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| Hero of the hit-and-run crash continued on page 47 |
Another great new series of life in a busy general hospital based on Television's most popular programme
Emergency-WARD 10
Hero of the hit-and-run crash
Frank staggered up to Nurse Buckley carrying the girl he Loved. "Quick, help me, help me," he gasped
FRANK never knew quite how they reached Casualty. He'd just gathered her up in his arms, when the others had bolted, and ran. Not two seconds after he'd handed her over to the astounded doctors and nurses, he slumped down on a seat, grotesquely limp, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The taut wires of fear and anxiety sustaining him through the confusion of the past 20 minutes just snapped.
Despair swept over him. He could see nothing but the image of Sally's face as they carried her into one of the cubicles.
Nurse Jo Buckley saw him sway forward slightly and, hurried over, ready to catch him if he fell. But he jerked himself upright, and looked up at her with the dazed expression of a man waking from a nightmare.
"Are you going to be all right?" Jo asked.
He nodded slowly.
"I'll get you something," she said, turning away.
Sister didn't know what to make of him. He looked like a young layabout who had been roughed up in a dancehall brawl: his odd haircut all dishevelled, his immature features smudged with dirt, his outlandishly styled clothes torn in places, and plastered with mud.
He wasn't more than 17, neither was the girl. Sister realized that he'd carried her all the way from the crossroads after the car had hit her. Sister was surprised. He looked more the type to run a mile at the first sign of trouble, just as the other couple had done.
Jo BUCKLEY came back to the boy, bringing a cup of tea. "Do drink it," she Said, as he shook his head. "It will help."
She put it down beside him and hurried off. He looked after her wanting to shout: 'Help Sally, not me! For pity's sake, help her!'
But, of course, they were helping her, if that was still possible. He knew that. He stared bitterly towards the cubicle.
Tears trickled unchecked down his grimy face. He looked absurdly young and pathetic.
Inside the cubicle, the casualty officer took one appalled look at Sally and sent a nurse to fetch AlanDawson, the Surgical Registrar. There wasn't much they could do for her down here, he thought. She needed a surgeon, though maybe there was little they could hope to do for her in the operating theatre. She was still breathing deep, sighing breaths, but pulse and blood pressure were almost nonexistent.
"Set up a drip-stand quickly he said. "We'll start her on some Group O until we can get a crossmatch."
They had the drip going by the time . Alan Dawson reached Casualty.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Hit-and-run job," the casualty officer told him. “Car caught her and knocked her on to a pointed fence. She's got a bit of paling in her, dangerously near the heart. “
"She was so shocked I started her on an intra-arterial drip straight away. Her blood pressure and pulse are practically nil. . . ."
Alan Dawson nodded, and bent over the girl on the table. "Heavens, it's close!" he muttered.
"The boy with her picked her up and carried her all the way here," added the casualty officer.
"Then if she lives, he saved her life," said Alan. "Let's get her upstairs at once. An exploratory thoracotomy is the only move, though I wouldn't give much for her chances, poor kid ! "
As Sally reached the operating theatre a police car pulled up outside the entrance to Casualty. A constable helped a distraught woman out. She leaned heavily on his arm as he guided her up to the Sister.
"You're Mrs. Parker?" said Sister. "Sally Parker's mother?"
"Yes," the woman whispered.
"Your daughter has been taken up to the theatre for a further examination," Sister said. "It was urgently necessary."
"She's... bad? Very bad?"
"Try not to think the worst until the doctors can give an opinion," said Sister, gently.
MRS. PARKER'S lined face, framed in straggling hair, looked up at Sister, making a mute plea for some explanation. Why? her eyes seemed to be demanding, why do these things happen? Why do they happen to Sally . . . to me? .
"The young man who was with her . . ." began Sister.
"That Frank Carter!" Mrs. Parker's face was a mask of resentment, suddenly, and she spoke the boy's name like a bitter protest.
Sister blinked. "I believe that was his name," she said, cautiously.
"It was all his fault!" cried Mrs. Parker. The full force of her grief had found its outlet. Her anger focussed on the shattered boy, who sat not many yards away.
"I don't think so," said Sister soothingly. "It was he who brought her in, instead of running away with the others. . . ."
"Mrs Parker was not listening. "I warned her. I pleaded with her," she was saying, "I implored her to have no more to do with him. It needed a father to dare him to come near her again!
"But Tom's been dead these seven years, so what could I do, alone?"
