Kisses at Sunset

‘My dad’ll kill me,’ she muttered, lifting her head and glaring at Tina. ‘This is your bloody fault! You never should have given her the stuff. You were so out of order!’

‘I didn’t give it to her,’ Tina choked, tears streaming down her face, and Kat took a deep breath, deciding that she had no choice but to intervene.

‘Look, it’s important that I tell the team that she’s taken ecstasy, so I’m going to do that now, and when I come back I want the phone number of her parents, OK?’

One glance at their ashen, sulky faces told her that it clearly wasn’t OK at all, but she decided that she didn’t have time for them at the moment. Holly was the priority.

‘Paula…’ She stuck her head into Reception. ‘Can someone keep half an eye on those two for a moment, please? I need to go back to Resus and speak to Josh.’

‘No problem. I’ll do it myself.’ Paula stood up and Kat gave her a grateful smile then walked briskly back to Resus.

It was a hive of activity, with Josh delivering instructions in cool, calm tones that kept everyone focused.

‘Kat?’ He glanced in her direction and raised a dark eyebrow. ‘Tell me you’ve got news for me.’

‘Ecstasy,’ she said immediately, and he gave a nod, a flicker of respect in his eyes as he looked at her. Clearly he’d anticipated that she’d have trouble extracting the information from the teenagers.

‘Anything else?’

‘Alcopops. It appears she lost consciousness quite early on in the evening, but they all assumed she was drunk.’

‘Presumably they were all too drunk to notice the difference,’ Josh said wearily. ‘Remind me to have a word with Doug, our community policeman. They need to keep a closer eye on the beach in the evenings. OK, folks, let’s give her that sodium bicarb.’

There was a flurry of activity and one of the nurses glanced at the machine with a frown. ‘She has severe tachycardia, Josh.’

Kat looked at the machine and noticed that the girl’s heart rate was incredibly fast.

‘Let’s give her 5 milligrams of metoprolol IV,’ Josh instructed calmly, his blue gaze flickering first to the machine and then back to the girl on the trolley. ‘Her blood pressure is going up, too. Let’s try some nifedipine and then we need to get a CT scan before we transfer her to Intensive Care. My guess is she’ll show cerebral oedema.’

‘Kat?’ Paula popped her head round the door at that moment and held out a piece of paper. ‘There’s the number you were after.’

‘You’re a genius!’ Kat took the paper and smiled at the woman. ‘How did you do it?’

Paula gave a modest shrug. ‘Appealed to the conscience of the little dark-haired one. She’s not such a tough nut as the other one.’

Kat read the number on the paper and gave a sigh. ‘I suppose I’d better phone and tell them where their daughter is.’

‘Is that the parents?’ Josh checked the ECG reading and then glanced across at her. ‘If so, you definitely need to call them. They need to get down here. After the CT scan we’re transferring her to Intensive Care. She’s going to need ventilating. Do you want me to ring the parents or are you OK with that?’

Kat shook her head. ‘I can do it.’

Just about the worst job in the A and E department, she reflected, but she could do it.

She called the parents, gave them the barest information but tried not to worry them, and then returned to Resus to find that they were preparing Holly for a CT scan of her brain.

The girl was unconscious now and something about her pale face tugged at Kat’s heart.

She turned to Josh. ‘Will she be OK, do you think?’

He gave a shrug. ‘Who knows?’ His voice was hard. ‘Drugs aren’t to be messed with.’

‘Weird really…’ Kat frowned. ‘This place is so far away from the streets of London and yet you have the same problems as a big city.’

‘In some ways we have more problems.’ Josh scanned a blood result that someone handed him. ‘That looks a bit better. Where were we?’ He glanced at her, momentarily distracted from their conversation. ‘Oh, yes, the problems of living in a seaside town. Unfortunately, because we have such good surfing beaches, inevitably we attract a pretty lively crowd. A young crowd. Generally it’s all pretty harmless but not always, and there are always unscrupulous individuals out to make money from the unwary. The main problem is usually alcohol. Teenagers come down here to surf and party and they over-indulge. Saturday nights are the worst.’

Kat gave a rueful smile. ‘I can imagine.’

He looked at her. ‘It won’t be anything you haven’t seen before. Teenagers behave like teenagers. It’s just the setting that’s different. Are the parents coming?’