He stood up as the registrar attached the end of the breathing bag to the tube and began to rhythmically pump oxygen into the patient’s lungs. The man had collapsed before they had managed to get him into the decontamination unit so they were working outside on the forecourt. It wasn’t the ideal spot to resuscitate a patient, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. And in this instance, there was a lot to be said for keeping him outside. He glanced round when Ruth asked him if she should fetch a trolley so they could move him.
‘Not yet. I’d really like to get him through the decontamination process before we do anything else. Let’s give him a couple of minutes and see how things go from there.’
He knelt down again as Marilyn continued to pump oxygen into the man’s lungs. ‘How was he on the way here?’ he asked, glancing up at a member of the ambulance crew.
‘He didn’t seem any worse than the other guys.’ The paramedic shrugged. ‘They were all very quiet on the way in—probably in shock after everything they’ve been through tonight.’
‘Did they mention that they’d been in contact with any chemicals?’ Seb queried, checking the man’s pulse and frowning when he realised how thready it was.
‘No. They said very little. I just assumed they didn’t speak much English.’ The paramedic glanced round when someone shouted his name. ‘Looks like it’s my turn for the showers. Sorry I can’t be of more help, Doc.’
‘Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault he’s in this state,’ Seb assured him.
He turned his attention back to the patient. He had already established that there were no major injuries, but the man’s breathing was definitely compromised. In the absence of any other information, he could only assume it was the result of coming into contact with the chemicals that had been transported on board the tanker. Even commonly used organophosphate pesticides, which could be bought in the local garden centre, could cause irreversible damage by binding to an essential brain enzyme called AchE, and the chemicals transported on board the tanker were far more dangerous than that. It was impossible to quantify the effect they might have had so it was a case of supporting the patient until he recovered sufficiently to tell them what had happened, and that could take some time.
Seb came to swift decision, knowing he couldn’t keep the man outside indefinitely. ‘We’ll move him into the isolation suite. We need to get those clothes off him and make sure any chemical residue is washed off. I’d prefer to do it myself than risk anyone else getting contaminated.’
‘Come on, Seb, there’s no need for that,’ Marilyn protested. ‘So long as we take the proper precautions, there’s no reason why one of us can’t help you.’
‘I’d really rather that you didn’t,’ he said firmly. ‘You know as well as I do the long-term effect POPs can have, and I can’t see any sense in you taking risks with your health.’
‘I can’t see any sense in you taking them either,’ Marilyn said stoutly. ‘You don’t want to ruin your chances of becoming a dad, do you?’
‘There’s no chance of that happening.’
Seb turned away, afraid that his expression would be far too revealing. Hopefully, Marilyn would take his comment at face value and assume that he was denying there was a risk to his fertility. However, there had been more to it than that.
There was no chance of him becoming a father now that Libby was going to divorce him, and the thought was the bitterest of all the blows he’d suffered that night. To know that he might never have the family he’d dreamed of made him want to howl in despair, only men weren’t supposed to cry about things like that. They were supposed to shrug and get on with their lives, and maybe he should do that too, but he simply couldn’t handle the thought that he and Libby would never have a child together, that he would never get the chance to cradle their son or daughter in his arms. Tears welled to his eyes and he was glad of the poor lighting because at least it spared him the embarrassment of everyone seeing how devastated he felt. ‘I’ll get everything set up,’ he said gruffly, turning away.
He went inside and told Cathy what was happening then left her to get the isolation room ready while he spoke to the hospital’s chief executive and brought him up to speed. The CEO wasn’t pleased at the thought of there being a possible contamination issue inside the building so it took a few minutes of intense discussion plus some thinly veiled threats about what the press would make of the story if they got hold of it before he agreed, but Seb didn’t care. It was the right thing to do and, by heaven, he was going to see it through to the end!
He collected a trolley and went back outside. One of the paramedics offered to help him so between them they lifted the man onto the trolley and took him to the isolation room. Seb donned a double layer of gloves then set about removing the patient’s clothing and bagging it. There was a huge patch of some kind of chemical residue all down his chest and abdomen so Seb washed it off then summoned Cathy and asked her to attach the man to the monitoring equipment. She’d just finished when he arrested.
Seb hit the crash button. ‘I’ll give him a shot of adrenaline,’ he said as Cathy began cardiac massage. The rest of the team arrived at a run and took up their positions. Libby was with them and he couldn’t help his heart sinking when he saw her. His emotions were too raw, too near to the surface at the moment, but he could hardly order her to leave.
‘Can you trade places with Cathy?’ he instructed, stamping hard on his feelings.
‘Of course.’
She stepped up to the bed and took over from the nurse, quickly settling into a rhythm as she carried out the vital chest compressions that were keeping the patient’s blood circulating around his system. Seb drew up the drug and swiftly administered it, but there was still no output.
‘Asystole,’ Marilyn confirmed from across the bed.
‘We’ll try defibrillating him.’ He lifted the paddles and rubbed them with a little gel while Marilyn set the machine. ‘Clear!’ he snapped, then watched as the patient’s whole body jerked when the electric current passed through him.
