LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FOUR

      “LOOK, THERE SHE IS.” Santi pointed toward the end of the block where a woman was running down the lawn with a swaddled child in her arms.

      Saoirse pulled the vehicle alongside the frantic mother seconds later.

      “You do immediate attending, I’ll get the gear ready,” she commanded, before flying out of the cab to open up the back.

      “I thought you were the one in training. All experience is good experience.”

      “Not today I’m not.” There was an edge to her voice, different from the professional terseness he’d seen the day before. There was definitely a story there. He yanked his stethoscope from around his neck and jumped out of the vehicle. Another time, another place.

      “My baby’s not breathing! Please help my little boy!” The mother held the child in her outstretched arms toward Santi. While very pale, the baby boy had streaks of color in his cheeks, so he was clearly getting some oxygen, but even with Saoirse’s high-octane slamming of doors and the growing chatter of onlookers he could hear a rattle in the child’s quick, painful-sounding breaths.

      “What’s his name?”

      “Carlos—same as his papi. I’m Maria-Rose.”

      “That’s a good, strong name for a boy.” Santiago took the child in his arms. Calming the parent was often half the trick in cases like this. “Has Carlos produced any phlegm, Maria-Rose?” he asked, steering the mother toward the ambulance and unwrapping the blanket. Children weren’t his forte, though he’d tended to his fair share of locals on his tours. The humanitarian side of being in the military had always appealed to him far more than treating victims of actual combat. He stopped the memories in midflow, quickly pulling back the child’s blanket and sleep suit. He hoped when he got the child fully unclothed he wouldn’t see a rash. The little boy’s cheek was hot to the touch and he wasn’t crying at all.

      She shook her head. “He has been very lethargic, whining more than crying through the night. And then there’s that blue tinge to his tongue. Can you see it?”

      He gently opened the boy’s mouth with his fingers and saw there was a blue tinge not only to his tongue but on the inside of his lips as well.

      “We’d better get your son some oxygen.” He quickly ran through the child’s medical history with Maria-Rose, immunizations, no problems with the birth to speak of, and onset of symptoms.

      “Just the past day or so that I’ve noticed.” She wrung her hands nervously, as if she’d given the wrong answer. Timing was critical with small children. She’d been wise to call for emergency services.

      “Only twenty-four hours? Okay. Any trips since he’s been born?” he asked, pressing his stethoscope to the child’s chest only to hear the thick rattle that said one thing: pneumonia.

      The mother shook her head.

      “Good. What about you? Did you travel at all while you were pregnant?” From what he’d heard, there were lots of problems with women unknowingly affected by the Zika virus. He ran his hand across the child’s scalp—it felt normal size—so nothing to obviously suggest he, too, was a victim of the mosquito-borne affliction.

      “Are you kidding?” She threw up her hands. “We’ve been saving all our money to go to Carlos and his education.”

      The same as his parents had done. Sacrificed everything so their children could have it all. The closest they’d come to “returning” to their homeland of Heliconia had been Vizcaya on Biscayne Bay. The tropical gardens had always sent his mother into raptures of homesickness.

      The weight of the child in his arms realigned his focus.

      “Good. Any problems feeding?”

      “In here, Santi.” Saoirse waved him to the back of the ambo, climbing up the steps as he approached.

      “What do you need?”

      Santi’s brain shot from information gathering to action mode. “High-flow oxygen, amoxicillin—”

      “Did you check for allergies?” Saoirse’s tone was sharp but not accusatory. Safety first and all that.

      “Yes. No allergies that the mother is aware of.” He took the oxygen tube she offered and gently taped it in place on the little boy’s face. “Can you inject the antibiotics into the saline solution please? Until we get cultures at the hospital we won’t know exactly what we’re dealing with but I’m pretty sure it’s pneumonia.”

      “Do you see that?” Saoirse’s voice was low.

      Santi narrowed his eyes and nodded after a moment. A rash. “Do you have any slides? It could be nothing, but it could just as easily be invasive pneumococcal.”

      “Septicemia?” She handed him a slide, nodding at his diagnosis.

      “Maybe, or Zika—but I don’t think the Zika rash manifests like this. Have you seen any cases?” Santi pressed the clear slide against the boy’s skin, nodding as Saoirse said she’d heard about it but had never seen a case. “It blanches. That’s a good thing.”

      “Doesn’t mean there isn’t septicemia,” she whispered, aware the boy’s mother was straining to hear everything they said.

      “True.” He nodded. “Let’s get an IV into this little guy and hit the road.”

      “Yup. I’d just like to test his fontanelle before we head off.”

      Santi slipped in the IV, aware of how crucial fluids were for a sick child, all the while ratcheting up a few more respect points for Saoirse. Her experience as a NICU nurse clearly put her miles ahead of your average trainee paramedic. Most wouldn’t know their way around pediatric lingo with the comfort level she was displaying. Or exhibit unerring competency in the crucial tests as she was.

      Someone, he thought as he watched her finish the examination of the baby’s head while he secured the IV line, has a bit of a history.

      * * *

      “What do you feel?” Santi asked after a moment’s silence.

      “It’s not tense. No swelling. Hopefully, it’s not meningitis.” Saoirse pressed herself up from the bench, hoping her face bore nothing more than a picture of professional efficiency. “Right, Maria-Rose. Do you want to jump in and we’ll get your little man to Seaside Hospital for some tests, okay?”

      As she slammed the doors shut, she saw Santi as the rest of the world might see him. Gorgeous, yes. But there was something deeper than that. A skilled paramedic, body taut with focus, driven to do the best he could for the small child laid out on the gurney.

      He cared.

      Santi was in this all the way, no showboating. And that was something she could relate to. What you saw was what you got. For the most part, anyway.

      She pulled open the driver’s door and flicked on the sirens with a grin. Maybe her new partner wouldn’t be so bad after all.

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