Playing w/ 4 players?

[zebraman]

Community College girls game earlier today. Team A only has 5 players because some of their girls are on the volleyball team which is at the state championships.

Middle of the second half, A1 has blood so one of my partners alerts the coach and gives her 20 seconds to remedy the situation. After 20 seconds, the player is not ready so Team A calls a time-out. At the end of the time-out, A1 is still not ready. My partner tells the coach that they cannot play with 4 because a 5th is available and she needs to call another time-out.

The coach took another time-out and A1 was ready at end of the 2nd time-out.

After the game, we started to wonder if we should have allowed them to play with 4 since a bleeding player isn't really "available."

Thoughts? Rule references?

Thanks.