Mrs. Parker was lost in the confusion of emotional shock. Sister let her talk on, knowing that no words of comfort or advice could reach her for a while.
Suddenly, the woman seemed to rally her wandering thoughts. She started up, fiercely determined: "If he’s here I want to see him!" she said. Her eyes gleamed through her tears with a wild new purpose.
"I don't think that would be wise, Mrs. Parker," Sister said quietly.
"But I've a right to know what happened!"
"No good will come of bitterness. I cannot permit any possibility of a quarrel in this hospital," said Sister quite sternly.
Sister's n.to.tone brought Mrs. Parker to her senses. She was a hard-working, level-headed woman.
"I'm sorry, Sister," she said. "Of course you're right. I. . . I should be thinking of my poor Sally. How long before they can tell me anything?"
''I'm sorry, I can't say. Not long, I hope."
Sister looked up. A frown crossed her face. The boy had realized Mrs. Parker was in Casualty, and shuffled over.
"Mrs. Parker," he said, in a hoarse, flat voice. Mrs. Parker looked up, and Sister waited for the explosion. But it never came.
"Frank!" said Mrs. Parker, with mournful bitterness. "Frank, what have you done to us?"
"Mrs. Parker . . . it wasn't my fault. Don't blame me for this. . . ."
The words were trite, but Sister recognized them as a desperate plea for understanding.
THE telephone on her desk rang. It was Simon Forrester. He had been the doctor on call, but, the Casualty Officer had sent at once for Alan Dawson when he realized Sally Parker needed immediate surgery.
"Sister, Mr. Dawson has asked me to see the friends or relatives of Sally Parker. Circumstances are a bit unusual, and rather grim, I'm afraid. They'd better come up to the waiting room outside Women's Surgical. They are in for a long wait. We'll make them as comfortable as we can. . . ."
Sister put down the phone and said:
"Mrs. Parker. . . Mr. Carter. . . Dr. Forrester would like you to go up to the ward. He has something to say to you."
Mrs. Parker seemed about to make some protest about including Frank, but the quiet gravity of Sister's tone checked her. She nodded, blankly, and struggled to her feet. Sister beckoned a nurse, who led them both away. Mrs. Parker walked hesitantly, with faltering steps; Frank Carter followed her, painfully.
Simon Forrester started for Women's Surgical as reluctantly as Mrs. Parker and Frank. He almost wondered if there was any point in talking to them at all. By the time he got the words out, it might be all over. . .
BUT Alan was right. They had to know and Dawson could hardly leave the theatre. Mrs. Parker and Frank were already 'in the room when he arrived.
"Mrs. Parker?" Simon said, and nodded in the boy's direction.
"Yes," Mrs. Parker's voice quavered, her hands clutched at her coat until the knuckles showed white.
"Mr. Dawson had to act immediately, you understand," Simon said, "because of the possibility of injury to the heart. Part of the paling had penetrated. . . ."
He saw Mrs. Parker wince, as if her own heart had been torn. But he couldn't put it any less directly. .
"Mr. Dawson found the injury severe and that the heart itself was lacerated," Simon went on.
"Does that mean she's dead?" Frank Carter croaked..
"No," said Simon, "Mr. Dawson will attempt to suture the heart wound. But he felt you should be told that there is only a slight chance of success."
"I understand said Mrs. Parker, barely audible. Simon went out. A few moments later, a nurse brought some blankets. Mrs. Parker and the boy sat in awed silence, crushed and dispirited. Neither uttered a sound until the shock began to wear off, and then Mrs. Parker began to sob quietly.
Frank watched her heaving shoulders, a look of misery on his face. He wished he could say something, but he had never been much good with words. Otherwise, perhaps, he might have justified himself to Sally's mother long ago.
Only Sally had ever seemed to understand him. She had tried to explain often enough, but Mrs. Parker had been unsympathetic.
"Why does he wear those daft clothes? And have his hair cut in that silly way, all plastered with grease?" He'd heard Mrs. Parker asking Sally questions like that while he was waiting for her in the passage before they went out to a dance or the pictures.
Evenings with Sally! They seemed millions of years away suddenly. He could see her eyes sparkling; sense the lilting rhythm of her step as they went off down the street. Sally aglow with life, and love.
Of course they were late sometimes, who wouldn't want to linger as long as possible with someone like Sally, when they loved her as much as he did? But, was that really so terrible?
