CONSULTANT IN CRISIS

by Alison Roberts

  As far as gathering strength for another shift went, Kelly’s break had been a miserable failure, thanks to Fletch. She pulled on her personal protection gear feeling defeated already. She attended a briefing update and listened to the grim statistics with a passive acceptance. Twenty-six fatalities had now been confirmed, including eight children. Four more people had critical injuries and were not expected to survive, including Lisa, the mother of the two little girls. Anywhere between ten and thirty people were estimated to still be missing. No new survivors had been found for the last three hours but the rescuers were encouraged not to give up hope.

  ‘Just remember,’ they were told, ‘how long people have been known to survive buried under debris. In the 1976 Terngshan China Earthquake, four hundred and fifty-nine people were rescued alive after five days.’

  The adrenaline associated with the novelty of the rescue situation had worn off by the end of the first hour of Kelly’s second shift. They were into a hard slog of trying to locate people buried deeply within the debris. A wire bucket brigade was now in full swing, removing small rubble. Heavy equipment was being deployed and a bobcat was busy clearing larger rubble from areas inside the mall. An elevated platform was being positioned and hydraulic jacks were operating constantly. Light towers had been set up to illuminate large areas and there were people everywhere. Fibre-optic and thermal-imaging cameras and other high-tech gear was being used. The sounds of chainsaws, concrete cutters and air hammers competed for precedence. It was crowded, dirty and noisy.

  Kelly’s team was deployed near the central area of damage now, amidst the wreckage of the supermarket where remnants of foodstuffs like cereal and flour made the dust even thicker. Whistle blasts for silence were often only partially successful and Kelly wondered how they could ever be expected to hear a weak survivor calling for help. Not that it seemed likely they would find any survivors in this sector. The only human remains in evidence would have to be identified by forensic means.

  Despite the small number in their squad, Kelly managed to stay clear of Fletch. Or was he staying clear of her? It didn’t matter. The net result was the same and Kelly felt her spirits falling steadily.

  ‘Owen? Over here.’ Kelly waited until he got close before indicating where the marking was needed. Owen’s face was set in grim lines as he sprayed another orange ‘V’ and put a line through it. There was another team to collect the dead, or parts thereof. Kelly’s team was there to locate and rescue the living, if possible.

  Dave called them together a short time later. ‘We’ve been cleared to start a new sector. Someone thinks they heard someone calling.’

  They passed another USAR team as they moved. Kelly could see Joe having what appeared to be an argument with another man, but she couldn’t make out any of what was being said because of the background noise. Then she saw Jessica standing well behind Joe. A police officer was holding her arm as though keeping her detained, and Jessica looked upset. Kelly skipped a step or two and touched Dave’s arm. He turned to observe the scene she indicated. Frowning, he shook his head in response to Kelly’s questioning gaze.

  ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on,’ he told her. ‘I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.’

  They started their new search in a section of the mall on the other side of the supermarket, working back towards where they had been. The lift shaft and stairwell that led down to the car park was on this side and it was near the stairwell that someone thought they had heard a voice. They checked through the shops bordering the damaged area first. It was possible that someone had been missed on the initial search.

  ‘Rescue team here. Can anyone hear me?’

  Dave could hear his radio message. He used another channel to contact Tony. Kelly was close enough to overhear the conversation and the expression on both their faces by the time he signed off the communication was enough to prompt Fletch to approach them.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s Jessica,’ Dave told him. ‘Apparently her mother was amongst the last fatalities her team located.’

  ‘My God,’ Fletch said in horror. ‘Has she just found out?’

  ‘No.’ Dave looked grim. ‘She recognised her mother at the time. She just didn’t tell anybody.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘Because her son was with her mother and he’s still missing. She knew if she told someone they would stop her searching.’

  ‘So she’s still in here?’ Fletch still sounded horrified.

  ‘Joe’s been trying to persuade people to let her continue.’ Dave shook his head. ‘Tony’s had to step in. She can’t be allowed to carry on searching.’

