Prognosis Bad Timing - Amy Andrews Page 0,1

the road. Her daughter’s eyes fluttered open briefly and then she stuck her thumb in her mouth and stroked her blanky against her cheek.

Dana’s grandmother had always said she could sleep through an explosion and for that, tonight, Carrie was thankful, as a surge of relief washed through her body.

Dana was fine. Dana was fine. Her baby was fine.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

She laid her forehead against the steering-wheel and took some deep calming breaths, the immediate shock giving away to the euphoric feeling of having just dodged a bullet.

Charlie swore as he watched the trajectory of the red car on some kind of horrifying slow motion. It had changed on contact with the car in front, flipping, rising up over his Mazda, narrowly missing him as if it had been engineered to do so.

Like some Hollywood movie stunt.

He looked in his rear-view mirror as it made contact with the road behind him, smashing into the bitumen with teeth-jarring velocity and rolling several more times before coming to rest on its wheels in a mass of mangled metal and shattered glass. The remaining headlight shone brokenly on the unmoving form lying in the middle of the road.

It took a few seconds for the doctor in Charlie to respond to the inert form, shock blunting his reactions. He opened his door, knowing he had to get to the victim lying on the road. But his eyes flicked to the other car that had come to a standstill in the centre of the road not far from him. The person inside was sitting at the steering-wheel, unmoving.

Was this person also injured? Were there two potential victims?

The golden rule of triage — the most critical first. He looked back at the person on the road. Was he even alive? Could he have survived being flung out of a vehicle at high speed? Charlie doubted it.

Running to the first vehicle, he wrenched open the door. ‘Are you OK?’

Carrie startled at the brisk demand coming back from the quagmire of her shock. Her heart was hammering like a runaway train, her hands still gripping the steering-wheel.

Was she OK?

She’d been too concerned with Dana to notice. Her neck hurt a little. It was tender when she twisted it to the very limit of its capabilities but otherwise it seemed OK. Probably some minor whiplash. Still, that could be debilitating if it was bad enough. She’d get an X-ray some time tomorrow to be sure.

‘I’m fine.’

Charlie gave her a quick visual once-over. She didn’t seem to have any obvious injuries. He nodded. ‘I have to go see to the other driver.’ He indicated with his head.

Carrie nodded, noticing the very still person lying on the road for the first time. ‘Yes,’ she said. And then the man was gone.

Charlie popped the boot of his car and pulled out his medical kit, complete with oxygen and suction. In his line of work, he needed a fully stocked kit ready to go in his car at a moment’s notice, and tonight he was grateful that he’d decided to irritate his father and drive the Mazda.

If he’d been driving the BMW, he’d have been up the creek without a paddle.

Sprinting to the inert form, Charlie’s brain processed all the possibilities. It was a man. A middle-aged man. Had he fallen asleep at the wheel or had there been a medical emergency like a heart attack or a stroke that had caused him to veer into their path?

Charlie donned a pair of gloves and methodically assessed the man as drilled into him during his student years.

D. R. A. B. C. H.

Danger. Response. Airway. Breathing. Circulation. Haemorrhage.

The man was unresponsive. Unconscious. His airway was compromised, his gurgling respirations concerning. He was breathing. Just. He had a pulse. But it was rapid and weak.

His face was covered in blood.

Charlie looked at the car and noticed the massive hole in the windscreen. The man must have been catapulted out through the glass, sustaining numerous lacerations. A quick head-to-toe check revealed multiple contusions, bilateral fractured tibias and what appeared to be a major bleed from the femoral artery if the bright, pulsing blood from the man’s groin was any indication.

Great! He tore the fabric of the man’s jeans, pulled a wad of gauze out of his kit and placed it over the bleeding site, applying firm, even pressure.

He needed help.

Flipping open his phone, he dialled triple zero with one hand and prayed for service in an area that was generally sketchy at best. The