The truth was, Mrs. Parker didn't like him or anybody else. No man was ever going to be right for 'her Sally'. She was always on about being late; for one thing.
HE recalled their last moment together. They had been sauntering back from the pictures, when Sally had said suddenly:
"What's the time?"
"Gosh, Sally, I'm sorry! It's after eleven."
Sally groaned. "Oh, Frank! And I did mean to be early. I know
Mum'll be so angry. We'll have to hurry!"
She'd turned to go, and suddenly the car came rocketing past. He heard her scream above the roar of the car. He'd spun round to look for her, and..
He moaned aloud, and clapped his hands to his eyes to blot out the stark memory of what he had found. The others had taken one and bolted!
He moaned aloud, and clapped his hands to his eyes to blot out the stark memory of what he had found. The others had taken one look and bolted!
His cry shattered Mrs. Parker out of her own misery. "Frank," she said, "tell me about, the accident."
"No, no," he almost shouted, "I can't. I can't!"
Mrs. Parker sighed. Perhaps she'd been hard on him. He was only young. He couldn't realize that Sally was all she had. With Tom dead, and her only relations in New Zealand, there was nobody left for her but Sally.
She had dreaded the day Sally became a young woman. She had evolved a fond dream in which the man Sally married would come and live with them, become part of the family, a cross between a brother for Sally, a son for her, and a polite, undemanding lodger. But she saw now that it hadn't been fair to expect it to be like that.
She looked up suddenly, and saw that another doctor had come quietly into the room. It was Alan Dawson.
"Mrs. Parker," he said, "I'm Dawson, the surgeon who operated on your daughter." .
"Is she. . . ?"Mrs. Parker hardly dared look at him.
"She's out of the theatre, I'm glad to say," Alan told her, "and in the ward. That's good news, as far as it goes. And for that you can thank this young man. If she'd had to wait for an ambulance she could never have survived. "
"Can I see her? "
"I'm afraid not," said. Alan. "We've managed to deal with the lacerations, but it remains to be seen whether the heart can stand up to the strain, and heal. We, er, have to make checks throughout the night, er. "
ALAN rubbed one hand over his jaw in a weary gesture. How could he explain the idea of electro-cardiograms to these shattered people? "If there's the slightest doubt, we'll call you," he said awkwardly, "Sorry, that's all I can say at the moment."
He went back to the ward leaving them to the long night of waiting.
Sally was in bed now, with the transfusions tube still dripping blood into her, and four wires running from her limp body to the electro-cardiograph. Every 15 minutes throughout the night each flutter of her heart would register as a strange scribble on a sheet of graph paper.
To the technician watching, every variation in the lines would mean something. And when the heart was out of danger if that was ever to be, the fact would register on the graph, and then they would know.
"How is it?" Alan asked, bending over the technician.
"A ventricula tachycardia has begun, I'm afraid," he murmured. "I'll have to give her some procaine," Alan murmured to himself. "If that doesn't help, !
Mrs. Parker sat rocking herself to and fro for some minutes. And then she felt she could bear the tension no longer. "Oh, God, Frank, I can't stand it!" she cried, "I can't! You could marry her, and take her to China, if she could only be spared."
He stood up, and the blanket fell from his shoulders as he went across the room and fell down on his knees beside her. "I love her too!" he said. "Please believe me."
"I do, Frank. I do, now. But what did the doctor mean about not waiting for an ambulance?"
"Nothing really," he said flatly. "I just picked her up and ran."
Mrs. Parker felt suddenly humbled with gratitude.
THEN, slowly, the story came out. Contact was made in snatches of whispered talk, in unfamiliar, often shy confidences. The brittle barriers of misunderstanding were broken down, the doubts and fears vanished.
It was almost five when they looked up, drawn, cramped, and longing for the dawn, to see Alan Dawson standing in the doorway, an unfamiliar looking chart in his hand. It was the most recent cardiogram. He tapped it against his palm, a look of weary triumph on his face.
"This is it," he said huskily. "This is the one that means she's on her way home. But it will take a bit of time yet."
Mrs, Parker and Frank looked at each other, hardly daring to let themselves hope again.
"If, if it takes a lifetime, I'll wait," Frank said, at last. And Mrs. Parker believed him.
© 1960 Tessa Diamond and Peter Grey
NEXT WEEK: A girl's heart stops beating. Simon Forrester fights to save her life--and her marriage.
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