‘Sinus rhythm,’ Marilyn announced, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
‘I want him on an intravenous infusion of sodium bicarbonate,’ Seb instructed, even though it was normal practice to administer it in all cases of cardiac arrest. When the heart stopped, the chemical balance of the blood was altered too, making it more acidic. Sodium bicarbonate was given to correct the balance as a matter of course, but he never left anything to chance. ‘I also want him on lignocaine to stabilise the heart muscle. We don’t want to have to go through this all over again.’
By the time Seb left the isolation room some ten minutes later, the seaman was stable. He headed straight for the showers and stripped off his clothes. Although he had taken all the necessary precautions, it would be foolish not to make sure that he’d washed off every trace of those chemicals.
He stepped into a stall and turned the water to its hottest setting. Maybe he and Libby would never have that family they’d once dreamed about, but he might meet someone else one day, another woman he could love enough to have his child. He tried to picture her—this unknown woman—but his mind refused to obey him. The only image it would conjure up was one of Libby on their wedding day. She was smiling up at him, her beautiful face alight with happiness…
Closing his eyes, Seb let himself savour the moment all over again, and if his tears flowed then at least nobody saw them. They were washed away along with all the dreams he’d had for the future. Maybe he could win Libby back—he really didn’t know. But could they ever get back what they’d felt on their wedding day, when each had been the centre of the other’s world?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Saturday: 6 a.m.
‘IS THERE anything else I can do?’
Libby was feeling at a bit of a loss when she spotted Seb coming out of the changing room. The rest of the crew from the tanker had been through the decontamination process now and were currently waiting to be examined. With Gary an
d Marilyn on hand to deal with them, she wasn’t needed any more and she would have appreciated having something to do to help pass the last hour. Her stomach lurched at the thought of what was going to happen in an hour’s time so that it was hard not to show how nervous she felt as Seb came over to her.
‘I’m not sure what needs doing now. Why don’t you make yourself a cup of coffee? I’ll give you a shout if I need you again.’
‘Fine. I’ll be in the rest room, then,’ she said shortly, wondering if he’d set out to make her feel as though she was more of a hindrance than a help. She sighed as she made her way to the rest room because she was just being ridiculous now, imagining insults where none had been intended. Seb had more important things to do than play silly games with her!
She filled the kettle then realised that the others might be glad of a drink as well. It had been frantically busy for the past hour so there’d been no time to stop for a break. She left the rest room and was on her way to the cubicles when a woman accosted her.
‘Excuse me, are you a doctor?’
‘I am, although I’m not a member of the hospital’s staff,’ Libby explained.
‘Oh, I see.’ The young woman looked close to tears. ‘Someone left a message on my answering machine to say my husband was here, and I need to find out what’s happened to him.’
‘If you can tell me his name, I’ll see what I can find out for you,’ Libby said gently.
‘It’s Alistair…Alistair Roberts. He’s a pilot with the air-sea rescue team.’
Libby’s heart sank because Alistair was the man she had found with the metal spike through his side. Although he’d been sent to Theatre, she knew that the prognosis hadn’t been good.
‘I know who you mean,’ she said carefully. ‘I happened to be in the area when his helicopter crashed and I helped bring him in.’
‘He crashed!’
The colour drained from the young woman’s face and she swayed. Libby cursed herself for being so thoughtless as to assume that Alistair’s wife had been told all the facts. Putting a hand under the poor woman’s arm, she helped her to a chair then sat down beside her.
‘I am so sorry. I just assumed you knew what had happened or I would never have told you that,’ she explained regretfully, but the woman waved away her apology.
‘It doesn’t matter—really it doesn’t. I just want to know how Alistair is.’ Her voice caught. ‘We had a massive row this morning before I left for work, and I told him that I never wanted to see him again…’
She broke off in distress. Libby patted her arm, wishing there was something she could say to help. ‘Try not to think about that now. It really isn’t important.’
‘You’re right. It was just a stupid argument, too…the sort of thing that blows up out of nothing really.’ She blew her nose, making an effort to collect herself. ‘Alistair was annoyed because I’d agreed to work this weekend, you see. We’ve been saving up and I thought if I did an extra shift, the money would come in very useful, but he wanted us to spend some time together.’
‘It’s difficult to find the time to see each other when you’re both working,’ Libby said softly, trying not to think about her and Seb.
‘It is. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, especially when you do the kind of jobs Alistair and I do. I’m a flight attendant and I usually work on long-haul trips so I can be away for days at a time. With the kind of hours Ali works, not to mention the fact that he’s often on call, we’re rarely at home together.’ She managed a watery smile. ‘We’re trying to get the house sorted out because we want to have a baby, although the odds on us being under the same roof long enough to make it happen aren’t that great!’
‘It’s very difficult,’ Libby murmured, trying not to let Mrs Roberts see that she had struck an all-too-familiar chord. She and Seb had never seemed to find the time to start that family they’d planned, and now it was never going to happen.