  ‘Why not?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘She’s in no fit state to act rationally. She won’t hesitate to put herself in danger if she thinks she can get to her son. She may endanger other team members.’

  ‘This is awful.’ Kelly didn’t want to try and calculate the long odds of Jessica’s son still being alive.

  ‘There might be some unidentified children amongst the injured,’ Fletch suggested. ‘Maybe he got taken out earlier.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Dave turned away at a shout from one of the team.

  ‘I think I heard something. Over here.’

  It took twenty minutes to locate the origin of the weak, intermittent sound. A cubicle in a toilet block had remained intact enough to protect its inhabitant. The older woman was shocked and very short of breath. Her asthma had been exacerbated by the dust, her Ventolin inhaler had run out and she had been too terrified to leave the safety of the cubicle to seek rescue.

  ‘We’re going to get you out now, Jan. You’re going to be fine.’ Kelly tried to keep up her level of reassurance as she sorted supplies to set up an IV line.

  ‘We’ll try some IV adrenaline,’ Fletch decided, ‘and get moving as soon as they get in with the portable oxygen and stretcher.’

  It was not an easy job to locate and then cannulate a suitable vein in the woman’s arm. Kelly bit her lip as she advanced the needle. She did not want to fail. Their patient needed medication to deal with her increasing respiratory distress. The fact that Fletch was watching made failure even less acceptable. Kelly breathed a sigh of relief as she slid the cannula into place. She released the tourniquet and tamponaded the end of the cannula, ready to remove the needle casing and cap the end of the IV access line. As she attached the luer plug and started to tighten it, a loud noise made her patient cry out in fright. Kelly caught the fear instantly. The sound was too loud to be part of the background noise they had become accustomed to. It was loud enough to shake the walls and provoke a rain of new dust and small pieces of rubble.

  ‘Oh, my God, it’s coming down.’ Had both Kelly and Fletch been too intent on patient care to watch for any signs of secondary collapse in the area?

  The three short whistle blasts from their squad leader, signalling the need to evacuate, only increased Kelly’s fear, sending it spiralling into panic. She stood up hurriedly, the contents of her bum bag spilling into the dust. Fletch leaned past her. He calmly tightened the now leaking luer plug and put a piece of tape over the cannula hub to hold it in place.

  ‘Where’s the adrenaline?’

  ‘We have to get out, Fletch. There’s no time.’

  Kelly was rewarded with an impatient glance. Fletch looked at the debris around her feet now littered with her medical supplies. The capped syringe of adrenaline he had drawn up and put with Kelly’s supplies ready for administration was now lying half-buried beneath IV cannula and dressing packages. He plucked the syringe free, injected the drug and then scooped up their patient.

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  Kelly was left following in the wake of Fletch’s long strides. The new shower of debris had stopped but Kelly was still terrified that a further collapse was imminent. Had Fletch not been frightened or had he simply put the needs of his patient ahead of his own fear? Maybe he would chalk up another score against Kelly for being selfish en
ough to want to get out without taking the extra seconds to administer what could prove to be a life-saving drug for their patient. Kelly didn’t care. She just wanted to get out.

  The evacuation had been wide-spread and there was a huge crowd outside the main entrance. Excited queries and speculation abounded and Kelly overheard parts of three separate conversations as she followed both Fletch and Dave towards the ambulance triage station.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘There was another explosion.’

  ‘Was anybody hurt?’

  ‘Don’t know. Haven’t heard a thing.’

  ‘What the hell was it?’

  ‘There’s a shop that sells barbecues. They have a supply of compressed gas cylinders. Someone reckons it might have been a damaged LPG cylinder that went off.’

  ‘Didn’t it cause another wall to come down?’

  ‘Part of the basement car park ceiling went.’

  ‘Some guy went running into the car park as it was coming down.’

  ‘What the hell did he do that for?’

  ‘Heaven knows. I went in the opposite direction as fast I could. I thought the whole lot was on the way down.’

  ‘Someone reckons they saw a kid—in the car park.’

  ‘Really? Alive?’

