Scalpel Read Online Free PDF Page A

let's do it?' He walked away from the stainless steel wash sinks and stood slightly to the side of the operating table, eyes fixed on the swollen belly of Sandra O'Brien.
    June Morrison and the nurse aide exchanged glances as the younger woman offered another set of sterile gloves. Their looks said it all. This was going to be an ordeal for everyone concerned.
    It was now 12.06 pm.
     
     
    Inside his helicopter Harry O'Brien was barking into a mobile phone, trying desperately to make out the faint signal coming back down the line. 'Jesus, Jesus Christ!' he screamed into the mouthpiece. 'What's going on?' But the roll of the chopper blades was too strong and drowned out the reply.
    He flicked off the phone and stared ahead, stony faced, as the helicopter pulled off to the east and its descent towards the maternity hospital. If anything happens to this child, I'll kill. I swear I'll kill.
    It was now 12.07 pm.
     
     
    Inside Sandra O'Brien's womb her unborn son was struggling to survive. His heart rate was barely sixty beats a minute, his limbs were weakening. He was getting tired. The threshing movements had stopped and only the foetal monitor showed life still existed. Everyone in Operating Room Two kept checking that monitor and everyone was becoming more and more concerned. Time was running out. Dean Lynch looked to Don O'Callaghan and nodded he was ready. O'Callaghan, a man nearing retirement and glad of that, nodded back. Lynch looked towards Paddy Holland who was standing by the paediatric resuscitation trolley. To his immediate right stood his senior registrar, a young female doctor with over six years' paediatric intensive care training, and to her right again a paediatric intensive care nurse. Holland acknowledged Lynch's nod. The team was ready.
    Lynch turned to Don O'Callaghan. 'Let's do it,' he said.
    All eyes focused on him as he stepped up onto a small foot stool beside the operating table to get a higher position. No one else needed such a lift, the stool usually reserved for some of the smaller nurses assisting at operations. As he swabbed and draped, June Morrison noticed his breathing settle, become much slower. His hand movements also relaxed. She looked up in time to see his eyes narrow to slits as he picked up the scalpel in readiness to carve into Sandra O'Brien's pregnant stomach.
    The staff of Theatre Two braced themselves.
    It was now 12.09 pm.
     
     
    6
    12.11 pm
     
     
    The blade entered her body in one decisive hand movement. From somewhere deep inside her almost totally anaesthetised brain, Sandra O'Brien screamed. The blade continued its downward sweep, from navel to pubis, opening up her belly and exposing the bulging muscle layers underneath. Dean Lynch felt her buckle with pain underneath the green drapes. Behind his face mask a smile flickered.
    Don O'Callaghan noted her chewing on the endotracheal tube, head rocking slightly, and squirted extra pethidine down the IV line. He had barely had enough time to get Sandra O'Brien anaesthetised before Dean Lynch started his one stroke incision. O'Callaghan hated working with Lynch and always tried to keep one step ahead with adequate anaesthesia before the scalpel was used. But today Lynch was in total control, the urgency of the operation taking priority. Feeling the sweat run down his back, O'Callaghan began conferring with his anaesthetic nurse who was already checking Sandra O'Brien's pulse and blood pressure. He slipped a fresh plug of nicotine chewing gum into his mouth. Out of the corner of one eye he kept a close watch on the operation, noting the speed of the surgeon's hand movements.
    Within one minute Lynch was through the outer and inner muscle layers and had exposed the thin lining of peritoneum covering the swollen womb beneath. He cut into and divided the peritoneum with a pair of blunt scissors and pushed it out of the way with a gauze swab. Two warm moist cloth packs were used to keep the exposed bowel at bay. Then, with careful