The characters and situations associated with the TV program Doc Martin are the property of Buffalo Pictures. All I own is an overactive imagination.
I appreciate any feedback and advice from readers willing to share.
August 13 – today is Dr. Stirling Aylesworth's 34th birthday. All day, as she examines sprained wrists, enormous hemorrhoids, and ingrown toenails, she's been looking forward to a quiet night at home with her fiance, take-out fish and chips from The Crab and Lobster, and a warm bubble bath for two in her claw-footed tub.
Instead, she sits shivering in the middle of the Portwenn lifeboat, dressed in survival gear and a life jacket, her hair plastered to her head by driving rain, surrounded by big burly fishermen-types, en route to a large container ship located several miles off the rugged north coast of Cornwall in the rough Celtic Sea. Tucked inside a waterproof bag, she hugs her doctor's bag to her chest like it's a newborn baby, petrified it's going to be ripped from her arms by the next rogue wave.
She is absolutely, positively, fill your boots terrified.
Stirling is tempted to look behind her, to see exactly how far the craft has ventured past the protective break walls of the Portwenn harbour. But she's afraid she might honk-up her lunch. Instead, she stares straight ahead at the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ship they're aiming toward.
They've been fighting the sea and the wind for the past hour. A freak summer storm hit the area earlier that morning and is currently dumping unseasonable rain along the coast, including Portwenn. The storm is also churning up the waves, resulting in very rough conditions. There had been some uncertainty whether the lifeboat could deploy in such rough seas but the captain decided it was worth the risk, considering the deteriorating condition of the container ship's ill crew member – explaining Stirling's presence in the lifeboat.
A landlubber by choice, only a serious and life threatening situation would convince her to go out on the water in any boat, let alone the Portwenn lifeboat, something Stirling considers a glorified dinghy. And based on the conversations she had with the ship's captain earlier in the day, she's convinced that's what's facing her aboard the Sonnet's Wind.
She's wondering if she should be praying to Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea, for about the 15th time when she feels someone tap her on the shoulder. She looks over at the lifeboat captain, who points to the northwest. A large ship can be seen tossing on the rough waves. She gives him the thumbs up, relieved to finally have their destination in sight.
About 15 minutes later, the lifeboat manages to pull up alongside the huge ship. It's only then Stirling wonders how the hell she's going to get from the tiny lifeboat to the hulking container carrier, especially considering the rough sea. She almost pees her pants when the harness is lowered down to them.
"Put your upper body through this and fit it under your arms," the lifeboat captain yells in Stirling's ear, helping her into the safety harness. She clips her doctor's bag to one of the D-rings attached to the belt of her survival suit and waits to be hoisted away.
As soon as her feet leave the safety of the lifeboat, she feels like she's going to be sick. But she manages to keep the bile from rising too high in her throat. The winds buffet her from side to side as she is quickly lifted. Luckily, she never strikes the side of the vessel.
Within minutes, she is grabbed and pulled onto the ship's soaked and slippery deck. Several crew members help her remove the harness and one grabs her by the arm to lead her to the bridge.
Inside the ship, the floor continues to heave and rock dangerously but at least they are out of the rain and the wind. Stirling almost begins to feel secure. Following the crew member, she climbs several flights of stairs before she enters a glass fronted room looking out over the long, flat deck of the ship, which is currently stacked with layer upon layer of steel rectangular shipping containers.
A grey-haired man wearing a ball cap approaches Stirling, offering his hand.
"I'm Captain Baxter," he says with a strong Scandinavian accent.
Baxter? she thinks, wondering how he ended up with such an un-Scandinavian sounding last name.
"I'm Dr. Stirling Aylesworth," she says, shaking his hand. "Where's my patient?"
"We moved him to my quarters, which are just one level down," he explains, leading her to a smaller flight of stairs. "We don't have a medical bay on this ship but I couldn't keep him in his bunk bed."
After descending one level, Captain Baxter leads her down a short hall into a small bedroom. A young man in his twenties lies on a single bed in the room, moaning and rocking in pain. He's being watched by two other crew members who look completely terrified.
Stirling unclips her doctor's bag and unbuckles her survival suit belt, eventually shrugging out of the top half of the suit so she can move her arms more freely. Underneath, she wears a black T-shirt. She approaches the side of the bed, reaching out gently to touch the young man's stomach. As soon as her fingers touch his belly, he shrieks in pain.
"How long has he been like this?" she asks, opening her doctor's bag and digging out an ear thermometer. She sticks it in his right ear and tries to hold his head still until she can get a proper reading.