  ‘Apparently. Anyway, this guy in blue overalls goes diving in just after they’ve said it’s not safe, and bang! The ceiling comes down.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Dunno. Who wears those blue overalls and the helmets and goggles and stuff?’

  ‘I think it’s USAR. He should have known better. Is he OK?’

  ‘Doubt it. No way of finding out now. It’s completely blocked off.’

  Kelly pulled at Dave’s arm. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘They’re talking about Jessica, aren’t they? She thinks Ricky was in the car park and she went in after him.’ A bystander wouldn’t be able to distinguish the sex of a USAR worker from any distance. The ‘guy’ had to be Jessica. One of her classmates. A friend.

  ‘We’ll find out,’ Dave promised. ‘Look!’ He pointed ahead. ‘That’s Jessica over there, isn’t it?’

  It was. Kelly left Fletch to transfer the care of their patient to the ambulance service just ahead in the triage tent. She changed directed instantly and moved swiftly. She ignored the police officers surrounding Jessica.

  ‘Jess! Are you OK?’

  ‘Oh, Kelly!’ Jessica reached out and Kelly pulled her into a tight hug.

  ‘I heard about your mother. About Ricky,’ she said. ‘God, Jess! Someone said they saw you run into the car park—that you were trapped. I’m so glad it’s not true.’

  ‘But it is,’ Jessica sobbed. ‘Ricky’s in there. In the car park.’

  ‘Joe stopped Jessica going in after him.’ Kelly hadn’t seen Tony standing close to Jessica. ‘He knew how dangerous it was.’

  ‘He went in himself instead.’ June was alongside Jessica as well. ‘Nobody thought to try stopping him.’

  ‘And then it was too late,’ Tony added grimly. ‘The explosion happened and the ceiling came down right beside us. We had to run for our lives.’

  Kelly held Jessica tightly. She could feel the distraught trembling which was now the only indication of what Jessica was going through. The crying had stopped. Jessica pulled free of Kelly’s embrace.

  ‘We have to go back in,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘We have to find them.’

  ‘We’ll go back as soon as it’s cleared for safety,’ Tony said. ‘But not you this time, Jessica. You’ll have to leave this search for us.’

  ‘It’s my fault that Joe’s in trouble. I have to help.’

  ‘The best help you can give is to look after yourself right now. You need to be away from here for a while. Kelly or June can take you over to the church hall and look after you.’

  ‘No. I want to stay here. My son is in there, Tony. He…’ Jessica choked back a sob. ‘He might still be alive.’

  ‘You can stay close,’ Tony decided. ‘But you can’t come back inside.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It’s OK, Jess,’ Kelly said firmly. ‘You can rely on us.’

  ‘It’s going to be a while before they let any of us back in.’ Dave had joined the small group now and Fletch was close behind him. ‘We don’t know how major this secondary collapse is yet. Take Jessica back to the hall, Kelly. Have some time out yourself.’

  ‘No.’ Kelly didn’t want to go now either. Any thought that she didn’t want to go back into the mall herself had been banished. This rescue had just become far too personal. ‘I’m staying. I want to be ready when they call for us.’

  ‘It could be a while. At least go and grab a drink and some food. You need to keep your fluids up or you won’t be able to keep going.’

  It was sensible. Everybody was sent over to the church hall and Kelly was part of quite a large group for the five-minute walk to Sutherland Street. She stayed away from Fletch. How dared he accuse her of being cold-hearted and selfish? He didn’t know her at all. One of these days he would find out just how wrong he was. He might find out just how hard it had been to do what she had done. Cold hearts didn’t break. And selfish people didn’t care this much about what happened to their friends and colleagues.

  Kelly was walking with one arm around Jessica.

  ‘Joe will have found Ricky,’ she told her. ‘I’m sure of it. And if there’s any way he can keep them both safe then he’ll do it. He’s not a helicopter paramedic for nothing. Joe’s coped with some pretty dodgy situations in his time—even a chopper crash once.’

  ‘I can’t lose them both.’ Jessica was deathly pale. ‘Not Mum and Ricky. Especially not Ricky.’ The last words were a whisper. ‘He’s my whole life.’

