Free Ultimate Power by Arno Joubert Page B

blood. “What blood type is he?” he asked Alexa over his shoulder.
    “How the fuck should I know?”
    “Give him ringers and warm the O negative,” the man working with the drip said. “How’s his blood pressure?” The name tag on his chest said Williams .
    The man rummaged in the fridge, looking for the right bag.
    “Jackson, blood pressure?” Williams shouted, inserting another thick IV line into Laiveaux’s arm.
    “Seventy over forty, he’s lost a lot of blood.”
    The man nodded with pursed lips. “Ok, let’s keep him hypotensive, he’ll bleed less that way. He’s got a fractured leg and ribs, it’ll be difficult putting pressure on those.”
    Jackson removed a bag from the fridge, inserting a plastic tube into it. He ran the tube around a device on a pole and clipped the bag onto the pole. He removed a large bag with white fluid and inserted the IV line that Williams was working with into the bag. “Ringers is a go.”
    Williams moved over to the General’s throat. He waved Alexa over. “I need your help.”
    She shuffled over and crouched next to the General. Laiveaux tried to speak, but he choked, a frothy mixture of blood spilling from his mouth.
    “Keep still, General,” the medic said as he looked at Alexa. “He can’t breath properly, I need to perform a cric.”  
    Alexa’s entire body shook. “A crike?”
    “A Cricothyroidotomy.” He held a metal tube in the air. “Look, I need to insert this into his windpipe.” He pointed at the other medic. “Jackson over here will help me get the damn thing in, but you need to keep on transfusing the General. Jackson show her how.”
    The medic removed two bags of blood and put them into her hands. “Open the bag here, then connect it like this.” Alexa watched closely as he performed the procedure. “Then you squeeze it gently like your baby’s boobies…Sorry. You know what I mean. Get every last drop into him.”
    She took the transfusion bag from the man.
    “Okay, give me one hundred milligrams of Ketamine,” Williams said.
    Jackson injected something into the IV line and looked up. “Okay, ready.”
    “Let’s give it a minute. Don’t worry, General. You won’t feel a thing.”
    Laiveaux closed his eyes.  
    They started working on his throat, pulling the flaps of skin apart.  
    He picked up a scalpel. “Okay, I’ll make a thirty millimeter longitudinal cut like this,” he said and slit through the skin. “Dab it, Jackson, I need to see what I’m doing.”
    Jackson dabbed the blood away with hessian gauss.
    “And now we pop the Cricothyroid membrane, like this.” He turned the scalpel around and used the blunt end to make a hole into the membrane.
    Jackson held the tube over the opening and looked at Williams. “Ready?”
    The man nodded.
    Jackson slammed his palm onto the tube and it went straight into Laiveaux’s throat. Alexa could hear the air escape from the tube, and then the General’s chest moved rhythmically up and down as he started breathing normally.
    Jackson sat back and leaned against the cockpit wall. “Shit, that’s the first time I’ve ever done that.” He looked at Alexa. “How many units?”
    She had forgotten to connect another bag. Shit.
    “Don’t worry,” Williams said, pushing her away. “I’ll do it.”
    Alexa crawled back to the bench and rested her head on her arms. Williams started cutting her pants from her leg, inspecting the wound. It was her fault that Laiveaux was dying. Why did she always go barreling into dangerous situations like a bull in a China shop? There must have been a better way to have extracted the man? Why was she always angry? Her anger could cost the general his life.
    They arrived in Kabul an hour later. The medics stretchered the General towards a waiting ambulance which rushed him to the National Military Hospital where he was taken directly into theatre.
    She waited in front of the theatre while the doctors tried to persuade her to move to a hospital bed