Twice Lucky

by Mardi Alexander

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Jean paced the room. Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her to sit down. Pacing or sitting, it wouldn’t lessen her worry. The silence was shattered as the chief came bursting through the door. “They’ve found them. They’re holed up in an abandoned factory over on the old east side industrial estate.”

  Jean stopped pacing and held her hands to her chest. “Oh God. Are they okay?”

  “The police aren’t sure, but they think so.”

  “Can we go to where they are?”

  “Yes, you can all come with me. We need to stay back and let the police handle this, but they’ve agreed we can be there as long as we stay out of the way. Let’s go.”

  They all filed in behind the chief, Sarah collecting her bag as they rushed out the door. They quickly joined the flashing-lighted convoy speeding through town. Soon enough they were turning into the cul-de-sac. A message came across the radio: “Turn all lights off. Nonessential vehicles, please hold the rear flank.” The chief parked the car just behind the paramedics. They watched as the police units rolled quietly into position. Officers spread out in strategic patterns. Two heavily armed squads took the lead and made their way to the factory building.

  They all got out of the car and went and stood beside Detective Morales, listening as Kevin McIntyre made the phone call to Richard. Sarah stood there rigidly with a death grip on the kit bag, John had his arm around Jean, the chief’s face was set like stone. They all held their breath as Richard’s last words, heard over the speakerphone, echoed in their minds. Either way, he’s coming with me. The phone line went dead. A sob broke from Jean’s lips.

  The squads were given the directive to go ahead and enter the building. As the lead man approached the door and signalled for the others to follow, a shot could be heard coming from inside. Jean gasped and her knees buckled as John’s strong arms held her tight.

  Orders could be heard over the radio. “Go, go, go!” The armed squads burst through three of the doors simultaneously and swarmed the building. A second wave of officers stepped up to the outside entrances and waited for the next directive.

  Sarah bent down and retrieved the vest. As if in remote control, she put it on and stood there, holding her breath, waiting for a report. Seconds stretched into eons as the silence grew.

  “Suspect contained. I repeat, suspect contained. I need a medic in here.”

  Morales turned and waved to two of the paramedics to move forward. He put his hand on Sarah’s shoulder and nodded for her to follow. The three of them followed him into the building. The squad leader met Morales halfway across the warehouse floor. “Suspect is over there. Looks like a fractured skull and broken neck from the fall. Need the medics up on the landing.”

  One of the paramedics peeled off to check on Richard and confirm the status. The other paramedic took off up the stairs. Sarah looked up and could see a silhouette lying on the landing, through the balcony’s grated floor. She could also see blood dripping and splashing onto the floor. She took off at a run and joined the paramedic.

  When they got to the top of the stairs, the paramedic went straight over to Mac and knelt beside her. “Hi, Mac. It’s me, Trevor, the paramedic. Remember me? It’s all right, love, we’ve got you. You’re gonna be all right.”

  Sarah barely had time to register it was Mac before being physically hit around the waist, as Thomas ran and grabbed her, holding on tight. Sarah hugged him back and kissed his head. Tears were falling down both of their faces. She pulled him off and signed to him. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” Thomas just shook his head and threw himself back into her arms.

  Sarah felt a touch on her shoulder: Detective Morales. “Let me take the boy to his mother so you can help out here.” Sarah pulled Thomas off again and signed to him to go with the policeman. She would see him in a minute, but she had to help Mac first. He nodded and took the detective’s hand as they walked down the stairs.

  “Doc, I need you.”

  Sarah quickly came to Trevor’s side. She took one look at Mac and sank to her knees. She could barely recognize her. Her face was so swollen, cut, and bruised. There was blood everywhere. “Oh, baby, what has he done to you?”

  Trevor put an oxygen mask over Mac’s head. He pulled out some scissors and cut Mac’s shirt open. Trevor carefully pulled the shirt ends apart to reveal Mac’s torso, covered in horrible bruising and blood. “Holy crap! We’ve got a bleeder here.” With one hand he grabbed a wad of padding and applied pressure.

  Sarah’s brain snapped into action. Fall apart later. Mac needs you.

