Rescue Heat (4 page)

Matt swung himself to a standing position, with startling ease. Brigid watched him go with what she hoped was suitable discretion. He ran his hand over his dark close-cropped hair, swiping droplets of water away. For just a moment, Brigid had to suppress the urge to reach out and feel the bristled texture.

Worse, or shamefully, better, was the moment he shrugged out of his wetsuit. She had avoided watching him change before. Now she couldn’t turn away from the barely leashed strength visible in his chest and arms. Long, twisting muscles tapered down to a narrow waist.

Matt obviously did not subscribe to the modern metro sexual handbook. There was no waxing. Instead, he had a smattering of chest hair and an intriguing trail that led from his abdomen straight to his board shorts. Realizing that she had been unashamedly perving, Brigid tore her gaze away.

His beautiful body somehow steeled Brigid’s resolve. She did not intend to join the cast of hundreds of Cairns women who would no doubt be flocking to his side. A tall, gorgeous rescue boy would never be lacking for company.

Brigid never had any doubt that a flight suit simply made her look dumpy. However, somehow, in the eyes of the world, on her male colleagues, it turned into shining armour that made them modern day knights.

At the end of the day, Brigid climbed exhausted into the backseat of the van returning to base, only to find Matt next to her. She had survived all her challenges, even the breath stealing special, which included being dunked under an upturned dinghy. In the last, they had to show they could swim safely away, before inflating their life jackets.

“I’m not sure why you would choose to do this to yourself. Surely not every doctor, who goes out with rescue crews, has their rescue certification?” he asked, gesturing as she painfully pulled off her boots and thick socks, only to reveal large blisters.

“No, very few doctors do.” Brigid replied. “But I needed it if I was going to become a fully-fledged crew member and it makes for better patient care.”

“How does that work?”

“It allows me to get to the patient more directly, without you guys having to stabilise the scene,” Brigid said, twisting her body to face him fully. It also means I’m always available on base, so we can go out immediately after the call.”

Brigid could see some reservation in Matt’s eyes at the idea of her being full member of the rescue squad.

“Not every rescue team is happy to have the complication of a doctor in the mix. But you guys are stuck with me and my presence damn well contributes,” Brigid said, emphatically.

Judging from the look on his face, she had read his concerns accurately.

“Why rescue?” Matt asked, glancing over at her, as both their faces flickered with the changing light cast as the van drove on.

“The rewarding thing about pre-hospital emergency care is that this is a type of medicine that can make a dramatic difference. You know that from combat care. There is nothing like knowing that your decisions in the field and your very presence can save a life or change someone’s future.”

Brigid laughed, slightly uncomfortable at how much she had revealed. “Sorry, I can get a little overly passionate about the work we do. That’s probably why Pete makes me do the fundraising days.”

“He’s a smart man, I bet you’re a real rainmaker, getting people to pull out their cheque books,” Matt smiled.

Brigid was slightly uncomfortable with this observation. She knew it to be true but hated that it was probably also her appearance and middle-class accent that helped bring in corporate sponsors as much as her passionate conviction.

She was glad when Matt changed the subject. “I forgot to ask Pete why the previous team member left. Todd was his name wasn’t it?”

Brigid felt herself relaxing again, into more familiar conversational territory.

“Unfortunately for Todd, his wife decided that the hours of his job and the risks we take were not conducive to a happy marriage. So he decided, for the sake of peace at home, to transfer to a normal ambulance team.”

“Ah, the unhappy wife dilemma. It brings down many a good man,” Matt observed, wryly.

Brigid knew that she should disapprove of the sexist implications of his words but she had been pissed off to lose a valuable member of the team because of his wife’s lack of support. So instead, she shot him a smile of shared solidarity.

“Yeah, the poor boy wasn’t all that happy about the ultimatum,” she said.

When she broke away from his gaze, Brigid became aware that Chris, Dave and Pete were conducting a lively discussion in the front of the people carrier. The fact she had been unaware of their words up until now worried her. It wasn’t like her to sequester herself in quiet conversation with just one male member of the team.

