A woman poked her head around the doorway with a little knock on the door. ‘I came to meet the new recruit.’ She extended her hand. ‘Delighted to have you joining the team. I’m Nadia, operational support officer. We spoke on the phone.’
He finished drying his hands on the towel before meeting her gesture. ‘Good to meet you in person.’
Nadia recounted some of what her role involved even though he was familiar with the role given he’d been part of another crew. He guessed it was her way of fully introducing herself.
‘Basically, I manage you all – keep the team in check.’ She smiled. ‘Any questions, fire them my way or to anyone else who’s around. We’re all very friendly at the airbase and in Whistlestop River.’ She left the room with a call over her shoulder, ‘Maya’s a pussycat, by the way.’
He groaned as Kate came back along the corridor and past the kitchen, laughing, a sheaf of papers cradled in her arms. ‘What can I say, Noah; word spreads fast around here,’ she called as she walked, presumably to pass all the paperwork to Nadia.
‘Careful or we’ll know all your secrets,’ said Kate when she came back to the kitchen.
‘I hate to disappoint you but I don’t have any; what you see is what you get.’
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me? Come on, tell me more about yourself.’ She peeled the skin from a banana and bit into it. ‘You were thrown in at the deep end with us lot.’
But their chat was short-lived because the red telephone ringing announced another job. There were other phones dotted around the airbase so the crews never missed a call.
Noah went to get his jacket and collect his helmet. Kate retrieved the drug bags and followed swiftly. Vik had already noted the destination grids and gone out to the helicopter tostart it up, having already assessed weather conditions and other essential flight information.
Once they were airborne, Kate ran through the details of where they were heading and what to expect on scene. They received a few more details from the HEMS desk and by now knew that it was a crash involving a single motorcycle and no other vehicle. The victim was a male in his fifties, the patient was unconscious and police were on scene. By the sounds of it, the motorcyclist had had a blowout and lost control, careering into the vacant layby at the side of the road. They had no details of injuries sustained but they would be able to land at one end of the layby itself, putting them nice and close to the patient. Noah and Kate had already talked about possible injuries en route – there could be a head injury, broken bones. A common injury for bikers was a damaged pelvis and even though not a drop of blood would be spilt, you could lose every single bit of blood in your body internally in your pelvis with so much space in there.
As they approached the grid reference, blue flashing lights were the beacon to help them land more easily and Vik skilfully set the aircraft down before Noah and Kate leapt into action. They were updated again on scene as they rushed to the patient with their kit bags.
But as they stopped by the patient, Noah heard Kate swear.
He set down his kit bag and unzipped it while Kate leaned in closer to the man, felt for a pulse in his neck. ‘Conrad, can you hear me?’
Shit. She knew him.
Despite the personal connection, she was professional to a tee. ‘Noah, we need to get the helmet off.’
Removing a rider’s helmet at the scene of an accident was daunting. There was always the risk of doing more damage, but at the same time, they needed the helmet to come off so that theycould assess injuries and the level of consciousness and more importantly to ensure the rider had a clear airway.
Once the helmet was removed, Noah checked it over. It could give them an idea of the kind of force that had been applied on the head and the neck as a result. ‘The helmet is intact, a bit of a scrape and a dent.’ The head could still rattle around inside a helmet in an accident like this, however, so it didn’t mean the patient was out of the woods with regards to head injuries.
Between them, Noah and Kate followed procedures to get the patient stabilised. They got him on the scoop, spine immobilised, and fitted a c-collar as well as blocks on either side of his head. That’s when he began to come around.
‘Conrad, can you hear me?’ Kate asked. ‘Conrad?’
But he made no sense when he spoke, no indication he had any idea what was going on. His behaviour suggested a potential brain injury as he tried to move and push away their attempts to help him. Noah gave him pain relief, then checked his chest, the rest of his torso.
Because the helicopter was so close, Vik came to help them lift the scoop back to the aircraft where they got the patient onto the litter, the bed inside the helicopter that could slide out of the side door and then back in again.
Noah climbed in next to the patient. Kate called in their status to HEMS to update them on the situation and that they were leaving now to head to the nearest trauma centre.
It was only once they were up in the air that Noah spoke into his headset to finally ask Kate who the man was.
From her seat next to Vik, she told him, ‘He’s Maya’s ex-husband.’
Noah looked at the guy next to him, the specks of blood on the side of his face from minor trauma to his jaw. When Tahlia left him, Noah’s emotions weren’t extinguished just like that. Hestill cared for her, even though he’d been shocked at her inability to even try to factor in Eva.
Looking at Conrad, he wondered how Maya got on with this man? Did she feel the same as he did about his ex? That they may no longer be together, but he still cared?
And knowing loss so personally, so recently, he wouldn’t wish the worry on anyone.
Maya let her silk bridesmaid dress slip down her body and pool onto the floor. She smiled. She rarely dressed up these days – she didn’t have to go to many places that required formal attire. At the reception, her father had said how beautiful she looked, he’d commented on the fact that she’d made the wedding, which meant he’d expected her job to get in the way. The job he had never fully embraced. It wasn’t that he’d ever said he disapproved of what she did for a living, but that was the problem. She didn’t know what he honestly thought because they didn’t communicate. They hadn’t been able to in years. The last few references to her job had been over the last month as he used every possible opportunity to remind her that he thought she should be taking time off for her sister’s wedding. He’d asked how she could risk being out on an emergency for strangers when she should be supporting her family? But that was the way it went. The crews she worked with always had personal stuff going on. And Julie got it; she’d always understood. Maybe because she’d always bothered to ask and listen.
Hair scooped out of the way and in a clip, Maya let the water in the shower wash away the parts of the wedding reception she wanted to forget – her dad, Julie’s accident. The steam in the shower rose and enveloped her and deep breaths saw her sanityreturn. Julie was going to be fine; she’d had a message from Seth already to say his wife had been checked over at the hospital and they’d be off on honeymoon as planned, as Mr and Mrs.
