‘I’ll check on the chopper time,’ Ben said, and Lily knew he wanted the chopper to be there now. Just for Doug? Or was he running, too?
Of course he was running.
‘Lily, I need to run through what has to be done here while we’re away,’ Doug told her, dragging his eyes from his wife’s strained face. ‘If you’re to stay here until Ben sends help then I need to make a list.’
‘Fine,’ Lily told him. Rosa and Benjy went out one door. Ben went out the other. She stared at the closed door for a moment-and then turned back to Doug.
Doug had turned to the bench to find a pad and pencil. He lifted the pencil a couple of inches from the pad.
‘Oh,’ he said, in a tiny, startled voice, and he dropped the pencil.
‘Doug?’
Nothing. She saw his eyes focus inward.
‘Doug!’
By the time Lily reached him he was sliding lifelessly onto the floor.
‘Ben,’ Lily was screaming even as she broke Doug’s fall. She lowered him to the floor, taking his weight. He’d slumped between a chair and the bench. She shoved the chair out of the way with her feet. It crashed into another and splintered.
She didn’t notice.
Doug wasn’t breathing. She had her fingers on his neck, frantically trying to find a pulse.
None.
‘Ben,’ she screamed again. She’d been three weeks away from medicine but she was all doctor now. She hauled Doug onto his back, ripping his shirt open.
‘Ben!’
He’d heard. The door slammed open and Ben was with her, shoving the mess of furniture out of the way so savagely that the chair leg Lily had broken splintered off and skittered over the linoleum.
‘Check his airway,’ Lily snapped, and Ben was already doing it, feeling in Doug’s mouth, turning his face to the side as Lily thumped down on his chest.
Ben stooped and breathed into Doug’s mouth, then straightened. ‘Let me,’ he told Lily, and she knew at once what he meant. CPR needed strength and he had more of it than she did.
‘Do we have any oxygen?’ she demanded.
‘No.’ His hands were already striking Doug’s chest, over and over, trying desperately to put pressure on his heart as Lily gave the next breath. ‘Come on, Doug. Don’t you dare die. Come on, Doug. Please. Come on.’ His eyes didn’t leave Doug’s face as the CPR continued, strong and sure and as rhythmic as Lily could possibly want. ‘Please.’
Please. Lily couldn’t talk but she could pray, over and over. Please. She breathed and she waited and she breathed and she prayed and she breathed and prayed some more. There was a roaring overhead and it was the backdrop to her prayer, building in volume as she breathed and Ben swore and pushed downward over and over.
Please…
The door swung inward. ‘Doug, it’s the helicopter…’
It was Rosa. She took one step inside the door and stopped dead as she saw what was in front of her. Her hands flew to her face, her colour draining. ‘Oh, God.’
‘Rosa, is that the Medivac chopper?’ Ben’s voice was curt and hard, slicing across her terror.
‘Doug-’
‘Rosa, tell me.’ His order was almost brutal. ‘Is that the Medivac chopper? Yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. Her face was as ashen as Doug’s and she clutched for the table for support.
But Ben would have none of it. Terror was an indulgence they had no time for. ‘Then run,’ he told her. ‘We need oxygen and a defibrillator. They’ll have them on board. Run, Rosa. We’ll save him yet.’
Rosa gave a gasp of sheer dread-and turned and ran.
There was no choice but to continue. Lily kept on breathing. She’d never done artificial respiration without an airway, but there was no hesitation. Doug felt like family.
It had to work.
Please.
Then…
At first she thought she was imagining it. It was the air she was breathing in for him that was making his chest rise.
But no. She drew back as Ben kept applying pressure, and she saw it again. Chest movement she wasn’t causing.
‘Ben,’ she screamed and he drew back, just a little.
And she was right. Doug’s chest rose imperceptibly, all by itlsef. A weak shudder ran through his body and his eyes flickered.
Then Rosa waas back, bursting through the door with a man and a woman behind her. They were dressed in the uniforms of the Australian Medivac Service. Rosa must have been coherent enough to make herself heard, for the woman was carrying a medical bag and the man was carrying a defibrillator.
But maybe, blessedly, a defibrillator wouldn’t be needed.
‘Oxygen,’ ben snpped, not taking his eyes off Doug. ‘We have a pulse.’
Dear God…
One of the newcomers-the woman-was hauling open her medical bag. lily grabbed an oxygen mask and was fitting it to Doug’s face before the girl could make a demur.
The man was carrying an oxygen cylinder as well as the defibrillator. he set it on the floor and Ben fitted it swiftly to the tube attached to Doug’s mask. he watched Doug’s chest every minute. As did they all. They had no attached monitor-all they could go by was the rise and fall of Doug’s chest.
But it rose and it fell.
‘Let’s get an IV line up,’ Ben snapped. The two newcomers ad obviously realised by now that Ben was a doctor-or maybe they already knew-and they’d merged seamlessly into a highly skilled team. There were now four medics and the right equipment, and suddenly Doug had a chance.
More than a chance. his eyes flickered open again and this time they stayed open.
‘Don’t try to talk,’ Lily said urgently. ‘Doug, you’ve had a heart attack, but you’re OK. You’ll be fine if you stay still.’
‘Rosa.’ He didn’t say the word but Lily saw his lips move and knew what he wanted. She shifted a little so he could see his wife and Rosa could see him.
‘She’s here,’ Lily said, and she felt like bursting into tears-but, of course, she didn’t because she was a doctor and doctors didn’t weep over their patients, no matter how much they felt like it.
But she looked across Doug’s body at Ben, and she saw exactly the same emotion on Ben’s face as she was feeling herself.
Doctors didn’t cry. No matter how much they wanted to.
And after all Ben’s conniving, the choosing of who would leave the farm today was now decided differently.
The two Medivac officers were Dr Claire Tynall and Harry Hooper, a nurse trained in intensive care. Claire and Harry took over Doug’s care with smooth efficiency, fitting a heart monitor, adjusting the oxygen supply, transferring Doug to a stretcher that could be raised onto wheels so he could be could be transferred easily to the chopper. There was space for one more person in the helicopter and it wasn’t going to be Ben.
‘I need to go with him,’ Rosa sobbed, and Ben agreed.
‘Of course you do. Lily, could you pack her some essentials while we get Doug into the chopper?’
So Lily did a fast grab from Rosa and Doug’s residence while they loaded him. Doug was at risk of arresting again. They had to get him to a major cardiac unit fast.
‘I hope this is all you need,’ Lily told Rosa as she ran to the helicopter to find Doug and Rosa already aboard.
‘Buy whatever else you need and put it down to me,’ Ben said gruffly. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ Then, as Rosa’s face crumpled in distress, he climbed up into the chopper and gave Rosa a swift hug.
That was it. Ben climbed down again. The door slammed shut. The chopper rose into the morning sky. It hung above their head for an instant, then headed inland.
Ben and Lily were left standing side by side, staring after it.
‘It’s OK, Lily,’ Ben said, as if reassuring himself. ‘We did good.’ He reached out and touched her hand.
‘We did, didn’t we?’ she said, and her voice broke. She pulled away-just a little but enough. It was suddenly enormously important that she didn’t touch him. She was very close to complete disintegration. She’d seen deaths from cardiac arrest many times in her professional life, but today… Well, things had changed. She’d stayed independent, too, she thought, but Ben had come back to her and now her independence was a thing of the past.