“Ok guys. Junk food time,” Pete decided that it was time for a pit stop and everyone tumbled out of the car.

As Brigid walked through the service station picking up chips and coke, she worried that the men seemed to have paired her off socially with Matt. She was thirty and Matt thirty-three, so they were of a slightly younger generation than the rest of the rescue crew. Combine that with their single status and being thrown together looked like a natural progression. She was going to have to halt this, before it became a pattern.

Walking back to the car, Brigid made her move. “Chris you don’t mind if I grab your seat in the front, do you?”

Already knowing the good-natured winch man’s answer, Brigid climbed in. As she turned to hand out the service station goodies, she tried to ignore the almost unnoticeable look of questioning in Matt’s eyes. Well he would have to get used to it. Becoming friends would be the start of a slippery slope and Brigid couldn’t afford to fall.

Walking into the helicopter hanger of the rescue base, Brigid could see the increased activity that signalled the start of a rescue mission.

“Good. You’re here,” Dave said. “As you can see, shift change is happening early this morning. Snakebite. They suspect red belly black snake. It’s a seven-year-old, male child. We’re fifty minutes airtime away.”

As soon as Dave had finished his sentence, Brigid was on the move. She was glad she had arrived fully dressed in her rescue gear. Now, all she had to do was throw her bag in the corner as she grabbed her kit.

“Do we have time for me to co-ordinate with the hospital regarding anti-venom?” she called back to Dave.

“Five minutes.”

Brigid went into the dispatch room, where Jo was waiting. Jo was the centre of the Helicopter Rescue Base. At fifty-three, she was the rescue dispatcher and every base employee was desperately afraid of the day she would retire.

“What extra info have you got for me?” Brigid said, by way of greeting.

“Hey sweetie. A male child, called Harry, was bitten by a snake roughly thirty minutes ago. They’re in Murrywilla, so a three-hour drive to the nearest hospital. They called 000 immediately, so were given instructions.”

“Good. Can you confirm via radio with me that they have preserved the bite site and haven’t washed or wiped the wound? Also, confirm that they have the child lying down quietly and have bandages placed around the whole limb involved in the bite.”

By the time Brigid was out on the tarmac, everyone was ready and accounted for. Dave and Chris were in the cockpit, running final checks on the helicopter. Matt was awaiting her arrival, ready to hand over his equipment checklist to ground staff.

Once again, Brigid found her reaction to the presence of Matt slightly shocking. His physicality was so overwhelming, especially in an environment where she had previously felt so comfortable.

Last night she had seen an almost concealed look of bewilderment in his eyes, as she shoehorned herself next to Pete for the ride home, then hightailed it out of there, without even lingering enough for a polite goodbye. Normally, it was not in Brigid to be rude. However, the need to self-protect was a powerful impulse. Maybe if she could project a normal casual professional façade, he would dismiss last night as a momentary blip.

She scrambled into the chopper door, in front of him, silently cursing the awkward gracelessness he inspired.

Once in the air, the mood lightened considerably. With fifty minutes of flying time to go, they had at least thirty minutes before Brigid would have to start briefing Matt on snakebite protocols.

Dave’s information, “No GPS co-ordinates for this one,” was greeted with loud exaggerated groans from both Brigid and Chris.

Chris turned around to explain the complaints to Matt. “Fair warning, this could be one of the rescues where we end up following directions like fly north when you reach the big tree along the river.”

“Better than being given the wrong coordinates,” Matt joked. “In Afghanistan, my commander set up a combat hospital thirty kilometres in the wrong direction. We just had to think ourselves lucky that the dodgy location actually wasn’t a mine field.”

As Matt participated in boy talk with Chris and Dave, their stories getting progressively wilder, Brigid watched even as she tuned out the words.

