Cooper and made him so determined to be like those heroes had been the way he had been cared for. The absolute compassion in the way they had done their best to support him as he’d dealt with the horror of his brother’s death and the respect they had shown to both himself and to Connor—even after they knew there was nothing more they could do for him.
‘And you’ve added a string of other accomplishments as well.’ Don’s words cut into the memory that had flashed into his mind. ‘I have to say your CV was pretty impressive. Urban and Land Search and Rescue qualifications, with mountain experience. Disaster management. Coastguard training...’
Cooper shrugged modestly. ‘I like to keep busy. And I like the challenge of learning new stuff. Or being in a new environment—and from what I’ve seen of New Zealand so far, it’s got a lot to offer.’
He knew how impressive his CV was but there was a downside to the kind of ambition that had driven him to achieve so much in his career already. It came from a single-minded devotion to that career that had meant there’d been no room for anything else in his life. Here he was in his mid-thirties—all of twenty years since his determination to be the best rescue worker ever had been conceived—and there’d been nothing to hold him back from shifting his life to the other side of the world for a fresh and interesting challenge.
No long-term relationship to consider. No family ties that were binding. No desire for family ties like that, for that matter. Cooper Sinclair lived for his work and, yeah...the downside was that it could be lonely sometimes, but he wouldn’t have that impressive CV or be as good at this job as he knew his references recorded if he’d let a personal life interfere with where he was heading. Or maybe that should be where he’d already arrived. Was that why he’d come in search of new challenges in a new country? Because he’d been running out of ideas of how to take his skill set to an even higher level?
Resisting Her Rescue Doc Page 2