‘It is, but never mind all that—tell me about Alistair. How badly injured is he? You said that you’d helped to bring him in so you must have seen him.’
‘I did, and I’m afraid your husband was very badly injured, Mrs Roberts,’ she explained gently. ‘He was thrown from the helicopter when it crashed and impaled on a metal spike, which caused severe internal damage.’
‘Oh!’ The woman went whiter than ever as she pressed her hand to her mouth. ‘Did they get it out—the metal spike, I mean?’
‘I haven’t seen him since he was sent to Theatre so I’m afraid I can’t tell you what’s happened in the past few hours.’ Libby patted her hand then stood up. ‘If you would stay here, I’ll see what I can find out for you.’
She left the woman in the waiting area and went to find Cathy, hoping the staff nurse would be able to tell her how she could find out about the pilot. Cathy pulled a face when she explained what she wanted.
‘It didn’t sound too hopeful when we sent him to Theatre but you can give the theatre admissions nurse a call to see how they got on. Here’s her number. If he’s been moved onto a ward, she’ll be able to give you all the details.’
Libby thanked her and went to the phone. It was a few minutes before anyone answered and the news wasn’t good: Alistair Roberts had died on the operating table.
She hung up, wondering how she was going to tell his wife what had happened. This was the part of the job she’d hated most of all when she’d worked in emergency care. No matter how many times she’d had to break bad news to a relative, it had never got any easier. She knew how devastated the poor woman was going to be because she could imagine how she would feel if she and Seb had had a row and something awful had happened to him…
A sob suddenly rose into her throat. Maybe it was a combination of stress and exhaustion, but she couldn’t seem to control her emotions any more. Spinning round, she hurried back along the corridor, knowing that she couldn’t let Mrs Roberts see her in this state. She was supposed to be a professional and know how to deal with situations like this, but it was just too much for her right now.
Tears streamed down her face as she bypassed the cubicles. She didn’t even see Seb until she almost ran right into him. He grabbed hold of her arms and she could see the concern in his eyes when he saw the state she was in, but there was nothing she could do about it. If anything happened to him, she wouldn’t want to carry on living!
‘Libby, what is it? Tell me what’s happened?’
Seb could feel his heart thundering with fright. He had no idea what had gone on but that mattered less than the fact that Libby…his darling Libby…was sobbing her heart out.
He pulled her into his arms and held her as sobs racked her, knowing that he would have cut off his right arm if it would have helped. He would do anything in his power to keep her safe and make her happy, walk over hot coals, fight dragons, give up his career—anything at all. He was finally beginning to understand that nothing in the world had ever mattered to him as much as she did, and nothing ever would.
‘Sh, it’s all right. I’m here and I’ve got you,’ he murmured. If he had realized that fact before, they wouldn’t have drifted apart and certainly wouldn’t be heading for the divorce courts. If he had faced the fact that his life revolved around her, they would still be together!
The thought of how stupid he’d been was more than he could bear, but his feelings had to come second to hers. Tilting her chin, he looked at her tear-stained face and sighed. ‘Tell me what’s happened. Maybe there’s something I can do about it.’
‘I don’t think you can…’
Another sob racked her but he didn’t try to rush her. If she needed time to tell him, he would give it to her, and give her anything else if it would help. She only had to ask and he would be there for her, ready and more than willing, but would she ask him for help now?
At one point, she had come to him whenever she’d had a problem, but the further apart they’d grown, the less frequently it had happened. He couldn’t remember the last time th
at she had asked him for anything and it was painful to know that it was his own fault.
He hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him, but he would be there for her now and in the future if she would let him. If she was willing to try again, he swore on his life that he would never let her down again. Maybe they couldn’t recapture the magic of their wedding day but he could be happy with less so long as she trusted him.
Did she?
Could she?
Would she?
Seb held his breath.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Saturday: 7 a.m.
‘ALISTAIR ROBERTS’S wife has just arrived—you remember the pilot of that helicopter which crashed last night…Or was it this morning?’
Libby frowned as she tried to recall exactly when the crash had happened, but so much had gone on since then, it was impossible to remember.
‘I know who you mean.’
‘Of course you do.’ She dredged up a smile, although there was something about the way Seb was looking at her now which made her feel very on edge. She had the strangest feeling that he was hanging onto her every word, although she had no idea why.
‘Cathy told me to phone Theatre to see if they could tell me how he’d got on,’ she explained, before she got sidetracked. Her voice caught again. ‘H-he died during surgery, apparently.’
‘He was very badly injured,’ Seb said quietly. ‘The odds were stacked against him from the outset, Libby.’
‘I know, but it’s going to hit his wife really hard.’ She took a tissue out of her pocket and dried her eyes. Seb dealt with death on a daily basis and she didn’t want him to think that she was overreacting.
‘Of course it will hit her hard. It’s bound to have had an effect on you, too, because you were involved in trying to save his life.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t feel bad because you’re upset. It just shows that you care and that isn’t something to be ashamed of.’
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