Victoria Pullen was fast approaching 40, and it was she who nursed Sir
Avery until the end of his life.
Working as a
private nurse in palliative care meant that she led a very nomadic life, but
with the lump sum left to her by Sir Avery gave her options, so she had decided
she had had enough of being a nomad and had been looking for something more
permanent since getting her windfall but hadn’t as yet found somewhere to put
down roots.
She was enjoying her time on
the island though, and the Hotel was excellent, but on Saturday Night she was
on her way back to her room after Dinner with Elisa when they heard someone
being violently sick but had no idea where it was coming from.
So they carried on down the
hall and the next door they passed was slightly ajar, and they exchanged a
look, and Victoria pushed open the door.
“Hello!!” she called “Is
everything ok?”
There was no response, but
she could hear vomiting coming from the bathroom.
“Hello!!” she called again as
the sound got louder and as she looked in the bathroom she asked
“Are you ok?”
There was a naked man slumped
over in the bath, who was pale and pasty, covered in vomit and he had soiled
himself.
At first glance he looked
like a drunk but despite his appearance and his incoherence she was not
prepared to take it at face value and after a cursory examination she concluded
he was not a drunk.
“I’m just going to clean you
up a bit” she said and turned on the shower and he threw up again.
The smell in the bathroom was
quite extraordinary and she had to step out into the hall to catch her breath
where she asked Elisa to call for an ambulance and call down to reception.
She glanced into the room and
saw vomit and Diarrhoea on the bed, then she grabbed a towelling
dressing that was laying on a chair.
After she finished hosing him
down in the shower and managed to wrap him in the dressing gown and just hoped
he wouldn’t soil himself again before the ambulance arrived.
She sat him on
the toilet and went back out to the hall just as the manager arrived and
Victoria explained the situation, and he told her his name was Harold Jardine.
When the
ambulance arrived, she relayed all the symptoms to them and that she suspected
seafood poisoning.
“Ok thanks” the
paramedic said as they got the man into a wheelchair and took him out to the
ambulance.
On Sunday Victoria called in at the hospital to see how Mr Jardine was and
explained the circumstances, and she was told it was indeed seafood poisoning
and he was already on the ward receiving intravenous fluids and would stay in
hospital for 24 hours until his fluids were normalised, and satisfied all was
well she went back to the hotel.
That afternoon Rebecca and
Ross Clarke returned to the states but Elisa and Victoria decided to stay on
the island a little longer so Molly said they could stay at Cliff Haven for as
long as they liked.
On Monday, George picked them
up from the Hotel and drove them to Molly’s.
“Do you mind if we stop at
the Hospital on the way George?”
“Of course, is everything
alright?”
“Yes, I just want to check up
on the patient” she replied
So George dropped her by the
entrance, and she wasn’t gone for long as she managed to speak to the sister
and she was told they kept him in for a second night, but he was asleep again,
so she thanked the sister and was about to leave when the sister asked.
“If you leave your name, I’ll
tell him you stopped by”
“It’s Victoria Pullen”
“Ok I’ll let him know” She
said, and Victoria began to walk away
“It’s a lovely little
hospital you have here”
Harold Jardine was a Beaumont
Islander but living and working on St Giles du Cabot Island where he ran the
General Store/Post Office and was only staying at the Beaumont Hotel for the
weekend because of a family wedding which was when he started feeling ill.
So he went up to his room for
a lay down and that was the last thing he remembered .
As he sat on his
hospital bed waiting to be discharged, he felt ashamed, but he was both
immensely grateful to the lady who found him but also acutely embarrassed at
the circumstances in which she found him.
He was at least
thankful that she was a complete stranger, which was embarrassing enough, but
he was mortified to have been found by a member of the opposite sex while he
was in a state of undress and degradation, had it been someone who knew him it
would have increased his embarrassment exponentially.
But he was
grateful, firstly for finding him and then for cleaning him up before the
ambulance arrived.
He decided that
his gratitude should outweigh his embarrassment and that he should try to find
the lady and show his appreciation in some way.
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