"It started yesterday afternoon," the captain says. "Odin complained of a sharp pain in his stomach. It wasn't all the time; it came and went. By dinner, he was in bed, too ill to eat. His moaning and vomiting woke his bunk mates in the middle of the night. We moved him here early this morning and contacted the British Coastguard."
Stirling's thermometer beeps and she looks at the readout, flinching as she records the numbers.
"He's running a very high temperature. I'm pretty sure it's appendicitis. I'm not sure whether his appendix has burst or not but we need to get him off this ship and into hospital quickly. His appendix needs to come out right now."
The captain looks pale.
"I've tried to get the coastguard to send out a helicopter but they've been unwilling because of the high winds," he explains.
Stirling looks at the young man writhing in pain.
"Let me talk to them. You get them on the radio while I make him more comfortable, give him a bit of something to help with the pain. I'll be up in a few minutes."
She looks around the room.
"Do you have somewhere I can wash my hands?"
"The head's over there," the captain says, pointing to a small sliding door in the wall that looks like it leads to a cupboard.
Inside, Stirling scrubs her hands thoroughly with soap and water before drying them with copious amounts of paper towel. Only then does she slip on her gloves and fill a syringe with a healthy dose of pain killer. She injects it quickly in his right arm and watches as he almost immediately begins to relax. His shipmates grin at Stirling as the moaning and rocking ceases.
"I haven't cured him," she mutters, unbuttoning her patient's shirt and gently removing it. She also undoes his trousers, pulling them slowly off leg by leg.
She gently palpates his stomach, starting at the top and moving clockwise, watching his sweat streaked face for any sign of pain. As she moves to the right lower quadrant, he flinches and cries out.
"Shit," she mutters.
She pulls some blankets up from the bottom of the bed and covers her patient.
"Keep him covered," she says to his two crew mates, who both smile and nod.
I hope they understand me, she thinks as she climbs the stairs back up to the bridge.
The captain is on the radio, arguing with someone.
"They are still refusing," he explains to her.
Stirling grabs the radio microphone.
"This is Dr. Stirling Aylesworth aboard the Sonnet's Wind. Who am I speaking with?"
Silence.
"You have to say 'over.'" whispers Captain Baxter.
Stirling rolls her eyes in frustration.
"This is Dr. Stirling Aylesworth aboard the Sonnet's Wind. Who am I speaking with? Over."
"This is Watch Officer Smythe at Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre Swansea. Over"
"Watch Officer Smythe, I have a patient in his early to mid-twenties who is going to die in the next six hours if he is not transported off this ship and taken to hospital immediately. He has all the symptoms of acute appendicitis and, if it hasn't already happened, his appendix will most likely burst in the next few hours. When that happens, the toxins from his infected appendix will spread through his body, resulting in peritonitis and septicemia and, ultimately, death. Let me assure you, it's not a nice way to go. I need a coastguard helicopter out here pronto. Over."
"Dr. Aylesworth, our helicopters are currently grounded due to high winds and dangerous conditions in your location. Over."
"I couldn't give a rat's ass how high the wind is, Watch Officer Smythe," Stirling says. "I need a helicopter out here NOW! OVER!"
The radio is silent.
"Let me contact my Watch Manager. Over"
"You do that Watch Officer Smythe. Over."
A few minutes later, a new voice comes over the radio and Stirling explains what she needs.
"Dr. Aylesworth, our helicopters are currently grounded due to high winds and dangerous conditions in your location. Over."
Do they work off a prepared script? she wonders.
"And as I explained to Watch Officer Smythe, I don't give a rat's ass. I have a man dying out here. He needs to be in hospital. Send me a bloody helicopter! And if you don't have the authority to do so, patch me through to someone who does. Because I'm running out of time!"
Ultimately, Stirling is put through to the District Officer with her request.
"I have a man dying out here off the north coast of Cornwall. He needs to be transported to hospital yesterday. I don't care if you have to call Prince William out of retirement or pull Prince Harry off his Army desk job in London, I need a helicopter pilot with enough goolies to fly out here and save this young man's life. OVER!"
"Give me 30 minutes. Over."
"I don't know if I have 30 minutes but I'll take it. Over."
Stirling hands the radio mike back to the captain.
"Monitor the radio and let me know what's happening. I need to get Odin ready for transport."
Stirling rushes back down to the captain's room and checks on her patient. He's starting to moan and move again. She tops up his painkiller meds and checks his temperature and heart rate.
Bad, bad, bad, she thinks. They better send that helicopter or I'm going to need to operate on a man using no anaesthesia and a bottle of whiskey for sterilizing the equipment.
With the help of his crew mates, she wraps Odin in several blankets and fits a safety harness on his body so he can be carried by four men through the narrow halls and stairs of the ship to the deck.
