Practice Makes Perfect. Caroline Anderson

the time she’d reached them her lungs were bursting and she could hardly stand, but somehow her legs dragged her on to the edge of the old workings.

      Down in the pit, some thirty feet below her down a ragged, broken bank, was a pool formed by rainwater collecting in the bottom of the gravel pit, and floating face-down in the black water she could see the colourful figure of a small child.

      She quickly dispatched the two oldest to run for help and call an ambulance, and scrambled headlong down the bank, examining the situation in escalating dismay.

      There was only one way to get to him, and she did it before she had time to talk herself out of it. Ripping off her outer clothes, she plunged into the icy water and struck out for the child. The cold knocked all the breath from her lungs, and for a moment she thought she would go under, but then her chest started to work again and she dragged in some air and forced her frozen limbs to work.

      Grabbing a handful of his anorak, she pulled the child back to the bank and hauled him up the edge, slipping and sliding as she went.

      His skin was a bluish white, his lips almost purple, and there was no sign of breathing at all.

      Oh, God, no!’ she muttered to herself, and just because she couldn’t give up without trying, and because there was always an outside chance that his sudden immersion had triggered the diving reflex, she forced her frozen limbs into action.

      Tipping the child on to his front, she gently depressed his chest to squeeze water from his airways. There was very little, backing up her guess, and when she laid her ear against his chest, she could detect a faint heartbeat every few seconds.

      ‘Severe bradycardia, pulseless, no breathing apparent,’ she recited, and, flipping him on to his back, she gently tipped his head back and, covering his nose and mouth with her lips, she breathed carefully into his tiny lungs. After two breaths she crossed her hands over the bottom of his breastbone and pumped steadily fifteen times, then gave two more breaths and pumped again.

      After a few minutes she heard scrambling behind her, but she was too busy counting to pay attention.

      ‘For heaven’s sake, woman, you’ll freeze to death!’ a man’s voice said, and Lydia became aware that she was still dressed only in her underwear, and the biting wind was chilling her body rapidly.

      ‘Press here, like this,’ she said, and while the man took over she dived into her clothes and then pushed him out of the way, continuing the massage.

      ‘She’s wasting her time. Anyone can see he’s dead—look at him!’ one of the other bystanders said in an awed voice, and Lydia shot him a black look.

      ‘Not yet, he isn’t. Not until I say so. Go and look out for the ambulance, please, so they don’t waste time trying to find us.’

      She turned her attention back to the child, counting fifteen pumps, then two breaths, fifteen pumps, two breaths, until suddenly a pair of large warm hands closed over hers and a reassuring voice murmured, ‘Take over the top end. One to five.’

      Lydia had never been so glad to see anyone in all her life.