Twice Lucky

by Mardi Alexander

  Bella opened her eyes slightly, trying to focus on her surroundings.

  “Hey, sweetie. Can you hear me?”

  Bella groaned and tried to nod her head. Mac watched as Bella’s eyes changed from confusion at hearing a stranger’s voice to surprise and apprehension as she felt the restriction around her throat from the neck brace, finally sliding to fear as she realized what had happened to her.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Bella, Bella Larsen.”

  “Hi, Bella, my friends call me Mouse and I’m with the fire brigade. You and Rob have been in a car accident. Rob’s okay and is outside with my friend, Bettsy. Your head and neck might feel a little weird because I’ve put a neck collar on you. It’s just for precaution to keep your head and neck nice and safe and still. I’m going to ask you some questions, so try not to nod or shake your head when you answer them. Is that okay?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Good girl.” Mac had one hand on Bella’s arm and with her other she reached around into her breast pocket, pulling out a small notebook and pen to take notes.

  “Bella, how old are you?”

  Bella whispered, “I’m twenty-four.”

  “Do you know your date of birth?”

  “Yes, twenty-fourth of May, 1989.”

  “Are you on any medications?”

  “No, only vitamin supplements.”

  “Are you allergic to anything?”

  “No.”

  “Can you take a deep breath for me? Does that hurt anywhere?”

  Bella took a breath. “No.”

  “Does your neck or back hurt?”

  “No. They’re okay.”

  “How many weeks pregnant are you, honey?”

  “Thirty-six weeks.”

  “And everything going okay with the pregnancy? No high blood pressure or sugar issues?

  “No, everything’s fine.”

  “Any spotting?”

  “No, so far it’s all been good. I haven’t had any problems, apart from morning sickness…Do you think my baby will be okay?” Bella’s eyes were pools of fear.

  Mac had always exercised a policy of trying to be honest where she could. The trick was finding a gentle middle ground. She held Bella’s hand in hers and looked into Bella’s eyes. “Well, we won’t know for sure until we get you both checked out at the hospital, which shouldn’t be too much longer now. In the meantime, you and baby bubble here are the most important people, so we are going to look after you with top VIP priority, how’s that sound?”

  Bella clutched her hand tightly and hoarsely said, “Thank you.”

  “That’s okay, sweetie. Can you tell me when you last had something to eat and drink tonight?”

  “Um, we had dinner around half six, before the show, and a couple of soft drinks during the concert, so my last was probably around eleven.”

  “Okay, great. Do you remember what happened tonight?”

  Bella closed her eyes. “We were trying to get home. We’d been to a concert”—she smiled ruefully—“and we figured it would be the last chance to see a band for a while. We were going steady, because of the rain, talking and laughing…and then we started skidding. Rob tried to wrestle the car on the road, but we were spinning. I remember a loud noise…” She started to sniffle and tear up, and she looked up at Mac with tears rolling down her face. “I don’t remember anything after that. I’m sorry”.

  “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie. You’ve done a great job. Can you tell me where it hurts?”

  “My shoulder’s sore and my head hurts. I can’t move my legs. They’re stuck.”

  “Uh-huh. You got thrown about a bit and the dashboard has folded in and is pressing on your legs. We’ll have you out in a little bit. You’re doing a great job. You let me know if anything else starts to hurt. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  There was some rustling overhead. Bettsy popped his head over the top. “Here’s the O2.”

  “Thanks, Betts. Any ETA on the ambos?”

  “Yeah, they’re en route and about five away. How’s things in here?”

  “All good. Thanks for the tank.”

  “No worries. I’ll get the spreaders ready for when they get here.”

  “Cheers, buddy.”

  Bettsy climbed down and she could hear the rustle and clank of items being set up, ready for the extrication.

  “I’m going to put this oxygen mask on you, Bella. It will help you and the baby with shock. Okay?”

  Bella murmured her agreement and the mask was quickly put on her face and the elastic over her head.

