Ellie hurried to the phone and was back minutes later with the information.
'That's less than an hour by ambulance,' Ben said tersely as he finished taking the necessary bloods. 'Can you arrange transport? We need to get her there as fast as possible. If you sort out the ambulance I'll call the consultant and set up an escort.'
'I've already done it,' Ellie said immediately. 'They'll be here in five minutes.'
Ben blinked. 'Well done.' He smiled briefly and Ellie felt warmth spread through her insides. It felt surprisingly good to be praised by him.
She risked another look at him but mere was no sign of the tension that had affected him so badly yesterday.
Maybe he'd just been tired.
She waited while Ben wrote a letter to go with the patient and then helped her into the ambulance, along with the son.
'How was the son doing?' she asked Ben as they watched the ambulance pull away, blue fight flashing.
'All right, according to Sean.'
'Thank goodness they have their milk delivered. Imagine if no one had seen them. They would have died.'
Ellie wrapped her arms around her middle and gave a shiver as the cold winter air oozed through the thin fabric of her theatre pyjamas. 'Can I ask you something?'
'Of course.' He turned to face her, his expression patient.
'What made you think it might be carbon monoxide poisoning? I've never seen it before,' Ellie confessed. 'I thought one of the signs is that the patient is cherry red, but she was really pale.'
He nodded. "Cherry-red colouring of the skin is actually very rare in live patients. It's sometimes seen in fatal carbon monoxide poisoning.'
Ellie digested that piece of information. 'And why hyperbaric oxygen for her and not the child?'
'Because, although it sounds logical, there's actually no proven benefit after carbon monoxide poisoning and it's often difficult to care for a critically ill patient in a small chamber,' he told her. 'However, she's pregnant, which makes a difference. I've spoken to the consultant at the hospital and he's going to assess her when she arrives.'
'Oh.' Ellie was impressed by the depth of Ben's knowledge.
There was a hint of amusement in his dark eyes as he looked at her expectantly. 'Anything else?'
There were hundreds of things she wanted to ask him. Like how did he always kno
w what to do in any given situation?
'Will she be all right? Will she have problems in the future?'
He breathed out heavily. 'That's harder to answer. Some patients develop neurological and psychiatric problems a few weeks after poisoning but they usually settle down.'
'Oh. Well, I hope so.' Ellie smiled up at him. 'You were brilliant. There seemed to be no clues when they were admitted but within minutes you knew exactly what was wrong with them.'
Ben shrugged dismissively. 'A and E medicine is often a bit like detective work. Doctors in other specialities usually get a history, we just get a patient and have to guess from the symptoms. But there are always clues. It's just a question of spotting them. Now, let's go back inside before we both freeze.'
Ellie walked with him back into the unit, thinking that he was obviously an extremely clever man.
Clever and disturbingly attractive.
The department was full to bursting all day and it was towards the end of the afternoon when Ellie's pager went off.
Ben looked at her as they finished stitching a patient who'd fallen through a plate-glass window. 'Is that a callout?'
Ellie looked at the pager and nodded. "They need a dog team up on the fells. I've got to rendezvous at the Drunken Fox in twenty minutes.'
'Then you'd better go.'