The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [134]
“One nurse went home sick.” The woman said the words in rhythm to the downward thrusts of her hands against Christine’s breastbone. “Two more are at lunch. They’ll be here.”
David continued the artificial breathing. “We need someone on the cart,” he muttered. “We need someone on the goddamn cart.” With the nurse unable to stop her cardiac massage, the trays of critical medications might as well have been on the moon.
An orderly Wandered in. David snapped at him to take a blood pressure. The man tried twice. “Nothing,” he said.
“Can you do CPR?” David asked, hoping he might free the nurse to return to the emergency cart. The man shook his head and backed away. “Shit!” David hissed.
He looked down at Christine. There were no more spontaneous respirations, no signs of life. Her body was covered with deep blue mottling. Unless he could get help very soon—one more pair of skilled hands—Christine would slip beyond resuscitation. For five seconds, ten, he stood motionless. The young nurse watched him, her eyes narrowed in mounting concern.
Suddenly a woman’s voice called out, “Whatever you need, Doctor, just order it.”
Margaret Armstrong stood poised by the emergency cart. Her left eye was swollen nearly shut by a huge bruise covering the side of her face. Blood trickled from one nostril. Still she held herself regally, unmindful of the stares from around the room.
David’s decisiveness, already dulled by Christine’s lack of response, became further blunted by fear and uncertainty. “You … you can take over the cardiac massage,” he said, wishing the woman were not standing so close to the medication cart. There were any number of drugs there that could serve as lethal weapons.
Armstrong shook her head. “No, no. You’re both stronger than I am. Besides, I’m a nurse, and a good one. I’ll handle meds. Now, dammit, let’s get on with it!”
David hesitated another moment, then shifted into high gear, calling out for antidotes to the substances Dalrymple would have been most likely to use. The crunching blow Armstrong had absorbed had no apparent effect on her reactions or efficiency. She was, as she had claimed, an incredibly good nurse. Adrenalin, concentrated glucose, more naloxone, calcium, more bicarbonate—she drew them up and administered them with speed and total economy of movement.
More help arrived. Another nurse offered to relieve Armstrong, but was directed to the blood pressure cuff.
“She’s still not breathing on her own,” David said. “I think we should intubate.”
Armstrong reached up and pressed her fingers against Christine’s groin, searching for a femoral artery pulse. She looked at David grimly and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.
“All right. Give me a laryngoscope and seven-point-five tube.”
“Hold it!” Armstrong’s eyes began to smile. “Wait … wait … It’s here, Doctor,” she said. “It’s here.”
Seconds later, the nurse operating the blood pressure cuff sang out, “I’ve got one! I hear a pressure! Faint at sixty. No, wait, eighty. Getting louder! Getting louder!”
David rechecked Christine’s pupils. They were definitely wider. Another fifteen seconds and she began to breathe. The young nurse who had helped from the beginning gave David a thumbs-up sign and pumped her fists exultantly in the air.
The final concern in everyone’s mind disappeared when Christine moaned softly, rolled her head from side to side, then fluttered her eyes open. They fixed immediately on David.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi, yourself,” he answered.
Around the room people congratulated one another.
“I … I feel much better. My headache’s almost gone.” Her expression darkened. “David, Miss Dalrymple. I think she might be the one who …”
He silenced her with a finger against her lips. “I know, hon,” he said with soft reassurance. “I know everything.”
She strained to see inside his words, then calmed perceptibly. “I do feel better. Much better, David. Dr. Armstrong is a miracle worker.