Deserving Death Read Online Free PDF

sedatives, which was what she was thinking he’d overdosed on. She found nothing but a plain metal ring with two unlabelled door keys.
    ‘Why is she still in the ambulance?’ the woman said, looking past her at the vehicle.
    ‘She’s not well.’ Carly took the portable from her hip. ‘Thirty-nine.’
    ‘Thirty-nine, go ahead,’ Control answered.
    ‘I’m in a laneway off King Street in Newtown with an unconscious male patient, requiring another crew, please.’
    ‘Copy, Thirty-nine. On their way.’ His voice was gentle. ‘Sit tight.’
    Carly rehooked the radio, then glanced over her shoulder to see Tessa hunched down in the seat. Carly felt awful too, like her insides had been scooped out, her heart squeezed and stepped on, but letting this guy lie here uncared for wasn’t going to help.
    She slipped an oxygen mask onto his face and stuck monitoring dots to his chest. Sinus rhythm, a little on the slow side at fifty-eight. Oxygen sats of ninety-six per cent according to the clip she put on his finger. She pricked another finger for the blood glucose test, and while it was processing she checked his blood pressure. One hundred on seventy. Low, but not dangerously so.
    The woman was sitting cross-legged now, her skirt tucked into her lap, watching Carly and still holding the man’s hand. She looked about his age, early twenties, and had bright red cropped hair and multiple piercings in both ears and her lower lip.
    ‘I’m Carly,’ Carly said.
    ‘Susie. What do you think’s happened to him?’
    ‘I don’t know for sure.’ The glucometer beeped. Four point one. Normal. ‘You’re sure you’ve never seen him around before? You have no idea where he lives?’
    Susie shook her head.
    It wasn’t that unusual to take an unconscious person with no identification to hospital, but it meant that until they woke up there was no way to learn their medical history or let their family know where they were.
    Carly heard a siren in the distance. She opened the drug box and clipped a tourniquet around the man’s arm while glancing along the street, hoping to spot someone looking out a window, someone who might’ve seen him collapse or which way he’d come. But if anyone was watching, they weren’t showing themselves.
    Veins popped out all over his forearm. Not a frequent IV user then. Carly shaved the hair from his wrist, cleaned the skin with an alco-wipe, then slid a sixteen-gauge cannula into the vein. She got the flash of blood in the chamber and was pulling a strip of tape from the roll to secure it when the man’s breathing changed and his arm went rigid in her grip. His head twisted back and his feet drummed on the roadway.
    ‘What’s happening?’ Susie said.
    ‘He’s having a fit.’ Carly struggled to keep the cannula in place as his arm jerked. She needed the IV access now more than ever, to give him midazolam if the seizure didn’t end. His breath rasped through his clenched teeth. His body spasmed and a dark patch appeared in the crotch of his jeans. She smelled urine. His head twisted back further, his face turning purple. His skin grew slippery with sweat and she almost lost the cannula. Shit.
    Suddenly Tessa was there, dropping to her knees and grabbing the tape to secure the cannula. Carly kept hold just in case, because the tape didn’t always stick when the skin was sweaty. Tessa drew up the midazolam.
    ‘Is he choking?’ Susie said. ‘He’s going blue.’
    ‘All the muscles in his chest are in spasm so he’s not moving air very well,’ Carly said, as Tessa injected the drug. ‘Once this takes effect the muscles will relax and he’ll improve.’
    It wasn’t a great thing to be giving him more sedatives when he might’ve already taken some, but they had no choice. The risk now was that his breathing might slow down too much, but once his jaw relaxed they could intubate and control that for themselves.
    The tension left his body and he sagged, his breathing sluggish and snoring.