Page 98 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
“Ok, Liam. I need you stay calm and help me out.”
“Sarah, her name’s Sarah.”
I felt the side of Sarah’s neck, looking for a pulse, but I couldn’t feel anything. I panicked. I panicked and I fucking lost it.
“I can’t find it. She’s not breathing. What do I do? What do I do?” My words came out in a tumble.
“First, I need you to calm down, Liam. What can’t you find?”
“Her pulse. Sarah. She’s my wife, and I can’t find her pulse.”
“Okay, forget about finding her pulse, I want you to check that nothing is obstructing Sarah’s airway.”
“She’s been sick.”
“She’s been sick?”
“Yes.”
“Is she being sick now?”
“No, before I got here. There’s vomit over her arm and on the floor beside her.”
“Okay, while you clear her airway can you tell me if you can see any alcohol, or any medication in the vicinity?”
“Yeah, there’s wine.”
I opened Sarah’s mouth, stuck two fingers inside, and scooped them around. I must have forced them down a little too far, because she gagged. It was the best sound I had ever fucking heard, and I started to sob harder. I held Sarah to my chest, and I cried.
“She gagged. She gagged. She gagged.”
“That’s good. That’s a good sign, Liam. The paramedics are almost with you. They’re in the building and making their way to the room.
They stormed the room and forced me to do the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.
I let her go.
I let them take over. I stood and watched as they listened to her heart, took her blood pressure, set up a drip, and placed an oxygen mask over her face.
I had my fingers laced together and my hands pressing down on the top of my head.
Cherise stood next to me, saying something to the medics about the wine and the tablets, and then one of them picked up the packet. “Stilnox.”
He turned to me. “Do you know how many were in here? How many she might have taken?”
I shook my head.
“No. No. What are they?”
“Sleeping tablets.”
They worked to get her on a stretcher as we talked, and I followed them out of the room. Cherise led the way to the service lift, which had more room in it, but I couldn’t focus on what anyone else was doing.
“We don’t—she doesn’t take sleeping tablets. We don’t have them.”
“Well, she got them from somewhere.”
“I don’t know. Will she be okay? She gonna be all right?”
