blood he felt a familiar knot tighten in his gut. He let the man’s body fall back gently.
‘Let’s deal with what we’ve got first.’
Julia nodded. ‘Ken first?’
Mac agreed. The sooner they had his spine immobilised and protected, the better the outcome might be for him.
Julia wriggled into a position where she could support Ken’s head while Mac went to get the equipment they would need. A neck collar and survival blankets to start with. Oxygen and IV gear and pain relief. He found her squashed into the tiny gap beside Ken, ready to take the collar and ease it into position, and it wasn’t the first time he thought it was a blessing that she was so little and mobile. There was no way he could have managed that feat so competently.
‘Do you think I’ve broken my neck?’ Ken sounded terrified.
‘This is a precaution,’ Julia reassured him. ‘We don’t know what part of your spine has been injured and we need to keep it all in line. It’s really important that you don’t move even after the collar’s secured because the rest of your back isn’t protected yet. We’ll do everything we can but we need you to help too. Can you do that?’
The huff of sound was still fearful. ‘I guess.’
‘Just hang in there, mate. You’re doing really, really well.’
Mac was busy opening packages but he could hear the smile in Julia’s voice as she reassured her patient. He knew exactly how her face would be looking as she spoke even though he couldn’t see it. Ken probably couldn’t see it either. He might see the way her lips curved back into her cheeks but he wouldn’t be able to see the way Julia’s eyes always smiled right along with her mouth. The way her whole face—even her whole body sometimes—seemed connected to her emotional state.
Fascinating to watch. Or provoke. Mac wasn’t the only one on station who took pleasure in engaging Julia in an animated discussion.
Or delight in making her smile.
‘We’re going to give you something for that pain very soon.’ Julia was swabbing a patch on Ken’s forearm. ‘Wee scratch coming up. There. All done. Wasn’t so bad, was it?’
‘Didn’t feel a thing. You know what you’re doing, don’t you, lassie?’
Julia chuckled. ‘Sure do. Now, are you allergic to any drugs that you know of?’
Mac flicked the top of an ampoule to move the fluid inside. Then he snapped it and slid a needle into the narrow neck to draw up the drug.
Ken was right. Julia knew what she was doing. He was right, too. She was involved in this scenario to the extent that it would have been detrimental to try and give her a break. She had established a connection with Ken and he was in exactly the right frame of mind to co-operate with whatever measures needed to be taken to rescue him.
He trusted Julia and Mac knew the trust wasn’t misplaced. He had to feel completely dependent on her right now but he knew that she would be treating his vulnerability with the same kind of compassion and skill she brought to the medical practices he had witnessed her administering.
She fitted an oxygen mask onto Ken and hooked it up to the small cylinder from the pack. ‘I won’t run fluids,’ she told Mac. ‘BP’s down but it’s more likely to be neurogenic than hypovolaemic shock.’
‘What does that mean?’ Ken asked fearfully.
‘Any injury to the spine can interfere with nerves,’ Julia told him. ‘That’s why you can’t feel your legs at the moment and you’re getting pins and needles in your hands. It’s not necessarily permanent,’ she added firmly, as though she’d given this reassurance more than once. ‘We can’t know what damage there is but what we can do is take care not to make it any worse.’
A lot of care had to go into the next stage of this rescue. They had to get Ken flat and secured onto a stretcher without twisting or bending his vertebrae. Then they would have to cushion his head and strap him so securely onto a stretcher there would be no danger of movement during the extrication process.
Minutes ticked past swiftly. Mac could feel exhaustion biding its time, waiting for an opportunity to ambush him, and he knew that Julia had to be a long way further down that track. Not that she was slowing down, of course. She never did. Mac was proud of his partner. Not just for her endurance or the way she had crawled into the cramped space by the window to hold Ken’s head to support his neck but for the way she effortlessly turned her skills to emotional support for their patient.
‘Glasgow’s home for you, isn’t it, Ken?’ she asked.
‘Aye. I was just going up to Inverness on business for the day.’
‘What do you do?’
‘My company makes umbrellas.’
Julia chuckled. ‘You must be doing really well. I’ve never seen so much rain as I have in the three months I’ve been here.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘New Zealand.’
‘That’s a country I’ve always wanted to visit. Is it as beautiful as they say it is?’
Mac found himself nodding. He felt exactly the same way. He’d love to get down to the bottom of the world for a visit. Always had, but the urge had got a lot stronger in the last few months. Funny, that.
‘It is,’ Julia was saying. ‘Parts of it are very similar to Scotland but I think we get a bit more sunshine.’
‘You going back?’
‘Yes. I work with an ambulance service that has a rescue unit back home. I’m here for six months for advanced training.’
‘What part of New Zealand do you live in?’
‘Christchurch. Middle of the south island. We’ve got the Alps to the west and the sea to the east. I grew up there.’
‘You’ve got family to go home to, then.’ Ken’s voice wobbled. He was obviously thinking of his own family and feeling alone right now.
‘Only my big sister,’ Julia told him.
Mac was busy pulling the extrication device they needed from its case but he was listening carefully. This was personal information. The kind that Jules had kept from her colleagues. He might have been left with questions that would never be answered but Ken wanted distraction from his situation. And Julia was so involved, she probably hadn’t registered that others might be able to hear.
‘She’s like a mum, really,’ she told Ken. ‘My mother died shortly after I was born. Anne’s nearly seven years older than me and she just took over from the various nannies. When Dad died I was only eleven but Anne was old enough to take care of me. She’s amazing. Managed to raise me and get through med school at the same time. I love her to bits.’
There was a short silence then. Julia appeared to be checking Ken’s pulse. Or was she holding his hand?
‘When you get to New Zealand,’ she said then, ‘make sure you visit Christchurch.
