She squared her shoulders. The last thing she was trying to do was impress him. “How’s it looking out there?”
“Not good. I think we might end up staying another—”
A knock at the door interrupted whatever he’d been about to say. Molly frowned at him in question before hurrying over to fling it open.
“Dr. McKinna?” A man, shrouded in a drab green raincoat, stood in the doorway, his head covered by the jacket’s hood. Even shadowed, and with water sluicing down his face, she thought she saw worry in his eyes.
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
“Sammi said she tried to reach you by phone and couldn’t get through, so she asked me to drive over and see if you were still here. There’s a man down over at the dockyard.” He braced himself against a gust of wind, and Molly had to hold the door to prevent it from being ripped from her hands. Blake came up behind her, the heat from his body warming her back.
“Hi, Mark,” he said, confirming his presence. “What’s going on?”
“The damn wind knocked a container sideways and it caught one of the workers in the leg. I was checking on a shipment for a customer and saw it happen. It’s bad, there’s bone showing through. I came to see if the doc here could take a look.” He glanced at her just as a growl of thunder rumbled through the atmosphere, bringing with it another blast of wind. Her fingers scrabbled to retain their hold of the door just as the man’s next words chilled her to the bone. “If there’s any way you can get the plane up, he needs to be transported out. The sooner, the better.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“HAVE you moved him?”
Yanking on her jacket, Molly’s mind ran through various scenarios. Compound fractures could be tricky. When a bone ripped through skin and muscle and was left open to the elements, infection could easily follow. The less sanitary the accident location, the worse it was for the patient, especially if anything outside the body had contaminated the exposed bone.
The man who Blake called Mark dragged a hand through his hair. “No, the bone is…Hell, it looked so bad, no one dared. The men threw a couple blankets over him and were rigging some plastic to keep him dry until I could find you. I’d medevac him myself, but Blake’s plane is basically a flying ambulance. Mine just doesn’t have that kind of equipment.”
“You made the right decision.” Although she hated to think of an injured man out in this weather, she didn’t want that exposed bone receiving additional damage from attempts to drag him to another site. And she hoped to God those blankets were clean. “How much bleeding is there?”
“Some. But nothing’s gushing.”
Thank God. No severed arteries.
“Is he conscious?”
Mark shook his head. “As soon as he hit the ground, he was out cold.”
Blake had gone out to warm up the car without being asked, for which she was grateful.
She and Mark hurried outside, and Molly slammed the hotel room door behind them. “We’ll follow you, okay?”
“You bet. The crate fell across the aisle, so we’ll have to circle around a bit to reach him, but at least it’ll block the worst of the wind.”
After she jumped into the car, Blake accelerated, following the taillights in front of them. “Put your hands over the vent. It’ll help keep them warm until we get there.”
She yanked off her gloves and held them over the heated flow of air. Not because it felt good, but because the warmer her hands stayed now, the more nimble they would be once they arrived. For a pilot, Blake knew a thing or two about medicine. But then again he flew rescue missions all the time. It gave her another insight into her father. By the time of his death he must have known almost as much as the EMTs and nurses he’d worked with.
“How far to the dockyard?” she asked.
“With the weather, fifteen minutes or so. It’s in Dutch Harbor, so we won’t have to cross the bridge into Unalaska.” He clicked the wipers into high gear to keep up with the sleety rain as they followed Mark’s taillights.
She peered into the sky. Heavy gray clouds. No sign of the rain letting up any time soon. “Why would anyone work in weather like this?”
“Sometimes you don’t have a choice.” He slid a glance at her, his lips tight. “You’re working.”
“Yes, but this is an emergency. And it’s my job.”
“Mine, too. The dockyard folks have to work as well, even if it’s just to secure the area.”
He had a point. And in a place famous for its rough weather, it probably came down to working or going hungry.
This was what her father must have faced time and time again. And yet he’d claimed to love it.
Why?
By the time they got to the container area, her thoughts had shifted to the job at hand. Blake followed Mark as he cruised between aisles of stacked containers.
So big.
She swallowed. “Can you imagine if one of these fell on somebody?”
“Yeah. I can.”
He’d not only imagined it, he’d seen it up close, if his tense jaw was anything to go by.
“Did he live?”
“Who?”
“The person you’re thinking about.”
A quick shake of his head conveyed his meaning all too well. Crush injuries were among the worst. And if the crate landed directly on top of someone…
The truck in front of them pulled to a stop, and Molly immediately spied a huge blue tarp stretched between two shipping containers.
She pulled the hood of her coat into place since it was still sleeting, grabbed her medical bag, then exited the vehicle. She was vaguely aware that Blake had also gotten out. Hurrying around Mark’s parked car, she found four men standing under the plastic, with a fifth man kneeling next to the victim, who appeared to be unconscious at the moment. The patient’s pale face and the slightly blue cast to his lips signaled shock. Her eyes quickly scanned the body through the blanket.
Crouching next to him, she felt for a pulse—which seemed strong enough—before pulling back the layers of blankets from his bottom half, noting the fabric of his work pants had been slit up the middle, laying bare his leg from ankle to groin. Good thinking.
The fracture was in the left femur, the jagged edge of the exposed bone pointing to the left as if thumbing a lift out of there.
Soon. I promise.
The other half of the break was nowhere to be seen, hidden somewhere deep inside his leg. But if it looked anything like the bone she could see…Her stomach knotted. Move him the wrong way and the sharp edges could indeed slice through an artery and kill him.
“How long’s he been unconscious?”
One of the men behind her answered. “About a half hour, maybe a little longer. I saw the whole thing. He was out as soon as his head hit the ground.”
“How hard did he hit?” She made a mental note to check for signs of a concussion or skull fracture.
“Pretty hard. And once we saw the angle of the leg, we knew it was broken. We just cut his pant leg to see how bad it was.” The man swallowed hard. They hadn’t expected to find what they had.
She slipped on a pair of latex gloves then used her thumb to pull back the wounded man’s right eyelid. Flicking the beam from her penlight across the pupil, she then repeated the action with the other eye.