Heading down the corridor, she was about to peel off to the doors leading outside and to the mess area when a commotion at the end of the hallway caught her attention. By the looks of it, it was a gunshot wound to the chest, and as this wasn’t in any of her scenarios for her own hospital, she knew it was a genuine casualty.
‘What happened?’ she asked, forgetting her other plans and racing towards the incident.
‘Gunshot wound to the upper right quadrant of the chest from three hundred to four hundred metres. Penetrating front to back.’
Meaning that the round would have lost a significant amount of velocity before it had hit the casualty, Mattie calculated quickly.
‘Combat medics describe open sucking chest wound. Used the casualty’s field dressing to occlude it, as well as some other materials to hand.’
‘BP?’ she asked.
Good, so at least that suggested no significant loss of blood and therefore no vital organs had been hit.
‘Stable. Slightly elevated pulse and breathing.’
‘From the mask I’d say oxygen saturations are down?’
‘Slightly.’
So probably a small hole. If it was much bigger the air would have wanted to move out of the chest wound instead of the airway and breathing would be a more serious problem. Still, she suspected the exit wound would be enlarged and jagged, experience having taught her that it was likely the bullet would have destabilised as it had penetrated the chest tissues, and therefore turned sideways slightly.
‘Let’s have a look and get him to CT,’ Mattie instructed, taking up position on one side of the gurney and running her fingers over the tissues of the chest.
It felt like bubble wrap under the skin and seemed to confirm the pneumothorax diagnosis.
So much for her coffee and food, but this was what she loved doing. What she lived for—saving lives.
* * *
‘All right, so the left side looks normal, as expected.’ She eyed the monitor a short while later. ‘Right side we have collapsed lung, clouding suggesting haemo-pneumothorax, and soft-tissue distortion suggesting surgical emphysema. However, there appears to be no bone damage, with the round apparently entering and exiting between the ribs, so that’s good. Let’s get him into surgery, shall we?’
Some wound exploration, cleaning and insertion of a tube to drain the blood and air, and reinflate the lung. Hopefully the kid should be okay. It wasn’t a great thing to happen to him, but she’d seen a lot worse.
* * *
‘Ma’am, the liaison from Strike Brigade arrived whilst you were in surgery.’ One of the junior NCOs from Command post was waiting for her when she got out.
‘Thank you, Corporal,’ she acknowledged. ‘Please tell him I’ll be right over.’
She didn’t wait for the confirmation before popping into ICU to check on her patient one more time. She would have preferred to hold on just a little longer to be sure, but it probably wasn’t the best idea.
Percy would probably think she’d deliberately kept his company sergeant major waiting, but that was too bad. She wasn’t here to pander to Major Copperhead’s ego. Hopefully, the liaison would know that. Still, it would be better to leave her patient with her team and go and find out what new scenarios Strike Brigade wanted to put into play.
Hurrying down the labyrinth of corridors that led to the command post on the other side of the hospital, Mattie practically burst through the doors.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Surgical emergency.’
She froze in shock.
It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
‘Ma’am, this is WO2 Wheeler, Strike Brigade liaison for the new medical scenarios. Sir, this is Major Brigham, CO of this field hospital. She’ll be running the medical exercises.’
Mattie didn’t speak. She didn’t even move.
She couldn’t.
All she could do was stand and watch as Kane rose and, after barely the briefest hint of a pause, saluted. She had no idea how she managed it but she braced in acknowledgement, still reeling.