Page 26 of Miss Manage

I swallowed hard. “Got it.”

She paused long enough to tilt George’s head back and pinch his nose to give two breaths that filled his lungs. Afterward she snapped her gaze to me. “Your turn. Thirty compressions. Count them out loud.”

I positioned my hands where hers had been, locked my elbows, and started. “One, two, three…” His chest gave under me, harder than I expected, and every crack and shift made me flinch.

“Keep going, the important part is to keep the heart going even if it breaks a couple of ribs,” Charlotte ordered. Cool. Commanding.

At thirty I stopped, and she was already back down giving two more breaths before I resumed.

Please let him make it. Please don’t let this be the end of George’s life on the hallway floor.

The pit in my stomach grew with each compression as Charlotte quickly opened up the machine, turned on some knobs, and deftly got the sticky pads ready. After I counted out thirty, I stopped and waited for instruction.

“Rip open his shirt, so I can place these on. I need the chest bare to place the pads.”

I tore at the buttons, pulling the fabric wide as she pressed one pad high on George’s upper right chest, below the collarbone, and the other on his left side beneath the armpit.

A robotic voice from the device barked instructions, but she hardly seemed to need them as her hands moved with certainty.

Compressions resumed, and at the thirtieth, I paused, chest heaving, waiting for her call.

“Step back,” she instructed. “No one touch him.”

I scrambled clear, my heart hammering as the AED let out a sharp, mechanical beep.

“Analyzing heart rhythm,” the machine intoned. The sound of it was eerie in the near silence. The only other noise were the faint whispers of those watching from down the hall.

The voice spoke again. “Shock advised.”

Charlotte’s eyes flicked up to me, fierce and unflinching. “Clear!” she called out. She scanned the space before pressing the flashing orange button.

George’s body jolted, his torso arching off the floor.

“Resume compressions,” the machine ordered in its same cold, mechanical voice.

Charlotte positioned her hands and pressed hard and fast into his chest. Her cadence was steady, clinical, like she hadn’t already been doing this round after round. “One, two, three…”

I hovered at her side, feeling like every one minute was taking ten and hoping the paramedics arrived soon. “I’ll take the next set, and we’ll switch off.”

She nodded, her arms straining.

We fell into a routine. Charlotte delivering breaths, me hammering out compressions, then switching when her turn came again. The AED’s voice guided us, telling us to give him another shock. The world shrank to the cadence of push, breathe, switch, with our focus locked only on keeping George alive until help arrived.

Olivia’s voice cut through, shaky but loud as she clutched her phone. “The operator indicated the ambulance pulled up.”

Another cycle. Then another. My knees ached from the floor, my shirt clung damp to my back, but we kept moving in unison.

Finally, Rhys burst onto the scene, his face pale. “They’re here.”

I’d never been so relieved as when the two paramedics rushed in behind him.

“George is in his early sixties,” Charlotte supplied succinctly while they unpacked their gear. “He grabbed his chest and collapsed after looking pale and as though he had trouble catching his breath. Sixteen rounds of CPR, two rounds with the defibrillator. I believe he’s a type two diabetic, but please confirm with his wife.”

One of the paramedics dropped instantly and began taking vitals while the other unrolled tubing and an oxygen bag. The AED kept up its monotone commands, syncing with their work.

Within minutes, they had George intubated, an IV running, and the monitor showed a flicker of rhythm. Enough to lift him onto a stretcher, wires and tubes trailing, his chest rising with the mechanical pump of assisted breaths.

I leaned back against the wall, my lungs burning, my pulse still ragged as the chaos swept out with the paramedics.