call, he felt his gaze tugged towards them again and wondered what they’d feel like to kiss.
The blood-pressure machine beeped loudly, ripping into his traitorous thoughts and grounding him instantly. He pulled his shame-ridden gaze away, reminding himself that he loved Lisa and he had a patient who needed his total concentration. ‘Pressure’s dropping.’
‘He’s bleeding somewhere.’ Poppy’s hands went direct to Daryl’s abdomen, her alabaster fingers, with their neatly trimmed nails devoid of polish, palpating expertly. ‘Any pain here?’
Daryl barely managed a negative movement of his head.
‘No guarding. It’s not his abdomen.’ Poppy’s frown deepened, making a sharp V between her expressive black brows. ‘His O2 sats aren’t improving. What about a haemothorax?’
‘If he does have that, it’s not massive because there’s no mediastinal shift or tracheal deviation.’
But the blood-pressure machine kept beeping out its worrying sound as Daryl’s heart rate soared and his conscious state started to fade. Matt stared at the green lines racing across the screen. PQRST waves scrawled the heartbeat but he thought he saw something unusual. He hit the printout button and studied the paper strips, detecting a change in the ST segment. Combining it with Poppy’s musings, he had a sudden idea. ‘Check his jugular vein.’
Matt shoved his stethoscope back in his ears and listened carefully to Daryl’s heart beat. Instead of a loud and clear lub-dub, the sound was muffled.
‘Cardiac tamponade.’
They spoke in unison, their thoughts and words meshing together for the very first time. ‘He’s bleeding into the pericardial sac.’
Poppy ran the ultrasound doppler over his chest, locating the heart. ‘There you go.’ She pointed to the dark shadow around the heart that squeezed the vital muscle.
Matt snapped on gloves and primed a syringe, knowing exactly what he had to do. Under ultrasound guidance, he withdrew the fluid from around the heart. ‘Hopefully that will stabilise him until you work your magic.’
Her teeth scraped quickly over her bottom lip; the slightest of hesitations. ‘A pericardial sac repair without the back-up of bypass isn’t quite what I’d expected.’
He understood her concerns and he had some of his own. ‘The anaesthetic will stretch me too.’
‘It’s going to be touch and go.’
‘I know.’ He met her direct and steady gaze, one devoid of any grandstanding or combative qualities, and wondered not for the first time about the many facets of Ms Poppy Stanfield.
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