  The second paramedic joined them and went to Mac’s head and was busy establishing an airway. Sarah ripped open the trauma kit and pulled out a saline and an O-negative bag from a cooler pack, then pulled gloves on. “What’ve we got, Trevor?”

  “Head trauma, LOC, GSW upper-left quadrant. Looks like a through and through. Open pneumothorax, decreased breath sounds on the left. Multiple rib fractures. Probable internal bleeding.”

  She could hear Mac’s chest making sucking noises with each breath. Sarah pulled out her stethoscope and listened. Trevor was right, decreased breath sounds on the left. Mac was deathly pale and covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her lips had a slight bluish tinge to them.

  The second paramedic took Mac’s blood pressure. “BP’s 55/35. I can’t get a line in. Veins are flat.”

  Sarah turned to him and nodded. “Hang the saline and the O-neg. We need to get her pressure up. I’ll put in a central line. While I do that, get a chest tube ready. And she’ll need a chest seal. When you’ve done that, we’ll turn her and put a pad on her back.

  “On it.”

  Sarah opened up a central-line kit. She poured Betadine over Mac’s shoulder, found the clavicle, used her fingers to find the vein, made a small incision, and inserted the needle. She got the flash of blood she wanted. Quickly she worked through the process, until finally the line went in. She would need to check it with an X-ray when they got to hospital, but for the moment, it would have to do. She taped down the clear seal and the line to Mac’s shoulder, to keep it stable. She flushed the lines then attached the saline and the O-neg, opening the lines up wide.

  Next, she opened the chest-tube packet on Mac’s stomach. She poured some Betadine over the area, located the intercostal space she wanted, made a small incision, and put her finger in and explored the area; once satisfied, she put the tube in, quickly suturing it into place.

  Trevor attached a monitor.

  “If she starts going tachy, let me know.”

  “Right, Doc.”

  “We don’t know where the bullet fragments are, so let’s collar and spine board.”

  Trevor gently attached the collar and immobilized Mac’s head. The second paramedic returned with the spine board, several police officers, and John, to help carry Mac down the stairs.

  John met Sarah’s eyes. “How is she?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Not good. We need to get to hospital as soon as we can.”

  John had tears in his eyes.

  Sarah had to turn away. If she looked at the pain in John’s eyes, she knew she would lose the tenuous hold she had on her own emotions. She needed to concentrate on what she was doing. Sarah hung the last bags of O-neg and saline. Trevor gave her the nod. Mac was secured on the board, her neck in a collar, and her head taped between two rubber blocks for extra stability.

  Trevor got everyone’s attention. “All right folks, on my count, we’re gonna lift and carry down as gently as we can. Lifting on three. Everybody ready. On my count…one, two, three.” Smoothly, Mac was lifted by the six men, with Sarah trailing slightly to the side with the IV bags.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and transferred Mac to the gurney. As the paramedics loaded the gurney into the waiting ambulance, Sarah spared a look behind her. She could see that they had covered Richard’s body with a blanket. She hoped that Thomas hadn’t seen Richard on his way down the stairs.

&
nbsp; Jean saw Sarah and rushed over. “Is Mac okay?”

  Sarah shook her head. “How’s Thomas?”

  “He’s scared, but he’s okay. We’re going to take him to the hospital for a checkup though, just to be sure.”

  Sarah caught Trevor’s eye as he signalled that that they were ready to go. “I have to go. I’ll catch up with you there.” Sarah scrambled into the back of the ambulance, the doors slamming shut behind her. “How’s her blood pressure doing?”

  “Not a lot of change, 60/40.”

  “Tell the driver to put their foot down.”

  Sarah picked up the radio from the kit. She called in to the hospital base. Don answered. “I need at least eight units of O-neg on standby, tell theatre to get ready. We have a GSW, open pneumothorax. Head and facial injuries, LOC, God knows how many broken ribs. I’ve put in a chest tube. Have a thoracotamy tray on standby. ETA, ten minutes.”

  The heart monitor went off. Trevor’s voice sounded over the shrill beeping. “She’s tachy.”

