Page 76 of In Sheets of Rain

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My patient sat shivering on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance, her face streaked in black ash. Her eyes rimmed in red. Her breaths laboured. The nebulised saline hissed as she fiddled with her O2mask.

“Leave the mask on, Sue,” I said, dripping saline from a 500ml bag over her burns.

I felt sick.

She started shaking. Her whole body wracked with twitches and jerks. Tears streamed down her cheeks, making little tracks in the dirt. She coughed, her chest heaving. Her eyelids tightly closed as if she didn’t want to see what was happening.

Saline and sandwich wrap. Blackened skin and white bone. Blisters and weeping. The stench filling my nose. Blood leaked from the edges, tinged pink and free-flowing.

The tip of her fingers were missing.

She opened her eyes and looked right at me.

“I’m going to lose more than my hand, aren’t I?” she rasped.

I held her gaze and said, “We’ll take you directly to Middlemore Hospital. They’re the best.”

“Say it,” she said. “Say it; I’m going to lose my arm.”

“We don’t know that. The Burns Unit is the best.”

“Look at it,” she said.

I reached up to a cupboard above her head and grabbed the crepe bandages.

“Look at it!” she demanded.

No one should have to see that. Try to avoid it if you can. Best advice I can give you.

“You can’t even look at it!” she growled.

“I’ve already seen it, Sue. Let’s get it wrapped up and get you off to hospital.”

“You can’t even look at it,” she whispered.

I looked down at what was left of her arm.

“I’m looking, Sue,” I said. “It’s going to be OK.”

“You can see inside,” she whispered.

“How about we cover it up now?”

She nodded her head.

Saline and sandwich wrap. Blackened skin and white bone. Blisters and weeping. The stench filling my nose.

And the blood came down in sheets of rain all around me.

How was I supposed to avoid it if it was always going to be there?

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