With Matt strapped in the jump seat opposite her, she was able to observe without looking too obvious. Even as he interacted with others, the muscles of his face held a tension that he did not seem to be able to shed. His eyes kept on flicking back to the skyline, as if he was waiting for danger to appear over the horizon. There was something about his reserved, self-contained nature that made her want to break through those walls. That compulsion was certainly against her better judgement and Brigid was determined to keep it under control. Matt was not the person she was here to save.

“Matt, I can imagine this will be your first kiddie patient in a while?”

Brigid heard Chris’ question and it brought her attention back to the conversation.

“Yeah, we all volunteered at the local hospital in Iraq and I took part in the child immunization program over there, but I am certainly more used to the grown up patient.”

“I can tell you, an overanxious parent will make this helicopter feel very small and the trip back to Cairns seem very long,” said Dave.

“Don’t listen to these guys complain,” interjected Brigid. “They just end up turning off the feed from the patient and parent’s microphones and fly along blissfully unaware. We, on the other hand, are in the back and will listen to every word.”

She added more seriously, “If you have something you need to tell me, or the boys, that you don’t want the patient or any other passengers to overhear, we can do that. Just switch over briefly to the staff only channel. That is how we can talk without worrying anyone.”

She realised he was probably very familiar with all the information, even if he was too polite to tell her.

Brigid could only make a concerted effort to smile and apologize, “Sorry, I keep forgetting you probably have more helicopter hours clocked than I have. We can only give you fair warning. A hysterical mother might make you long for the days of armed conflict.”

Despite, or perhaps because of their joking, she knew there was a particular anxiety for all of them each time they went out to a job involving children. They were a team that dealt in death, trauma and sickness everyday but none of them had ever hardened against a child in distress.

The geometric patterns made by the cane fields below soon disappeared into the rougher configurations of grazing land. A look at her watch made Brigid realise it was time to take Matt through the snakebite protocol.

She moved across the centre console, so she could sit next to him. He would only be able to hear her through his headphones but Brigid had never got used to communicating with only a disembodied voice.

“Once we touch down our main aim is to do a quick assessment of the child. We do not administer any anti-venom, so we just want to get him stabilised and ready for transport to Cairns.”

“What kind of symptoms are we likely to see?” asked Matt. He leaned forward, seemingly intent on learning.

“If they were right about the type of snake and the time of the bite, the most likely symptoms are nausea, stomach cramps and possible vomiting.” Brigid raised her eyebrows expressively, “Hope you’re not wearing your favourite shoes.”

She continued, “Red belly black snake bites, while distinctly unpleasant, are rarely fatal. Nevertheless, we can’t be sure of the type of snake until we get the toxicology. So, we have to monitor the patient for possible shock, increased blood pressure, and keep a close eye on his airways. The patient remaining calm is also a must.”

“I’m guessing wrangling the parent is my job?”

“Absolutely,” said Brigid.

Brigid was amazed at how responsive Matt had been, so far, to her command of the medical situation. Many men would find it hard to take orders from a woman. Rescue teams could only be successful if all split second instructions were instantly followed. Under high pressure there was no time for each member to make an independent assessment.

Brigid knew this, as she had to offer the same trust in return. Unlike a hospital, out here being a doctor did not give her automatic command. Brigid often had to abide by the decisions of others. Since joining rescue, Brigid had had to abandon missions once Dave made the call that the weather conditions were too dangerous. She had to train for the possibility that Chris might have to cut the wire, dumping her or her patient. Moreover, she had to accept that, on the ground, Matt could make operational decisions. If he made the call, she couldn’t move her feet without his permission.

“Five minutes away,” Dave’s call came over the intercom.

The helicopter was flying at low altitude to allow Dave a better view of the landmarks he would use to guide them to their destination.

“The homestead should be four fields over, and it’s to the right of the bend in the river,” said Chris, reading from written instructions.

Matt and Brigid exchanged smiles. It turned out that Dave and Chris’s joking was not so far off. The dispatcher, Jo, had radioed in the instructions. They were to land on the dusty driveway twenty metres from the house.