grinned. ‘That’s a relief. Human bites are usually dirtier than dog bites, but I think our old dear could only have gummed you to death, Tom. What’s the damage?’ Sarah swabbed the bloodstained skin and revealed a nasty tear and a couple of puncture wounds just at the top of his left thigh, in the groin area.
‘Looks like the extent of it,’ she told him.
Matt nodded, checking the area for any other puncture wounds. ‘Lucky. A couple of inches to the right and you’d have been singing falsetto. Maybe she thought you were the postman.’
‘The vet, more likely—and a couple of inches to the right and the dog would have been in orbit by now,’ Tom said with a grin, propping himself up to see the damage. ‘Reckon I got away with that quite lightly, considering.’
‘Absolutely. I think we need to suture that tear, though, Sarah, if you could give him some local?’
She was already there, drawing up the lignocaine. As she swabbed his thigh and lifted the syringe, Tom caught her wrist, laughter playing in his eyes.
‘Anybody says, “Just a little prick,” and I’ll sue,’ he said softly.
She froze for a second, and then the mirth just bubbled over. By the time Ryan came to find out what was going on, she was leaning against the wall, tears running down her cheeks, the half-naked paramedic was doubled up on the couch and Matt was sagging over the foot of it, wheezing.
Matt, speechless, waved a hand at Ryan and hissed something unintelligible. Sarah straightened, struggling to regain her composure, and Tom unwound himself and lay down again with a little groan.
Ryan glanced at the man, now lying flat, and arched a brow at Sarah and Matt. It was enough to set them all off again, and Ryan, shaking his head, walked off in amused disbelief.
It was twenty minutes before they managed to finish off and send the hapless paramedic on his way, still grinning.
They were just on their way to find Ryan for the rest of the A and E tour when the phone rang again, just as the waiting-room doors opened on a great swell of people, all unrelated, all arriving at the same time.
‘Told you it was too good to be true,’ Sarah said drily. ‘Let’s see how you cope under pressure.’
Well, was the simple answer. Any fears they’d had about the language barrier and different terminology were swept aside by the sheer volume of work they had to get through.
There were two RTAs, one serious with fatalities and the other a driving instructor and his pupil who had both been caught out by the black ice and had suffered minor whiplash injuries, sliding into the kerb. In between were all manner of walking wounded—what Matt called ‘street and treat’ cases.
‘They walk in off the street, you treat them and send them back out again—hence the term.’
Some of the ones who walked in didn’t walk out again, of course. One young man had been driving a tractor with a flail on it, cutting the hedge, and it had tangled in a wire fence. He felt a little stinging cut near his hipbone but ignored it, carried on and finished the hedge.
‘I just felt a bit strange at lunchtime and I can feel a little sharp lump—I thought I might have a splinter from the hedge,’ he told Sarah.
‘Hmm. Can you hang on? I’ll just get someone to look at that,’ she told him, and went to find Matt who was just finishing up with the whiplashed driving instructor. ‘Could you check a patient for me? It doesn’t look much but his blood pressure’s a bit low and he looks pretty rough—you know how you just feel something’s missing in the history?’
Only too well. What do you know?’
She filled him in, and he went into the cubicle and took a quick look at the ‘splinter’. ‘Right,’ he said calmly. ‘I think we need an X-ray to check this out. Just stay there, I’ll get them to come to you.’
The mobile X-ray machine was there in seconds, and within a very few minutes they had their answer—a piece of wire from the old fence had penetrated his abdomen and by a miracle had missed all but the smallest vessels.
‘He needs the OR,’ Matt said quietly. ‘Who do I need to speak to?’
Oliver Henderson’s on take today—I’ll get his registrar down.’
‘I would go for the big guns,’ he murmured. ‘I just have a feeling.’
It turned out he was right. They heard later that the end of the wire had penetrated the man’s aorta, and when they pulled it out he had a massive bleed and needed stitches and a little Goretex patch.
‘He was dead lucky there,’ Matt said. ‘If he’d moved around a lot or changed his clothes or eaten anything much that might have been the end of him.’
‘Good job he didn’t try and pull it out,’ Sarah said with a shudder.
They were in Resus, preparing it for an emergency on the way in, and as she spoke they heard the sirens wail.
‘Hello, we’re on again,’ he murmured.
It might have been difficult, working with a total stranger from another—albeit very similar—country, but for some reason it wasn’t. Sarah knew what he was going to ask for, and by and large anticipated it anyway. By the end of that first day they were working in tune, both full of respect and admiration for the other, and well on their way to forming a team.
They were also late, and Matt was concerned about his daughter, so with a grin and a wave he left the department, striding briskly down the corridor, palming the doors out of his way and vanishing.
Sarah was thoughtful. It had been a long time since she’d been so in tune with anyone, if ever. It had been a joy and a privilege to work with Matt, and in between the trauma his wit had coincided with hers.
Ryan found her in the locker room, staring into space.
‘Sarah?’
She turned and gave an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, Ryan, did you say something?’
He shook his head. ‘Nice guy.’
‘Matt? Mmm. Knows his stuff.’
‘He’s very highly qualified. I don’t know what he thinks he’ll learn from us, but it will be interesting having him in the department—very interesting.’ He shot her a searching look, and then snagged his jacket from his locker.
‘I’d better go—Ginny invited him round for supper tonight with Emily and I think I have to go home via a supermarket—I had a shopping list put in my hand this morning as I left home because she doesn’t get home from Norwich until six-thirty.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Don’t suppose you want to join us?’
‘What—and help you start the meal?’
He grinned. ‘Rumbled. So, do you?’
‘Want to join you?’ She hesitated. It would be nice, and she had nothing else to do tonight and precious little food. Besides, Matt would be there… ‘Thanks, Ryan, I will—if you’re sure Ginny won’t mind the extra
