Read Online (2013) Looks Could Kill by David Ellis - Free Book Online

blood, Mr Edwards, but you’ll have to promise me that you won’t be away for long in case we need to do other tests. And you really shouldn’t smoke, you know.”
    He rolled up his sleeve and she swabbed his arm and efficiently took some specimens, squirting the contents of the syringe into various bottles which she labelled.
    “I’ll see you later.” She left his bedside, drawing back the curtain.
    Just at that moment, she heard matron call out “Crash call, nurse!” whilst simultaneously pulling the curtain around a patient a few beds down. Emma stood rooted to the spot, not sure what to do. Medical emergencies had never figured that highly at medical school, and anyway she had always been somewhat avoidant, preferring a slower pace where everything was more in control.
    “You!” called matron. “Don’t just stand there! Fetch the crash trolley!” Emma glanced towards where matron was pointing and ran to the other end of the ward, dropping off the blood tray at the nurses’ station on her way.
    The crash trolley was painted red and had a sign above it saying ‘Crash Trolley’, so it was impossible to miss it. Emma grabbed it and manoeuvred it to the curtained-off bed. The patient in question was elderly and unresponsive. Matron was bent over him, performing chest compressions, with her considerable bulk all but obliterating his tiny frame. “You do the breaths!” she ordered.
    Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was also something that Emma had little practical experience of, although she remembered watching a grainy video of how it should be done. She went to the other end of the bed and stared down at the man’s grey, cadaverous face. She saw far too much suffering and now the poor man was having his ribs broken by matron.
    Emma bent down, grasping and closing his nose with one hand and pulling his jaw down and forward with the other. She tentatively applied her mouth to his. Something solid moved beneath her lips. She realised with revulsion that he had dentures. She’d been told that dentures were always the first thing to check for before doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and she’d failed at her first attempt. She inserted a couple of fingers into his mouth and removed the dentures which came out with a sucking, squelching sound. She deposited them in a pot handed to her by a nurse. Emma reapplied her mouth to his, taking a deep breath and then blowing into his edentulous mouth, turning her head to check that his chest was inflating. It wasn’t. She tried again and saw his sunken cheeks inflate but not his chest.
    “Come on, doctor, put some effort into it,” demanded matron, whose pumping was vibrating the bed and much of the ward. Just as she started again, the curtains parted and the crash team appeared, out of breath after running down numerous corridors.
    The team stared in amazement at the site of matron appearing to be virtually in flagrante delicto on top of the patient. “Glad to see you,” said matron, “and relieved to see some true professionals to take over the CPR.” Emma blushed.
    “This is an 84-year-old four days post-op with a perforated DU and no complications until now,” matron announced to the crash team.
    The crash team registrar turned to Emma: “Have you anything to add - he looked at her badge - Dr Jones?”
    “Sorry, I’ve never met the patient,” said Emma, mainly addressing the floor.
    The crash team took over and Emma left the bed area, feeling as deflated as the patient’s chest. She returned to where she’d left the blood specimens and checked that she’d completed the labelling correctly. She marked the forms ‘urgent’, added her bleep number, and put them in the out-tray for the porter to collect. She found the porter’s number and asked him to make an urgent collection for the labs. This was greeted with the usual lack of enthusiasm.
    She thought she should write up an alcohol detox for Mr Edwards to be on the safe side and consulted the hospital