The Italian, His Pup and Me by Alison Roberts

Author:Alison Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-07-13T19:25:29+00:00

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The air rescue crew received an update en route to the scene. The location had been found and an ambulance and fire truck had arrived. The pilot of the microlight plane was conscious but trapped in the wreckage of the aircraft and the only injuries found on a primary survey were a compound fracture of his left tibia and a painful, bruised neck after being caught by one of the wires supporting the wing structure that had snapped on impact.

Frankie caught Nico’s gaze at that information and they didn’t need to say anything aloud. They both knew that a neck injury was a huge red flag. If the injury was associated with swelling and bleeding, they could find themselves dealing with an airway emergency and that was something that was far more likely to be fatal than a broken leg. The A for airway was the first part of the ABC of first response for a very good reason.

They didn’t play a secret game of rock, paper, scissors to see who was going to take the lead on this case. Frankie was ahead of Nico as they ducked beneath the helicopter’s rotors as soon as they touched down and the first to reach the mangled metal with the only recognisable part of the plane being its nose and front wheel pointing up from the ground.

‘We got him free about five minutes ago,’ a fire officer told Frankie.

‘We got an IV line in while he was still trapped.’ The land crew paramedic looked up from where he and his partner were splinting the broken bone in his lower leg. ‘He’s had five milligrams of morphine.’

‘Hey...’ Frankie crouched beside the young man. ‘I’m Frankie and I’ve got Nico and Ricky with me. What’s your name?’

‘Levi.’

‘Great name...’ Frankie smiled but she was watching him carefully. His respiration rate was high and his voice sounded very hoarse. ‘Are you having any trouble breathing at the moment, Levi?’

‘Yeah...my neck hurts...’ He coughed, groaned and then wiped his mouth, leaving a streak of blood on the sleeve of the flight suit he was wearing.

Frankie unhooked the stethoscope around her neck. ‘I’m going to listen to your breathing, Levi.’ She looked up at Nico. ‘Can you get some monitor leads on, please? I’d like a full set of current vitals as well. An SpO2 ASAP would be great.’

Levi became increasingly anxious as they worked on him to attach monitor electrodes and get an ECG trace showing on the monitor screen.

‘I can’t breathe,’ he told them. ‘It really hurts.’

Frankie examined his neck but even a gentle palpation was enough to make him groan in agony. She could feel the slight crunching of crepitus over his laryngeal structures, which suggested damage—possibly a fracture—to his larynx. This was certainly not a patient they wanted to be intubating in the air if he went into a respiratory arrest because, with the neck trauma, it could be a very difficult airway to secure. If an endotracheal intubation and using a supraglottic device failed, they would have to try a surgical airway.

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