‘Dispatch, this is 3-4-2, we’re on scene,’ I report over the radio and grab my gloves. ‘Okay, here we go.’
Ray sets the tablet aside. ‘Someone’s waving up ahead.’
Before the car comes to a stop in the clearing, I undo my seat belt and jump out of the vehicle with the emergency bag on my shoulder.
‘Emergency dispatch, ambulance service!’ I shout to the guy in the suit with the perfectly styled gelled hair who’s waiting by the shed. ‘Did you call?’
The man stares at me, chalk white. ‘Yes… my… my brother, Ashton.’ He lifts his arm, then lets it drop again. ‘He just…’
Collapsed with severe stomach cramps and a fever, I know. ‘Where is he?’
He points to the door of the dilapidated shed; I rush inside and spot the patient lying in front of a workbench. His shirt, pants, black hair, and even his face are covered in sawdust. The woody smell hits my nose with an intensity bordering on madness. I hear Ray’s footsteps behind me, feel the weight of the medical bag on my shoulder, feel everything—including the sharp pain in my knees as I let myself sink down beside the patient.
‘Sir… can you hear me?’ Carefully, I reach for his arm. ‘Ashton!’
No response, but he’s breathing.
I roll him into the recovery position; Ray hands me the pulse oximeter.
‘Unresponsive, breathing present, rate presumably elevated,’ I inform him, and clean the patient’s index finger before placing it into the device’s opening.
The measurement takes what feels like an eternity; in the meantime I grab the thermometer. ‘Temperature 39 Celsius.’
‘Pupillary response slightly delayed.’ Ray sets aside the flashlight he just used to examine the patient’s eyes.
The pulse oximeter finally settles. ‘Respiratory rate 24, oxygen saturation normal, pulse 120,’ I read off.
‘Blood pressure 85 over 55,’ Ray reports. ‘Beginning shock.’
My focus is on the man I now roll onto his back so I can palpate his abdomen. ‘Hard as a board.’ Shit, I’d feared as much. ‘Could be appendicitis, maybe perforated or about to.’ His vital signs are still stable, but there’s a high risk of sepsis or developing shock, and it increases with every minute.
‘Get the stretcher ready!’ Ray calls into the nothingness behind me.
‘I’ll place an IV.’ Routinely, I bare the patient’s inner elbow. Then I stretch out my hand so Ray can pass me the supplies. ‘Keep monitoring respiration, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation,’ I say as I disinfect the skin and insert the line. ‘Hand me a bag of Ringer’s lactate.’ That will stabilize his circulation.
My heart is pounding hard in my chest, my pants are full of sawdust, sweat crawls down along my spine. I feel every drop, every beat of my heart, every breath.
Intense and yet incidental. Only the patient matters. Only this one moment in which it’s about giving him another one.
Focused, I connect the IV and check the flow. Ray holds the bag up beside me, the fluid seeping into the man’s vein. ‘Patient ready for transport.’
Alex is already waiting behind me with the stretcher. Now she comes closer but stops a few meters away. ‘There’s not enough space.’
I scan the surroundings in a flash. Shit, she’s right. Between the workbench and the half-finished wooden structure lying on some kind of subframe, the stretcher won’t fit.
And from where he’s lying, there’s no way we can drag him all the way to the stretcher. If this really is a perforated appendix, any movement can lead to further complications. That would be insane!
‘Respiratory rate is rising.’ Ray’s words drill into my eardrums. ‘We’re at 26 now. We need to hurry,’ Ray comments, as if I didn’t know that myself.
I circle the unconscious man, my gaze flicking back and forth between the stretcher and the patient.
‘What should we do?’ Ray, who is still holding up the IV bag, looks at me with a serious expression. ‘We’re losing him!’
Shit, I know that too.
Moving him any more than absolutely necessary is out of the question. ‘We have to make space,’ I say. It’s the only solution.
The workbench is fixed to the wall, we can’t move that, but this wooden construction is standing freely in the room. It’s at least ten meters long, but I don’t hesitate for a second before I brace myself against it. With all my strength I push the wooden planks away. They move, along with the subframe.