The young mother didn’t want to let go of her baby.
‘How long ago was the baby born?’
‘Only a minute...maybe two...’
‘Have you heard it cry?’
‘No. No... Please don’t take my baby away...’
‘It’s okay,’ Georgia told her. ‘We just want to help you. Kate’s a baby doctor.’
Kate moved the folds of the T-shirt to reveal the baby’s face. The cord was wrapped tightly around the baby’s neck.
‘The baby is blue,’ one of the judges said.
Kate scooped the manikin from the patient’s arms. She turned to find that Georgia had stopped her examination of the mother for the moment. She’d laid a towel on the floor and had the kit opened, with the paediatric resuscitation gear that Kate would need within easy reach. A suction bulb, a tiny bag mask unit and tubes in case intubation was necessary.
‘No significant haemorrhage from the mother,’ Georgia told her. ‘And she has a radial pulse.’
Kate nodded approvingly. ‘Thanks.’ If the mother had a radial pulse it indicated that her blood pressure was adequate and that meant they could both focus on saving the life of this baby.
She laid the baby on the towel and positioned its head to ensure the airway was clear.
‘Can I feel a pulse?’ Kate asked swiftly, her fingers now on the baby’s neck.
‘The pulse is thirty,’ the judge said.
‘Can I see or feel any movements of respiration?’ Kate already knew what the answer was likely to be. This infant hadn’t cried and its colour meant that it was receiving no more oxygen than the umbilical cord was hopefully still providing.
‘The baby is not breathing,’ the judge confirmed.
Kate gave five puffs of oxygen through the bag mask unit and then started CPR, which was needed even though there was a pulse to be felt. The heart rate was too slow and the baby wasn’t breathing on its own yet.
She handed the bag mask to Georgia, who had positioned herself at the baby’s head.
‘Three to one?’
Georgia nodded. With only two fingers on the baby’s chest, Kate kept her compressions gentle but swift. After every three compressions, she paused for a moment to allow Georgia to administer a puff of air. At the same time, she kept an eye on the mother, reassuring her that they were doing all they could and watching for any signs of a post-partum haemorrhage that they would need to manage.
Every thirty seconds, she checked what the baby’s heart rate was. It crept up to forty and then sixty.
‘The heart rate is now over eighty,’ the judge informed them after a few minutes.
‘Colour?’
‘Getting pink.’
‘Breathing?’
‘Yes, she’s breathing. She’s crying now.’ The judge was smiling. ‘Well done.’
Kate put the baby back into its mother’s arms and wrapped them both warmly. ‘Keep her against your skin,’ she said.
‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘She’s going to be fine.’ Kate smiled. ‘Congratulations. You have a beautiful baby daughter.’
The young woman was a very good actor. Kate could swear she had tears of relief in her eyes as she thanked her rescuers and cuddled her newborn. The whole scenario had felt so real that Kate found she was having an emotional response of her own. One that she had had many times in her career—the sheer wonder of a new life being brought into the world and...
And envy of the mother who got to hold it and know it was her own?
Good grief. The baby was plastic and the whole scenario, however brilliantly acted, was not real. While this competition set out to test and even improve the skills of the participants, it was nothing more than a game. Kate needed to step back and not become so involved with the stories or she would be too exhausted to be a good partner for Georgia by the time the night tasks came along.
‘That was awesome,’ Georgia said, as soon as they shut the front door behind them again. ‘You were awesome. I think we smashed that one.’
‘We certainly saved the baby. And the judges looked happy.’ Kate checked her watch and then opened the back hatch of the car. ‘We’ve only got ten minutes to locate our next task. We’d better get a move on.’
But Georgia had paused. She was waving. ‘Look—there’s Matteo and Luke in that car. They must be next.’
‘I wonder how long it’ll take before they figure out their patient isn’t downstairs.’ Kate felt a sudden urge to help Luke out. To give him a clue...
‘It’s no wonder it’s against the rules to talk about the scenarios until it’s all over.’ Georgia slung her kit into the back. ‘And I got the feeling that Matteo is as much a stickler for the rules as you are, Kate. You two would get on very well.’
‘I’m not here on a man hunt. What’s the matter? Don’t you like him?’
Georgia shrugged. ‘He’s cute but there are a lot of fish in this particular sea and today is not the day to be casting my net.’
Kate snorted. She knew Georgia quite well enough to know that she wasn’t the least bit serious about finding a casual sexual partner just for fun. This was just bravado, that was all. Was she trying to prove to the world that she was over the last disaster and more than ready to move on?
Pausing for a moment, before climbing into the driver’s seat, Kate turned her head to look at the car parked a little further up the road. She lifted her hand in greeting and, by the instant response as he raised his, she knew that Luke had been watching her.
A weird frisson of something she couldn’t identify rippled through her belly. Was it a little disturbing to have someone from her past suddenly appear in her life like this? As if Luke was some kind of ghost?
Or was it just nice to have reconnected with an old and very dear friend?
Yeah...that had to be it. Because the feeling was too pleasant to be a warning.
* * *
‘Look...they’re coming out of the house.’
Luke found himself hunkering down in his seat a little. It was pure coincidence that they were the next team for this particular scenario but, oddly, it felt like he was pushing himself back into Kate’s life or something. Stalking her, even? Was she as pleased to see him as he’d been to see her?
Maybe not. It had been Georgia who’d spotted them and waved. Kate had seemed intent on putting her gear back into the car and checking her watch. Of course she would be making sure she was going to be on time