  Sarah looked at Trevor. “Tell them to pull over.” She pulled her stethoscope out again and listened. “Shit.” she could hear muffled heart sounds. She quickly opened the neck brace and saw that Mac’s neck veins were hypertensive. She turned to Trevor. “What’s the biggest gauge needle you’ve got?”

  Trevor dug around one of the needle trays. “Sixteen gauge?”

  “That’ll do. I need some gauze too. She’s developing a hemothorax. There’s too much pressure, I need to drain some blood.” Trevor swabbed the area clean. Sarah found the junction of the xiphoid process and the left costal margin, just below Mac’s breastline, and inserted the needle. She angled the needle and felt it pop as it entered the space. As Sarah aspirated she saw the flashback of blood. She drained off 100 ml and was rewarded to see the heart monitor respond positively. She carefully withdrew the needle and placed the gauze over the top, applying pressure. “Righto. Let’s go, as fast as you can, please.”

  Within minutes they were pulling up outside the hospital emergency entrance. Don and Alice were both waiting, along with Claudia and Professor Jefferies, the chief thoracic surgeon. Sarah quickly ran down the list of injuries. Left tib fracture. Possible eye-socket fracture, potential cheek and jaw fractures. Mac would pretty much need head-to-toe X-rays before she was done, but the major immediate problems were the gunshot wound and the fractured ribs puncturing her lungs. She’d lost most of her blood volume. The saline and blood already given had barely touched the sides. Blood was filling her pericardial space. She would also probably need an exploratory thoracotomy.

  The team worked efficiently, cutting away the rest of Mac’s clothes. They had enough blood pressure established to run several more IV lines into her arms to help increase her fluids. The X-rays taken with the portable machine showed a lot of damage. She would need more thorough pictures later, but they were good enough to get her up and into theatre and to get started.

  Professor Jeffries patted Sarah on the shoulder. “You’ve done a great job getting her here. The team are ready and waiting upstairs. I’m going to go with her into theatre now. You stay here and I’ll come and get you when I’m finished. Okay?” Jefferies nodded to the team, who swiftly took Mac out and up to theatre.

  Sarah stood there, alone in the now-empty room. There was blood on the floor and bits of discarded gauze. There were even some remnants of Mac’s trousers. She slowly turned, stripped her gloves off, and walked out towards her office. She passed Martha at the nurses’ station, filling in forms, but lacked the energy even to wave.

  Sarah made it inside her office door before her knees started to shake and tremble. She staggered sideways to the wall. Then Martha was there, rushing to her side, as the shock finally hit Sarah and her knees went out from under her. Martha helped guide her to the floor. She gasped and gulped in deep breaths. Martha sat on the floor beside her and put her arms around her.

  Now that Sarah had finally stopped, the mountain of fear and grief hit her hard. A cry was ripped from her throat as she fell into Martha’s embrace. Martha held and rocked her as she cried her heart out.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Six hours after Mac was taken to theatre, Professor Jeffries came down to Sarah’s office where she and Martha were waiting. Sarah introduced Martha. “Professor Jeffries, this is Martha, she’s family. Martha, this is Professor Jeffries, the head of thoracic surgery. Mac is in the very best of hands.”

  Professor Jeffries held out his hand to Martha. “Hello, Martha, Sarah, please, take a seat.”

  Martha and Sarah sat side by side on the couch, while Professor Jefferies took the armchair. He ran his fingers tiredly through his hair and sighed. “The surgery went well. We had to do a lot of repair work from the bullet wound. The wound itself is fairly extensive and there are still some shot fragments retained that we decided to leave, rather than risk a longer surgery. The difficult part is that she has both blunt and penetrating chest wounds. She’s got myocardial contusion, laceration of the left lung, bruising on the right. She has at least ten broken ribs. We’ve trimmed up the edges on the nasty ones to try to reduce further damage. We didn’t see the need to fixate any of the broken sections. Positive ventilation should do the trick for the minute. In addition to that, we’re keeping an eye on her left kidney, which is contused and bleeding. We had to give her seven more litres of blood in theatre, on top of the two you gave her earlier.”

