“You want to reduce the amount of blood transfusions?”
In response to the nurse’s question, Dowook pointed to the gauze near his side, which covered a wound treated for hemostasis.
“It’s fresh blood, but the color is subtly different.”
Same blood, different density. A change in hemoglobin due to excessive blood supply.
“In this patient’s condition, he can’t withstand the inflammation caused by over-transfusion.”
The nurse who checked the gauze clicked her tongue.
“My god. It’s so crazy in here but were you checking over here as well?”
“Because it’s crazy urgent.”
As he experienced the rhythm of life and death that he had never had before, he had no choice but to focus on simply maintaining the patient’s breathing alive.
To learn a way to increase their chance of survival.
“Anyway, please take more care, Ms. Nurse.”
“Yes.”
The crisis that wrapped around bed no. 4 was over.
Dowook, who was looking for a patient who was worse off, turned his attention to Nam Hana, who was making a small hole in the back of the patient on bed 5.
Lumbar puncture. There seemed to be a problem with the brain pressure.
“Hana is doing well over there. No. 6 is….”
Chief Ji was working on it himself.
Thinking he could take a breather since there was nowhere he could lend a hand, he sensed a noisy atmosphere outside the medical area.
-Taejun! Jeong Taejun! Mom’s here!
-Please help out Minji. How is her situation?
It seemed the parents of these students had arrived.
Since only one of the six patients was stabilized and moved to the operating room, his heart was heavy.
Still, the students were thankfully being stabilized step by step.
‘All of them will live. Probably.’
Turning his head one more time, this time, he heard the siren of an ambulance.
Dowook didn’t care.
When there was a big accident, the 119 rescue center consulted and divided the patients with nearby hospitals. Six people were assigned to the nearest Myeong Sae Hospital for this crash. That was it.
As he was turning away at the thought that it was obviously not their patient.
Drrrk.
“Age 43! Male! He is the driver who bounced out of the bus! He was found late on-site!”
When Dowook saw the patient on the mobile bed, he hesitated.
His head was soaked with dark red blood. The clear liquid visible through the gap was cerebrospinal fluid.
A single skull fracture alone required major surgery, but the patient’s head was caved in and his chest was completely crushed in the accident.
Zaap!
Chief Ji’s sense stimulated Dowook more seriously than any other patient he’d seen.
The best way to save the patient’s life. That was what it wanted.
Dowook ran like a man possessed to the mobile bed pushed by the paramedics. Then, he subconsciously picked up his phone.
He quickly dialed an emergency number and put the phone to his ear.
Click.
-Dr. Park?
The voice from the other side. It was Prof. Choi.
‘…….’
Dowook returned to his senses a bit late.
-Why aren’t you speaking?
“Pro-professor.”
This wasn’t Dowook’s intention, but he was made to do so by the emergency center chief’s sense.
To save this patient, they needed the best neurosurgeon in the hospital.
The best professor Dowook knew was of course Professor Choi Hoo. Because he threw his all into his senses, he committed an irreversible act.
‘D****mn it!’
It was already spilled milk. Taking a look at the patient on the mobile bed, Dowook attempted a desperate notice.
“It’s a patient that was just brought to the emergency room. The condition is ruptured temporal bone with leaking cerebrospinal fluid. The chest and abdomen were also severely compressed, suggesting organ damage. Could you come in for surgery?”
-Is he conscious?
“He is in a coma.”
-If we don’t operate right away, he’ll die.
“If you are too far away, we’ll try something with the people here….”
-I’ll be there in 2 minutes.
Click.
After he hung up, Dowook was very bewildered.
He just called Choi Hoo to come for emergency night duty. Compared to this, the surgery he performed instead of the thoracic surgeon a while ago didn't even cross the line.
"Dr. Dowook."
Having been waiting at the side for a patient like this, An Hosan realized the seriousness of the situation and ran over.
"How is the patient?"
"I think I need to write a death certificate."
"Huh? Is this patient that hopeless?"
"No, mine."
With an expression stating he couldn't understand what he was talking about, An Hosan helped Dowook push the mobile stretcher to the treatment area.
"Lifting in 1, 2, 3."
A bed with #7 was newly established.
Dowook quickly told An Hosan.
"Nevermind the patient's condition. We have to send him to an operating room as soon as we stop the bleeding. "
"I understand, I'll arrange it right away."
Due to the lack of medical staff to treat the critical patients, Dowook personally picked up a tube for airway intubation. Emergency doctors and nurses from the general area came over after a while.
“What the h*ll is this?”
As soon as he approached, Chief Ji glanced at the patient and frowned. Then he yelled at the paramedic who helped transfer the patient to a hospital bed and took a step back.
“Paramedic. How can you just bring over a patient because he was close by?! This level of injury should be taken to a hospital with a severe trauma center. Don’t you know that?”
“At the scene of the accident, the possibility of treatment is the highest here since it’s the closest….”
“Can’t you see that the place is a mess because of the first six?!”
Chief Ji exclaimed in anger. Then his gaze turned to Dowook who was calmly proceeding with the best first aid treatment for the patient without saying anything.
He had already placed gauze on the head and was dressing the wound on the side to stop the bleeding. It had a very good reaction rate.
“If you don’t have teeth, you should chew with your gums. Dr. Park Dowook.”
Finishing with the dressing, Dowook turned his head. He was surprised to hear that Chief Ji knew his name.
“If this patient is to survive, the chest must be operated on immediately. I saw earlier that you are quite good at dealing with things, come in as my assistant.”
“Huuh?”
Dowook paused. He was about to reply to the bewildering request to assist in chest surgery when a voice came and interrupted him.
“How do you plan to deal with the cracked open head that you want to open the chest first?”
A man of overbearing stature approached and stood by the patient’s head. There was a slight shade over the bed.
Chief Ji’s gaze turned to look at the man who created that shade.
“Prof. Choi?”
Choi Hoo bowed his head slightly toward Chief Ji. Chief Ji made a gesture with his head to answer the greeting and answered the question.
“The heart needs to work for the patient to live. The head comes later.”
“Just say that you’d rather turn him into a vegetable. Is it a person just because they are breathing?”
“What?”
Dowook didn’t think that Prof. Choi and Chief Ji would argue as soon as Prof. Choi arrived. Looking at the situation, he became as quiet as a mouse.
“It’s not like I’m saying we should have major surgery. We should restore smooth blood flow and then proceed with the more specific surgery from there.”
“The one who will do that specific surgery is me. If we don’t close this kind of head injury right away, the patient will surely be brain dead.”
“Are you fighting with me over the order of surgery?”
“If required.”
A scary conversation. As Dowook watched, cold sweat ran down his back.
Be-beep!
The vital monitor a nurse had attached showed dangerous numbers.
If this patient went into arrest, he would die on the stop.
He understood the importance of the chest as he had a good sense of emergency treatments. However, if the head surgery became the 2nd priority, he hadn’t seen a case where a patient with that much brain swelling was able to get up after.
‘Hmm?’
As his special sense was giving him mixed signals, Dowook unwittingly blurted out.
“We can do both at the same time.”
Ji Hwi-gwan and Choi Hoo both turned to look at him at the same time.
Choi Hoo asked.
“It requires surgeries from entirely different fields and a high degree of concentration. Do you mean to say that this is possible, Dr. Park?”
After scanning the wound on the patient’s head, Dowook immediately understood the outline of the operation.
Professor Choi would open up the broken skull and cut out as little of the damaged areas as possible and neatly suture close the remaining areas. What was important here was only the patient’s vitality.
Tingle.
Receiving Chief Ji’s sense once again, he looked at the outline for the chest surgery.
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