  “I know it’s not easy, but just try and breathe deeply and relax as best you can.” Bella took a deep couple of breaths. “Thatta girl, you’re doing great. The paramedics are on their way and we’ll have you out in a jiffy.” Mac wrote some more notes in her pocket book, ready for handover.

  Bella didn’t respond. Mac looked up from her notes—Bella’s face was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. “Bella? You okay?”

  Just then Bella gasped and clutched her belly with her uninjured arm. Both women looked down at the same time and noticed a damp blood-tinged stain start to blossom and spread on Bella’s dress.

  “Talk to me, Bella. What’s happening, sweetie?”

  “Oh! Cramps…oh God! The baby, it’s too early. Please help me. Get me out.”

  “Okay, Bella, I need you to take some deep breaths for me now…That’s it, slow your breathing down. I know it hurts, honey, but we need to slow your heart rate down for the baby. Okay, breathe with me.” She took in a deep breath. “That’s it…now let it out. Okay, another deep breath.” They both breathed in deeply. “Good girl, and out again. Okay, keep doing that for me. Close your eyes and just try and think about your breathing for me.” Bella inhaled and exhaled obediently.

  “Betts?”

  “Yo.” Bettsy’s head appeared over the top.

  Mac stood so that she could talk quietly. “Bring the ambos straight over. Looks like Bella’s going into labour. Her waters have broken and there’s a fair bit of blood in it. We need to get her out as soon as they get here.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Mac knelt and took Bella’s pulse. Her heart rate was picking up with the pain, and she was taking short, sharp, shallow breaths. “That’s it, Bella, nice deep breaths for me.” Mac talked her through the breathing. “That’s super. Deep breath in, and out…in, and out. That’s great, keep going.” She opened the IV a little more and noted that she had used a bit over a quarter of the bag. It would do until the ambos arrived.

  She heard an engine approach and Bettsy called out, “The bus is here.”

  “Bella? The ambulance has arrived—not long now, sweetheart. Just keep breathing for me, nice and deep. You’re doing a great job.” She could hear Bettsy offering up a brief on the accident and those involved and then heard footsteps approaching. A face appeared over the top.

  “Hey, my name’s Trev. Who do we have here?”

  Mac looked at her notes briefly and gave Trev Bella’s details and history in the handover. She stood. “I’ll swap places with you, Trev, and help Bettsy get the gear ready for release.”

  Trev nodded. “Goodo. I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

  Bella grabbed Mac’s leg as she was getting ready to climb out, looking at her with frightened eyes. Mac squatted down again and brushed Bella’s cheek with the back of her fingers. “Hey, Bella, it’s okay. My friend Trevor here is going to stay with you. I’ll be just outside getting some gear ready to help get you out. I’ll be back before you know it, and we can work on getting you and baby bubble both out of here, okay?”

  Bella smiled weakly in acknowledgement before another spasm hit her and her face crumpled with the cramp.

  Mac climbed out and was swiftly replaced by Trevor. She could hear him murmuring reassurances to Bella while she worked with Bettsy and waited for Trevor’s call. A stretcher had been wheeled over in readiness with a spine board resting a
longside the car. There wasn’t long to wait before Trevor gave the signal that it was time.

  Mac climbed into the top of the car and spreadeagled down either side of Bella. She had left her helmet and coat outside as there was little room inside the vehicle. “Okay, Bella. I’m going to slide the wedge in near your legs and see if we can’t make enough room to slide you out.”

  Mac looked up at Trevor who nodded. They were good to go.

  She positioned the small wedge spreaders in the tiny space on the right of Bella’s knee and cranked it open. She just needed to make a space big enough to get the bigger spreaders in. Little by little, she cranked it open. When she had enough space, she locked the jaws open, slid the small unit out, and replaced it with the bigger spreading unit.

  “Here we go, Bella, take some nice deep breaths for me…”

  She cranked the spreaders and slowly, with groaning, creaking, and crunching reluctance, the car began to relinquish its grip on Bella. As the pressure was released, the circulation returned to Bella’s legs and she screamed at the assault of pain.

  Trevor leaned over her. “Hang in there, Bella, nearly there.”