  ‘I know.’ One day Kelly might find out what it was like to be a mother but she wouldn’t want to do it all by herself, to have her entire world centred on one person. She would want a father for that child. A partner who would be her strength in times of crisis. A dimension in her life of equal importance.

  ‘Is there anyone we can contact for you, Jess?’ Fletch had moved so that he was walking closer to the two women. ‘Any family or friends from home?’

  ‘No. The only people that matter are here. Mum…and Ricky.’

  They had passed the incident command centre and the ambulance triage station. They all knew what lay in the tent behind the ambulance loading slot.

  ‘I want to go in there,’ Jessica said quietly. ‘I want to see Mum again.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Kelly’s eyes prickled with the threat of tears as she glanced towards the temporary morgue the tent contained.

  Jessica just nodded. She cleared her throat. ‘Would you come with me, please, Kelly?’

  ‘I…’ Kelly had to swallow the lump in her throat. She knew how hard that would be.

  ‘I’ll come with you, Jess.’ It was Fletch who made the offer.

  Kelly caught his gaze. What was he trying to do? Prove that he was more caring than she was?

  ‘I…I just want Kelly to come.’ Jessica was crying again. ‘Please, Kelly?’

  ‘Of course I will.’ Kelly’s glance dismissed Fletch. ‘We’ll get through this together, Jess.’

  Somehow, they did. Maybe Jessica was too absorbed by her fear for Ricky to take in the grief of losing her mother just yet. Kelly knew her friend was in for a rough time over the next few months. She hoped, desperately, that a miracle would happen and her son would survive.

  It was half an hour later that Kelly turned up at the church hall. She found a cup of sweet tea for Jessica and left her friend for a minute to make what had become an extremely urgent trip to the toilet. Jessica was wrapped in a blanket and sitting on a mattress surrounded by supportive classmates with June and Wendy on either side of her.

  The toilet facilities were unisex by necessity. The doors on the cubicles all showed an engaged flag except for one that was halfway between engaged and vacant. Ke
lly knocked.

  ‘Anyone in there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The tone was abrupt and the voice came from a person whose back Kelly could already see thanks to the fact that her knock had been enough to make the door swing inwards. The occupant of the stall was standing. He turned to shove the door closed again and the action was so hurried that he was in view for only a split second, but it was quite long enough for Kelly to recognise him.

  Neil Fletcher.

  ‘It’s all yours.’ The occupant of another cubicle emerged behind Kelly.

  ‘Thanks.’ Kelly went in and locked the door behind her but, despite the urgency of her mission, she didn’t move for several seconds. She leaned against the door.

  She couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen. It made no sense. What could Fletch be doing with a hypodermic syringe in his hand?

  It made perfect sense if Kelly was going to allow her mind to go there. She knew Fletch had had a problem but she’d assumed it had only involved alcohol. Maybe that had just been the tip of an iceberg. All doctors had the opportunity to get into heavier drugs. Had Fletch just travelled further down the road of dependency or had she really not known him as well as she thought she had? At least it wasn’t her problem any longer. Not on a personal level.

  On a professional level, however, Kelly was very much involved. So was everybody who had anything to do with Dr Fletcher—colleagues and patients alike. Kelly had a responsibility here but she knew what would happen if she did what was ethically essential. By exposing him she would totally destroy the life of a man she had once loved.

  Could she live with herself if she did that? Could she live with herself if she didn’t do that?

  CHAPTER SIX

  NOTHING needed to be done just yet.

  It was possible that Kelly had made a mistake. Not about the syringe. There was no denying the fact that Fletch had been holding it, but there could be a plausible explanation. Maybe Fletch had decided to take a moment to tidy the bum bag he was wearing, having had to remove it to take his overalls off. Had he drawn up a second dose of adrenaline for their patient that he hadn’t needed to use? Or had the syringe been the empty one? There was really no need to jump to conclusions or involve anyone else at this point. Kelly just needed to be watchful, to take her time over such a disturbing issue.