  Professor Jefferies shook his head. “Those are just the big-ticket items. I don’t have to tell you, Sarah, your girl’s a mess, but the fact that she has gotten this far means she’s a fighter. She’s just being moved into ICU now. She will probably need more follow-up surgery, but I think she’s had enough for one day. All we can do now is let her rest and keep an eye on her. She’s not out of the woods by any means, but the fact that she has gotten this far is a positive thing.”

  Professor Jeffries turned to Martha and took her hand in his. “I have to warn you, she doesn’t look great. She’s hooked up, plugged in, and attached to an awful lot of equipment and medication. She’s on a ventilator, and probably will be for quite a few days, and she has a number of drains in to help collect the blood and drain off various fluids. We’re going to keep her heavily sedated for a while, to give her body a chance to rest and start to heal.”

  Martha took a deep breath and nodded. “Can we see her?”

  Professor Jefferies patted her hand and rose stiffly from the chair. “Yes, you can both go on up. The staff are expecting you. Sarah knows the way. I’ll join you in a little while. If you’ll please excuse me?”

  Sarah held out her hand to Martha, who wordlessly enfolded her own in it, and together they went upstairs. As they came out of the lift, one of the nurses came over to them. “Hi, Dr. Macarthur, my name’s Carrie. I’m one of the nurses looking after Mac.”

  “Hi, Carrie, please, call me Sarah and this is Martha.”

  “Hello, Martha. If you would both like to follow me, I’ll take you through. One of the doctors is with her now.” They walked through some glass doors, then straight into Mac’s cubicle. The doctor was standing between Mac and the doorway, so all that could be seen of her was the shape of her legs under the sheet on the bed. The room was full of noise—the rhythmic hiss and puff of the ventilator, the ticking of the IV pump, the beeping of the vitals monitor—with lights and numbers constantly flashing across the screens of the machines. Sarah could just make out a couple of bags hanging off the sides of the beds with blood and fluid in them.

  The doctor stepped to one side. Professor Jefferies hadn’t been lying when he said Mac was a mess. All down the left side of her face were bright red and purple stains from the bruising. Her face was grotesquely swollen, crosshatched with stitches in several places, dried blood matting her hair. There was a large white pad covering her chest and left shoulder, surrounded by bruising on her chest and arms exposed above the bed sheet. No doubt there would be a whole lot more of the same beneath the sheet. Sarah quickly wip
ed away the tears that ran down her face and stood alongside Martha.

  Sarah leaned over and gently kissed Mac’s forehead. “Hey, sweetheart. You’ve just had surgery and you did really well. You’re on a ventilator to help you breathe easier. Try and let the machine do the work for a little while, so you can get some rest. Martha is here too, honey. We’re both very proud of you.”

  For several moments, both women stood quietly, trying to absorb the enormity of Mac’s injuries with the image of the person they loved lying in the bed before them.

  Martha gently squeezed Sarah’s hand, then placed a velvet box in it, closing Sarah’s fingers over the top of the box and patting them.

  Sarah looked at Martha for an explanation.

  “This was Leonard’s, my late husband’s. I have held on to this for a very long time. I believe the time has come for it to pass on to the next generation.”

  Sarah waited silently as Martha gathered herself.

  “Today has been inconceivable, but even with today aside, I know you know what Mac does for a living, and I also know the burden that comes with being the partner of someone who rushes into danger.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’ve never been so frightened for anyone before. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to cope after this when she goes out on a call. I close my eyes and I keep seeing the images…” Sarah fell into Martha’s arms weeping again.

  When the worst of the tears had stopped, Sarah straightened and blew her nose.

  “You learn to be a good actor.” Martha had Sarah’s attention. “You stand it because you love them. You need to be brave for them and wish them well as they head out the door. After they leave, you can worry your head off, but to their face, you need to be strong. If you worry, then they worry about you worrying, and when they’re on the job, they can’t afford to be distracted.” Martha squeezed her hand, shaking it slightly for emphasis. “And when they come home, you hold them tight and tell them you love them. They are professionals, Sarah. We need to trust them. But they need us to be there for them. We help to hold them steady, so they can be who they need to be.”