  A couple more cranks and Bella’s legs were free.

  Trevor nodded. “Okay, we’ve got space. Spine board.”

  Bettsy was atop the car and wordlessly passed down the board. Between them, Trevor and Mac slid the board under Bella, secured her in place, and raised her up to where Bettsy was waiting to balance the board on the top side of the car. Mac scrambled out, followed by Trevor. The three of them lifted Bella off the car and onto the stretcher where Trevor was able to undertake a more thorough head-to-toe assessment.

  Trevor turned to Bettsy and Mac. “My partner is still at the hospital with the last call-out we were on—would one of you guys mind driving?”

  Bettsy looked over and nodded. “You go. I’ll clean up here and pick you up when I’m done.”

  Mac climbed in the ambulance’s driver’s seat and looked over her shoulder at Trevor. He gave the thumbs up that he was good to go. The injured driver, Rob, was bundled into the passenger seat.

  With no traffic on the road, the trip to the hospital went swiftly as they sliced their way through the dark night and into town. The bright streetlights seemed harsh and garish after the embracing dark drive.

  Arriving at the hospital, she backed the ambulance into the bay where hospital staff were at the door, waiting for their arrival. The ambulance doors swung open and Bella was whisked away by Trevor, whilst a nurse came to wrap Rob in a blanket, then walked him in through to Emergency.

  Mac put her head down on the steering wheel and closed her eyes, letting out an enormous sigh of relief. Then she raised her head, took a deep breath, and wearily peeled herself out of the ambulance to head inside and make a start on the paperwork while she waited for Bettsy to arrive.

  Chapter Two

  Sarah Macarthur had always wanted to be a doctor, right from when she had watched a movie as a child, with a lady doctor calling the shots in a major trauma scene. The character was calm and in control, and even as a child, Sarah had admired the respect the character commanded from the people around her who followed her lead. Growing up, that was the vision that inspired Sarah as she aspired to finding and becoming that controlled person, just like her childhood hero.

  As a young girl growing up, she was very shy, frequently turning to books to escape. She’d been a bit of a nerd at school, which only further ostracized her from her outgoing peers. But what had started off as a social escape quickly turned to a rabid thirst for knowledge. She’d read whatever she could get her hands on, but her passion was science—the need to find how and why things worked—driving her closer and closer to the world of medicine. With knowledge, came confidence, and at university she’d blossomed into a confident capable adult who had found herself and her place in the world.

  And now, after years practising in big cities, she was head of Emergency in Toowoomba Hospital. Here, she had the opportunity to share her years of expertise with the Darling Downs community, yet still be in an environment and in a hospital that was well funded and provided more than enough challenges to keep her enthused and excited about her work.

  The area itself boasted a population of approximately a hundred and fifty thousand, supporting a number of industries, whilst still remaining a largely rural agriculture-oriented centre. The slower, more relaxed pace of country life suited Sarah after years of being constantly on the move. There was still plenty of medical drama and variety to keep her challenged, but the lifestyle and the people were what attracted Sarah the most.

  The night had been fairly steady for Sarah and the team. There had been a chef, who had somehow managed to use a filleting knife to slice his hand open, instead of the venison; a teenager, who had sustained several facial fractures and lost a couple of teeth after coming off a bike from a three-metre jump, landing face first in the dirt; and a child with a bead stuck firmly up his nose.

  Sarah and her team of several nurses and a fourth-year resident were just cleaning up after sending the child and his bead home, having successfully separated them, when the call came in from the emergency services radio line for a single-vehicle, two-person MVA en route, one male with minor injuries, one female approximately eight months pregnant reported to have sustained several fractures. The team was briefed and awaiting the ambulance’s arrival. Sarah called upstairs to Obstetrics to a colleague and long-time friend from university days.

  “Dr. Colleen Baker, Obstetrics.”

  “Hey, Colly, it’s Sarah in Emergency.”

  “Hey, Sare, what’s up?”

  “We just got a call—MVA, two people, one eight months pregnant. Report is her waters have broken and there’s concern of possible internal bleeding. Contractions seven minutes apart. ETA is about four minutes.”

