caught her hand and pushed it away from the catch. Then he held the bottom and felt for the release button. Pressing it down hard didn’t seem to be enough, so he held the button down with one hand and took hold of the upper part of the strap with his other hand and pulled. Hard.
He felt the driver of the car slump towards him as the belt was released and he caught her under her armpits, pulling her free of the vehicle and then pushing up through the water. He just had to hope that she didn’t have any kind of spinal injury but there was no way she could have been left in the car long enough for a more careful extrication process because she would have drowned.
He wasn’t even sure that she was breathing now as he lifted her head clear of a breaking wave but there were others taking over. Taking the woman from his arms and putting her into the rescue basket to carry her towards the shore. Beside him, his fellow rescuer had already emerged from beneath the surface and she was dragging in great gulps of air as she tried to catch her breath.
‘Thanks...’ she managed. ‘I was having a...bit of trouble...there.’
Not that she looked at all bothered by the fact that her ‘bit of trouble’ could have actually put them both in danger. She wasn’t looking directly at him, either, as she pushed her hair back from her face and swiftly braided it to get it under control but he could see that her whole face had a glow about it—as if it had been so exciting, she’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Wow...there was something inspirational in that kind of passion. But Cooper had always known that, hadn’t he? She reminded him of...
No. He wasn’t about to go there. Even the nudge in that direction was discomforting, which was probably why his tone was distinctly sharp when he spoke again.
‘It’s lucky I didn’t have to rescue you as well,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
The reprimand in his tone was wasted on her. She didn’t seem to even be listening. She was watching the progress of the fire officers who were carrying the driver back to shore.
‘I need to see if she’s okay.’ She started moving. ‘I’m just hoping...she didn’t start drowning while I was fiddling with that belt.’
‘There was still some air in there, between waves.’ Cooper automatically reached out as the woman beside him stumbled on a rock. To his surprise, she caught his hand and held it as they both made their way back to shore as quickly as they could. His brain registered how that wet T-shirt was clinging to her body and he knew that image was going to resurface at a later, and less inappropriate, moment.
They were both soaking wet and should have been freezing given the water temperature and the slight breeze adding a chill factor but, oddly, the only thing that made Cooper realise he might be cold was the extraordinary warmth of that hand he was holding. It wasn’t until she let go, as they leapt out of the last wash of the waves, that he started to shiver.
The toddler and the baby in the car seat were nowhere to be seen so they must have been taken up the bank already. Perhaps the police officers on scene were caring for them in the warmth of one of their vehicles. They needed to get the female driver into shelter as well but it looked as if she wasn’t stable enough for what would have to be a slow journey up the steep slope.
He watched Fizz crouch beside the woman. She had her cheek near the victim’s face and a hand on her abdomen. ‘She’s breathing...just.’ She looked past the group of fire officers nearby. ‘Doesn’t look like we’ve got an ambulance on scene yet, does it?’
‘No.’ Cooper could see his own backpack not that far away. ‘But I’m a paramedic. I’ve got a kit. I’ll grab a stethoscope, shall I?’
It was the first really direct look he had received from her. She had brown eyes, he noticed. Really dark orbs that were assessing him with lightning speed.
‘Get my kit, too, would you?’ she said. ‘It’s over there on top of that flat rock.’
Cooper moved instantly. It felt as if he’d passed an unspoken test of some kind, he realised as he grabbed both backpacks and turned back. Not that it should have made any difference at all to this situation but instinct told him that it would not be an easy thing to gain this woman’s approval. Absurdly, Cooper actually felt a beat of pride in himself that he was being accepted as a temporary colleague.
* * *
He was a big bear of a man, this unexpected assistant that she had. Well over six feet in height and broad-shouldered.
Felicity Wilson believed that he was what he said he was. He’d clearly known what he was doing when he’d taken over getting this woman out of her crashed car and the way he’d told her to stay back until the car could be secured safely was pretty much what most people in the emergency services would have told her.
How could anybody have stood back when you could see that tiny face in the window, though? And yeah... Fizz knew she had a bit of an issue with impulsiveness when it came to dangerous situations but how good did it feel when taking that risk actually worked?
It would feel even better if she could make sure the mother of those children made it out of this disaster alive.
He had big hands as well, this man, but they were clever and nimble. He was opening pockets within the backpacks and extracting all the kinds of things that were going to be needed. Fizz stole the occasional glance as she looked up from doing a rapid primary survey on her patient, who was groaning but not conscious enough to open her eyes or speak to them coherently. She lay in the plastic rescue basket the fire service had provided.
Currently, those officers were setting up a canvas wind shield around them and watching what was happening. Two of them had taken off their heavy jackets and had passed them to the medics. Fizz felt swamped by the size of the garment but she wasn’t about to let it hamper her movements.
‘I’d put her GCS at less than ten. She’s tachycardic at one twenty-four,’ she told the man helping to stabilise her patient. ‘Tachypnoeic with a respiration rate of thirty-two and... I’m not sure I’m getting any breath sounds on the left side. Hard to tell with the noise of the waves.’
‘Pneumothorax?’ The fire-service jacket looked like it was the perfect size for this man. And he looked as if he was well used to a uniform and the authority it conveyed. He had found the small oxygen cylinder in a side pocket of her first-aid kit and was attaching a mask. ‘Is she hypoxic?’
‘Let’s get some oxygen on.’ Fizz nodded. ‘Got some shears?’ She cut at the woman’s clothing when he placed the tool in her hands and then slipped the elastic of the oxygen mask around their patient’s head to keep it in place.
‘Look at that...’ The marks of deep bruising from the seat-belt injury were already visible in dark red patches. Fizz palpated the side of the woman’s chest. ‘Definitely some rib fractures.’
Her partner had his fingers on the woman’s neck. ‘Carotid pulse palpable but weak,’ he told her. ‘Looks like her jugular venous pressure is raised, too.’
Fizz nodded. She could see the veins on the neck were visibly distended. She needed to have another listen to the chest and to check whether the tracheal line was deviated, which could confirm that air trapped in the woman’s chest was developing into the emergency that a tension pneumothorax represented.
Her partner was setting up for an IV, she
