Chapter 2
Chapter Two
JADEN
An adrenaline rush starts like an electric shock shooting through your body. Hot and unstoppable. The landscape beyond the car window snaps into razor-sharp focus, colours explode with intensity, sounds are clearer, thoughts faster.
I feel my heart, feel how the car takes the bend, the centrifugal force, every inch of my skin. There is only the next movement, the next breath, the next decision.
The life that needs saving.
‘3-4-2, this is Central. What’s your status?’ crackles the radio.
I grab the device. ‘Five minutes to the scene.’ Wherever that is. The road we’re racing along ends in any case in a few hundred meters.
‘Over there!’ Ray points to a narrow track that winds further in the direction of the coast. On the rocky ground it’s barely visible; only the missing moss suggests tire tracks. ‘We have to go this way.’
Alex yanks the steering wheel around and jerks sharply left, my shoulder slamming into the car door. The tires bump along the track, I hold on tight and still get tossed violently back and forth. Every fiber of my body is on high alert.
‘Step on it,’ I shout to Alex; every second counts.
She accelerates as much as she can. ‘The track won’t let me go any faster,’ she replies, her gaze fixed intently on the winding path.
When the emergency call came in twenty minutes ago, the patient was still breathing. But that can change any second, and if his brain is without oxygen for too long, it will have far-reaching consequences. Far worse than a few scratches on the rims or the undercarriage of our vehicle.
Sometimes it’s a matter of seconds.
Seconds our patient may no longer have.
‘The man’s life is in danger!’ I remind Alex, even though I know she’s well aware of that.
Ray rubs his blond full beard and mutters something unintelligible to himself. My gaze flicks again to the tablet in his hands, which shows the details of our call.
‘We should be seeing a trailer and a barn any moment now,’ Ray says.
‘There’s nothing there.’ Alex stretches to try and make something out despite the winding track. ‘No, wait, I see something.’
Yes, there’s a half-collapsed shed. That must be 27 Church Road. Finally!
‘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.
I push harder.
Just a few more centimeters, then...
With a jerk, the meter-long wooden board comes loose from its anchoring.
A violent crash.
The board under my hands gives way. The other end snaps forward—directly toward our patient.
Time stretches and races at the same time. A paradoxical mixture of absolute control and complete chaos.
I let go of the board.
Hear nothing.
See nothing.
Feel nothing.
I brace myself on all fours over the patient.
‘Jaden, what the hell are you doing?’
Something hard slams into me. Heat, like a lightning strike to the back of my head, pain shoots through my body.
‘Damn it.’ Someone shakes my arm. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘Get the stretcher over here,’ I shout, pulling out of my position, my eyes fixed on the patient.
He didn’t get hit. Thank God.
‘Step aside, let us handle this.’ I think it’s Ray, pointlessly chewing me out.
I can only see my colleagues in a blur, but the stretcher in their hands is razor-sharp. Why don’t they put it down?
‘What are you waiting for?’ I shout, slapping the empty spot on the floor next to me. Fine wood shavings swirl up. ‘Come on!’
Finally the two of them get moving. Together we lift the man onto the stretcher and secure him. ‘Careful!’ I warn them as we carry the stretcher to the ambulance.
The rear door is open. Ray and I approach with the patient, Alex gets behind the wheel.
‘Where are you taking him?’ shouts the man with the gelled hair, who has apparently been waiting in front of the shed the whole time.
‘Halifax Harbor Hospital.’ I look for Ray’s gaze. ‘On my count. Three… two… now.’ We heave the stretcher into the vehicle, jump in ourselves, and secure it. ‘Drive!’ I yell to our driver, who hits the gas immediately.
The siren comes on.
I haul myself to the back door to close it, then turn to the patient.
‘How are his vitals?’ I ask Ray, who is just hanging the IV bag on a hook.
Deep concern dominates his expression. ‘It could be close.’
My gaze flicks to the monitor displaying the readings. One second is enough to see what Ray already knows.
‘We need to take care of your wound too,’ Ray continues.
No idea what he means. ‘Hand me the radio.’
He shakes his head firmly. ‘Let me look at that first.’
‘What is it?’ I lean over the patient and grab the radio myself.
‘The back of your head. You’re bleeding,’ I hear Ray say before I can press the call button.
Incredulous, I let my fingers glide over the back of my head. Sure enough, there’s something wet. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ I say and pull my hand away.
My fingers are covered in blood.
‘Yeah, right, just a scratch …’ Ray replies.
Whatever, that will have to wait. I quickly clean my hands and activate the radio. ‘Dispatch, this is 3-4-2, come in.’
‘3-4-2, this is Dispatch.’
Keeping my eyes fixed on the monitors, I relay all the important information. ‘Arrival at Halifax Harbor Hospital in approximately twenty minutes.’
Hopefully the man holds on. At the moment his readings are reasonably stable, but that can change quickly.
The radio crackles. ‘Confirmed, 3-4-2. Stand by.’
‘Understood,’ I say, set the radio aside, and keep my eyes on the monitor as our vehicle rolls onto solid ground and accelerates with wailing sirens.