Page 7 of Prognosis Incompatible

‘Brett, run next door. There is a doctor there called Dr Hunt — tell him I need him. Go now, Brett. Now.’

The youth took one look at his mother and fled.

CPR was much easier with two people and whilst she didn’t approve of what Marcus had chosen to practice he was, apparently a bona fide medical doctor and Mrs Sanders needed all the help she could get right now. She just hoped Marcus would be able to see past their earlier confrontation.

Madeline dragged the semi-automatic external defibrillator off the trolley, switched it on and followed the electronic voice prompts. She ripped open Mrs. Sanders’s blouse, cut open her bra with scissors from the trolley and slapped the two defib pads in the right positions on her chest.

While the machine analysed her patient’s heart rhythm, Madeline assembled the mask-bag apparatus and hooked it up to the oxygen to deliver mechanical breaths to Mrs. Sanders as soon as the machine had done its thing.

‘Shock not recommended,’ the electronic voice announced. ‘Commence CPR.’

Madeline was in the middle of chest compressions when Marcus and Brett came through the door.

‘What happened?’ he demanded, shirt flapping wide.

‘Fourteen, fifteen,’ Madeline counted out loud with each downward compression of the sternum. She passed him the bag-mask and was grateful that he expertly took over the respirations, holding the mask and the patient’s jaw with the practised ease of an anaesthetist.

‘Myocardial infarction. She’s arrested. The ambulance is on its way.’

They worked together as a team. Marcus gave one breath to Madeline’s five compressions, stopping every two minutes for the defib to analyse the rhythm again.

‘Shock recommended,’ the voice said after six minutes.

Madeline almost cheered. They’d gone from an unshockable rhythm to one the defib deemed it could help. Had she moved from asystole into VF? Were they making real headway with their CPR?

‘Brett,’ she said, ‘why don’t you go and wait for the ambulance outside? They’ll be here soon.’

The poor kid had seen enough today and was barely holding it all together. He didn’t need to see how his mother’s body would stiffen as the current arced through her chest.

‘I don’t want to leave her.’ The boy’s voice cracked with emotion he was desperately trying to keep in check.

‘Brett,’ Marcus said calmly, ‘we have everything under control here.’ He gave a reassuring smile. ‘You can be a bigger help by greeting the ambulance and guiding them to us.’

Brett nodded miserably and left reluctantly.

‘Stand clear,’ Madeline announced as they both shuffled back ensuring there was no contact between them and the patient.

Satisfied they were both clear, Madeline hit the green deliver shock button and they both watched as the patient’s chest bucked with the electricity.

The machine told them to wait as it reanalysed.

‘We need IV access,’ she said, her arms beginning to ache from performing the compressions.

‘Shock not recommended,’ the defib pronounced.

‘Intubation gear, too,’ he added, as he resumed his position at Mrs. Sanders’s head.

‘What? No eye of toad or wing of bat, Dr Hunt? No magic wand?’ she taunted unreasonably as she pressed down on the centre of the chest again.

It was bitchy and uncalled for, given his willingness to help after she had called him a quack, but she was annoyed that even in the midst of a medical emergency, his unbuttoned shirt and bare chest were disturbingly distracting.

How could she be thinking about his body at such a time?

‘Too late for that now, Maddy,’ he stated, his lips tight.

Her jibe might have been amusing at another time but Marcus was also struggling with his own distractions. Like how her skirt had ridden up, exposing a generous length of thigh, and the way the silk of her blouse pulled taut and slid seductively over pert breasts.

There was a time and a place. This was definitely not it!

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