  “Okay, can you organize bloods for standby, and I’ll ring theatre to see what’s available, just in case. See you in a couple.”

  “’Kay, thanks. Bye.”

  By the time Sarah and her team had made the necessary preparations, Colleen walked in through the doors. “Hey, there.”

  “Hey, Col.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still working nights, Sare. People will start thinking you’re a vampire. Do you even come out in the day any more?”

  Sarah just chuckled and shrugged. “I don’t mind nights.”

  “Other than running into you in the corridor here, God, I haven’t seen you in like…forever. What are you doing in a couple of weekends’ time? Brian and I are having a barbecue at the end of the month. Nothing fancy, just some friends. Tell me you’ll come. Please?”

  “I’ll have a look at the roster and see what I can do. Okay, Miss Pushy?”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  They were both chuckling when the nurse, Alice, stuck her head around the doorway. “Ambulance has just pulled in.”

  Sarah was instantly in doctor-in-charge mode. “Bring them on through.”

  Alice nodded and headed out, only to return a few minutes later with Trevor, wheeling a pregnant woman on a gurney, and a young man walking behind the gurney, wrapped in a blanket.

  Trevor gave a rundown of what had happened, occasionally referring to points on a piece of paper as well as his own clipboard notes. Alice noticed the two sets of notes. “Hey, Trev—since when do you have time to take multiple notes in the field? Weren’t you solo for this run?”

  “I got lucky tonight. One of the fireys took the details down. Did a good job. Saved me some time on the tar tonight, let me tell you.”

  Sarah walked over to Bella and held her hand. “Hi, Bella, my name is Dr. Sarah Macarthur. I’m the doctor in charge of Emergency tonight. My colleague here is Dr. Colleen Baker and she’s an obstetrician. I’m going to have a quick look over you and see how you’re doing, and Dr. Baker, here, is going to take a look at your baby. Is that okay with you?”

  Bella looked up with tear-filled, frightened eyes and nodde
d. “Don’t worry about me, please, just look after my baby.”

  “It’s okay, Bella, we’ll do our best to look after both of you. I need you to just lie back and relax as best you can while we check you out.”

  Alice was working around the head of the bed. She had a fresh bag of saline running, and the obs monitor on Bella’s finger measured heart rate and oxygen efficiency levels. “BP is ninety over fifty five, sats at ninety five percent.”

  Both Colleen and Sarah were looking over Bella and listening to Alice’s status report. Sarah could see some superficial bruising over several places on Bella’s body. Her left patella was most certainly displaced, sticking out at a bizarre left-of-centre position. Bella was also guarding her shoulder closely. It too was out of alignment and looking odd, with more than enough bruising around it to make it obvious that it had taken a decent blow. She would need to get some X-rays of that. Alice, meanwhile, was busy beside her, positioning the fetal monitor and ultrasound ready for Colleen.

  A nice bump to the side of Bella’s temple was evident, as reflected by Trevor’s report that Bella had been unconscious for several minutes after the first emergency responders had attended the scene. A quick series of neural tests revealed that Bella’s pupils were equal and reactive and she was alert and responsive to time and place. Sarah made some notes on the chart. She would order some head X-rays too, just to be on the safe side.

  “When you’re finished there, Alice, can you bring over the portable X-ray please?”

  Alice had just finished laying out the equipment for Colleen. “Sure thing.”

  “Thanks.”

  They were a good team in Emergency. There was a lot of mutual respect within the team for the varying layers of skills and expertise they each possessed. More than that, they all genuinely liked each other. This in turn made for a well-oiled and efficient unit, even in the midst of the worst possible traumas that could be thrown at them.

  While the X-rays were being taken, Sarah assessed Rob. He had seat belt bruising, some bruised ribs, and a slight concussion, with a black eye starting to colour up nicely, but other than that, Sarah was happy with Rob’s condition. Given that it was fairly quiet now in Emergency, Sarah was happy to let Rob stay and give moral support to Bella.