Ten minutes later, she hears the Captain shout down the stairs.
"Helicopter approaching, Doctor."
"Thank fucking god," Stirling mutters, getting her four helpers to pick up Odin and move him outside. She follows with her doctor's bag, zipping the top of her survival suit closed.
Out on deck, after several failed attempts, the helicopter crew finally manages to drop down a stretcher for her patient. The crew lifts Odin in and carefully straps him down.
"You're going to have to ride up with him," Captain Baxter shouts in her ear.
Stirling looks at him like he's lost his mind.
"What!"
"They can't risk two lifts. You're going to have to ride up on the stretcher with Odin. They need you to keep him stable for the flight to the hospital."
This has to be the most horrific birthday of my entire life, Stirling thinks, placing her doctor's bag into the stretcher basket and climbing in, situating herself in the centre area and bracing her feet on either side of the patient.
She holds up the loop as the attachment cable is lowered. It takes several attempts but eventually the two cables are attached, luckily with minimal electric shock due to the static build up.
Stirling squats down on the stretcher and braces her feet as it begin to lift. She balances herself further by gripping the centre support cables. As the basket sways back and forth in the wind, she wonders who she pissed off in a past life to warrant this kind of cruel and unusual punishment.
Come out to the coast, become a GP, live the adventure, she mentally mutters.
As soon as the winch brings the stretcher horizontal with the helicopter's side door, one of the flight crew snags it with a hook, pulls it into the body of the flying vehicle and closes the door. Instantly, the helicopter veers away from the container ship on its way to the mainland.
Stirling scrambles out of the stretcher, dragging her bag with her.
"Dr. Aylesworth, I presume," says the flight crew member, shaking hands with her. "You sure put a burr up the arse of our District Officer. He was begging for volunteers. I haven't been scared out of my mind in a while so I signed on. I'm Captain Kingston and the idiot flying this bird is Flight Captain Osgoode. Welcome aboard."
"Thank you, Captain," Sterling says. "You both have most likely saved this man's life."
She monitors Odin's vitals during the 10-minute flight to Truro, the closest hospital to their location.
As the helicopter settles on the landing pad and the side door opens, Stirling's not at all surprised to see her Chief among the first responding hospital staff.
Dr. Martin Ellingham serves pretty much as a full-time surgeon at the Truro hospital, putting in one day per week as a GP at the Portwenn surgery. A life or death emergency appendectomy is just his style.
"Good afternoon, Chief," she says, hopping out of the helicopter and trotting behind her patient as he is wheeled into the hospital. She briefs the Doc as quickly as she can regarding the medications she has administered, his last recorded vitals and her thoughts on how the appendicitis is presenting.
She stops outside the surgery doors.
"Good luck, Chief," she says as he enters.
"Good work, Dr. Aylesworth," he says before shutting the operating room door.
As Stirling walks out of the surgical wing and into the main area of the hospital, she grins. The Chief has never praised her before. Ever.
She throws her doctor's bag in the air in celebration, watching it rotate three times before catching it on the way down.
"Aces!" she shouts, startling several people walking by in the hall, who turn to stare at the strange woman in the orange jumpsuit and life jacket who resembles a half-drowned poodle with her frizzy auburn hair.
Stirling is still silently celebrating when she enters the main entrance hall of the hospital. She's about to walk out the front doors and hail a cab when the hears a very familiar voice call her name.
"Stirling!"
She turns around and spots him, grinning as she runs towards him, leaping into his arms and wrapping her long legs around his waist. Her assault almost knocks him over but he manages to keep his balance, putting his arms around her bottom to support her weight while leaning forward to kiss her.
Several people walking by turn to stare at the strange sight – a woman in an orange survival suit and life jacket passionately kissing a Devon and Cornwall Police sergeant in the middle of the Truro hospital reception area.
"What are you doing here, lover boy?" she teases after breaking away from their kiss, her arms around his shoulders and legs still wrapped around his waist.
"The coastguard said this was where I'd be able to find you," he says, giving her another quick peck. "So I put on the blues and twos and raced the Land Rover down here so I could give you a ride home. No cab-ride home for the birthday girl."
"Aren't you sweet," she says, kissing him again.
Reluctantly, he pulls away from her lips, setting her down so he can look her up and down.
"You do realize you're wearing a life jacket over a rather vibrantly coloured survival suit, even though you're currently standing on dry land?"
"But isn't this what all fashionably dressed lifeboat GPs are wearing these days?" she asks.
He smiles, leaning in to kiss her again.
"I love you, Dr. Stirling Aylesworth," he whispers.
"And I love you, Sergeant Joseph Penhale."