All…
The pressure points…Where were the pressure points here? For heaven’s sake, what was she dealing with?
‘OK, Sam,’ she managed to say in a voice that was almost even. ‘You’re safe now…’
Sam gave an agonised grunt; his head rolled to one side and he slid into unconsciousness.
May he stay that way until they had some morphine!
Frantically Fran tried to assess the wound, feeling in the dim light the extent of the torn flesh and where the bulk of the bleeding was coming from. No pressure point would stop abdominal bleeding. The only thing that might help was pressure on the wound itself.
Fern had looped her cotton windcheater round her waist when she had come out for her walk-hours ago, it seemed now.
There was sacking on the deck-but it stank of rotten fish and the consequences of using that were horrible to contemplate. The windcheater would have to do.
Swiftly Fern folded it into a heavy pad. Then her hands went straight to Sam’s loin, shoving in hard.
Harder…
The gushing blood slowed to an ooze…
On the deck beside her, Lizzy was whimpering with shock and exhaustion. She’d be suffering from hypothermia, Fern thought grimly, but there was no time for Lizzy now…
Heavens, she couldn’t cope with this by herself.
Dear God…
‘What’s the damage?’
Quinn’s voice cut her panic dead. Unnoticed by Fern, Alf had helped haul Quinn aboard from the dinghy. Now Quinn knelt beside her, eyes cool and appraising.
There was no panic here.
‘We need blankets, Alf,’ Quinn said brusquely, as he took in what Fern was doing. His eyes moved momentarily to Lizzy, noting her absolute exhaustion. ‘And, Alf, strip the girl, wrap her and get her below. Get her warm fast. How bad is it here, Dr Rycroft?’
From his tone they might have been back in the casualty department of a major hospital, with all its resources at their disposal. The horror of the night receded a little as professionalism took over.
Sam-this man lying here bleeding to death on the deck-might be the man she intended to marry but with Quinn’s harsh approach Fern could switch back into clinical efficiency. Sam became a patient.
A patient with life-threatening injuries.
‘There’s flesh ripped right out from the side of his abdomen. I can’t see-but his bowel may be involved, at the very least. Heaven knows what else. The wound’s maybe eight inches across…’
‘Right. Hold on there while I fix his position.’
Quinn glanced round fast. Beside them was a piece of planking that Alf used to wheel crates of fish from deck to jetty.
It was perfect.
Quinn hauled the planking across beside Sam. The lawyer was still heavily unconscious, his skin pale, cold and clammy. He’d die of shock and blood loss, Fern thought desperately.
‘We need to get him back to the island,’ she whispered. ‘It’s his only hope. We need saline…plasma…morphine…’
‘There’s saline and morphine in my bag. It’s on the other boat. I yelled at them to bring it over while I was still on the dinghy.’ Quinn was working as he talked, tucking the planking as far under Sam as it would go without lifting Sam’s body. He looked at Fern’s gory hands, noting the slowing bleeding. ‘Hold tight. I’m moving the top half…’
With a swift tug he shifted Sam’s head and chest onto the boards. Without pausing for breath he was down at Sam’s thighs, lifting the rest of Sam’s body across without disturbing what Fern had achieved.
Then to Sam’s feet…
There were folded craypots lying nearby. Quinn lifted the planking with an audible grunt of effort and shoved a couple of folded craypots underneath at foot level. Sam’s body was now lying with head down and the lower part of his body elevated.
It’d help a bit.
Enough?
Alf emerged from the cabin. He’d taken an unprotesting Lizzy below, half carrying her, and he must have undressed and wrapped her with lightning speed. For a fleeting moment it crossed Fern’s mind to wonder just how many young women this crusty old bachelor had been asked to undress in his time but the thought wasn’t enough to bring a smile to her lips. Not now…
Alf’s arms were loaded with blankets.
‘Lizzy’s crook,’ he said grimly. ‘I undressed her like you’d undress a rag doll. I’ve put her in my bunk with the electric blanket up full.’
‘Electric blanket?’ Quinn was ripping off Sam’s sodden shirt and already tucking Alf’s offering of thick wool around him. It was vital that they get Sam warm as well-but they couldn’t shift him below. The less movement the better with a wound like this. ‘How the heck…?’
‘Big batteries.’ Alf grimaced. ‘A man’s gotta have some comfort. What can I do now, Doc?’
‘Get my bag, if you can,’ Quinn told him. ‘It’s on the Wave Dancer.’
The Wave Dancer-the huge boat that had brought out Quinn and Sam-was almost alongside. The crews of the boats must be frantic, Fern realised. They wouldn’t have a clue what was happening.
Then Alf had the motor running again. It was foolhardy for two boats to be alongside when one was without a motor-dangerous at the best of times.
The men knew what they were doing, though. Fern and Quinn could stick to their medicine. If there was one thing the fishermen of Barega were good at, it was coping with the sea.
The boats were manoeuvred as though they were on a lake at midday instead of an ocean swell after dark. In two minutes there were more men clambering onto the deck of Alf’s boat and Quinn’s precious bag was with them.
Morphine…Saline…Everything they needed to try to keep Sam alive…
Everything except luck…
He’d need that, Fern thought grimly, feeling Sam’s cold and clammy skin. Luck, luck and more luck…
There was a sharp exclamation of horror from the bow of the boat and Fern glanced up in time to see the men drag aboard what was left of the dinghy.
Fern’s fear of a shark feeding frenzy had been realised. The dinghy was torn to ribbons.
Sam had been lucky already.
And at least Sam had Quinn Gallagher, Fern thought with gratitude, as Quinn set up a saline drip with a speed she’d never seen before.
If ever there was a man to have around in an emergency it was this man.
If ever there was a man to have around…
Over the next few hours Sam hovered between life and death but by three in the morning Quinn’s skill had loaded the dice in favour of life.
By three in the morning Fern was so exhausted that she was almost past caring.
They’d brought Sam back to Theatre and spent four gruelling hours trying to stem the bleeding and do emergency repairs.
If Quinn hadn’t been a skilled surgeon they wouldn’t have had a hope. The wound was horrendous.
At least the kidneys were clear. Their first task as they reached the hospital was to insert a catheter and watch for blood. The clear urine was the first piece of good news they’d had all night.
There was more.
It was just as well that Sam’s blood group was O positive-if he’d had a rare blood type the task of cross-matching enough blood with the island’s limited supplies would have been a nightmare.
With unit after unit of blood dripping into his veins to make up for the massive blood loss, Quinn assessed the wound and decided that his only choice was a full laparotomy. They didn’t have a clue what damage there was.
If there was liver damage…
It didn’t bear thinking of.
Quinn worked fast but thoroughly, cleaning and debriding the wound as he found and tied off the mass of tiny torn blood vessels that made the wound bleed so freely.
Fern gave the anaesthetic-a job that required her full attention with a patient who was so badly shocked-and could only marvel at the skills Quinn showed.
This man had been trained with the best. He was cool, swift and skilled but he was no textbook surgeon. This sort of surgery-repair of a wound so horribly different-took courage and intelligence, both of which Quinn seemed to have in abundance.