Even in the moment Sabi breathed his last, he had stood his ground without wavering.
Unable to keep his curiosity from rising, Taesu asked.
“Mr. Hyeokgwon, why?”
“Now that I think about it, I shouldn’t be here.”
“What?”
“I’m neither a doctor nor a nurse, yet I overstepped. In any case, I’m sorry. Nurse Choo, please support Dr. Choi.”
Step, step.
Kim Hyeokgwon literally notified them and walked away.
Taesu was dumbfounded beyond words.
What kind of absurd nonsense was this, at this point?
“Huk……”
Just as Taesu was about to call out urgently.
Beep-beep-beep.
The sound of the ECG suddenly changed.
At that moment, Jeong Minsu pressed Taesu.
“This side comes first.”
“I know, but……”
“Hey.”
Jeong Minsu sharply urged Taesu on.
Even on Jeong Minsu’s face, it was clear he could not understand what Kim Hyeokgwon had just done.
His desire to chase after him was surely the same.
But he was facing the reality that they could not.
The foundation of medical care would not be shaken just because Kim Hyeokgwon was gone.
They were simply too flustered.
It took only an instant for Taesu to regain his senses.
What came first?
“Assess the ECG first.”
At those words, urgency surged fiercely among the medical staff.
“Shh. I think his consciousness is fading.”
“His pulse is dropping.”
“Why is that dropping? His blood pressure is…… Why is that like that again?”
“What’s the problem? What’s the problem this time?”
They could only guess that some symptom they had not yet identified had become prominent.
But it was nothing more than a vague guess, and with no accurate information anywhere, they were frustrated.
In the midst of that commotion, Jeong Minsu clearly shouted the first priority.
“Move the guardian to the back.”
Yun Juseong, who had been waiting just in case, quickly urged Gang Yeonghun.
“Guardian, please get up. Hurry.”
“Changgyu, Changgyu.”
“If you do this, it’ll only make things harder for Changgyu. What are you all doing?”
As Yun Juseong felt he lacked the strength to do it alone, he asked those around him for help.
The doctors and nurses gathered there added their strength and began moving Gang Yeonghun back. Gang Yeonghun no longer resisted strongly.
Instead, he murmured his wish in a sorrowful voice.
“Gyojin-hyung…… Do something for your kid. Please, somehow, please.”
That murmur was all that reached Taesu’s ears.
He could tell from that alone that their relationship was extraordinary.
And yet.
Gang Yeonghun had left one more thing behind.
It was a small wet mark stamped onto the dry ground. He did not need anyone to tell him what it was.
But Taesu did not look back.
He was satisfied with confirming that they had been close enough to be inseparable, and that he was more than qualified as a temporary guardian.
Taesu’s heart hardened firmly.
There was no life in this world without a sorrowful story.
He had no intention of digging into that story right now.
What mattered immediately?
Stabilizing the patient who was showing an abnormal reaction right now.
Taesu was not the only one thinking that.
Everyone was of one mind.
“Epinephrine first.”
“Check the transfusion pack.”
“If it’s not enough, hang another one.”
“No abnormal bleeding in the drainage. No other bleeding has been visually identified yet.”
The NGO medical team moved swiftly.
All of them were focused entirely on the urgent state of the patient before their eyes.
Hearing that, Taesu made a bold decision.
“Minsu, stop worrying about what’s around us.”
“Agreed.”
“Let’s find the problems we haven’t discovered first. Nurse Choo.”
As Taesu gave Jeong Minsu an order, he called for Nurse Choo Gangik.
Whoosh.
Arriving beside him like the wind, he was already putting on surgical gloves.
“Gngh, gloves on. What do you need first?”
“Stethoscope. And prepare one more drainage set.”
“Coming.”
Thud.
Nurse Choo Gangik hung the stethoscope over Taesu’s ears with his thick hands.
Taking hold of the chest piece, Taesu immediately went to the heart.
Thump. Thump.
The pulse was clearly weak.
Since the other medical staff were administering cardiotonics, he skipped giving any additional orders about that.
Instead, he focused even more on the sound.
He was calculating whether there might be some other abnormal symptom in the lungs.
Since there was nothing he could see, he concentrated every nerve on listening.
Whoosh, whoosh.
The sound of air flowing in through the ventilator reached him as loudly as thunder.
It seemed to be burying other sounds beneath it.
But they could not stop the ventilator.
‘The sound…… Hoo.’
He even swallowed the bitter breath that escaped him.
The situation for Jeong Minsu beside him did not seem much different.
He was listening to the abdominal sounds with a stethoscope just like Taesu, and his expression was not good.
Perhaps having seen Taesu’s expression, Jeong Minsu whispered.
“What do we do?”
“Focus.”
“It’s all being drowned out.”
“Listen for anything.”
Taesu growled lowly.
They could not let go simply because there was no answer.
Then Jeong Minsu’s sighing voice reached Taesu’s ears.
“We should’ve gone to the imaging room.”
At those words, Taesu’s eyes flashed sharply.
There were things he had ordered earlier.
It was time to check them again.
“The ultrasound. What happened to it?”
“They said they’d send it this way, but I still don’t know.”
“Then what about securing an operating room?”
“Dr. Oliver’s surgery is scheduled to end the earliest, but they say there’s still about an hour left……”
The answers from those who had each made contact came in voices that seemed to crawl into the ground.
They seemed sorry to have to deliver only bad news to the emergency patient before them.
Taesu understood how they felt, but that did not help them now.
“Damn it.”
“Dr. Choi, should we just make another operating room instead?”
The moment Dr. Talon offered his opinion.
Taesu’s gaze toward him turned sharp enough to devour him.
“You’re suggesting we perform a thoracotomy in a makeshift operating room?”
“It’s not impossible.”
“With these facilities?”
“That…… No. I was hasty.”
Dr. Talon admitted it cleanly.
To put it bluntly, thoracic surgery could be performed in a hastily made operating room.
Taesu had personally led such operations before. But the risks involved were indescribably high.
It was not that Taesu had not thought of it.
Rather, because he had done it before, he was pushing it away.
However, if the worst-case scenario arrived, Taesu would also change course.
Not yet.
Before that, they needed some kind of solution.
Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of the NGO medical team, the vitals were holding at that level.
They had to find the cause at a time like this.
They had to find whatever was threatening the vitals as quickly as possible.
If they could not resolve it immediately, they might truly have to consider the worst.
As everyone grew anxious, different opinions began to arise.
“Dr. Choi, if you don’t know, step back.”
“Dr. Jeong. Do you hear anything?”
“Say something.”
Their urging was not because they were ignoring the two of them.
They were specialists, each with their own field of expertise.
They were saying it because they thought that, from a different perspective, they might possibly find something.
“……”
Grip.
The nurses, too, were ready to rush in at any moment.
The hearts of medical staff facing a patient were the same no matter who they were.
It was just as that solemn resolve flowed through them.
“Move, I said move!”
It came with a sudden shout.
Thud-thud-thud.
The sound of footsteps rang out chaotically.
But Taesu, Jeong Minsu, and the medical staff were all focused only on the patient.
Someone turned at the commotion and shouted loudly.
“Brad Kim.”
“Dr. Kim is in surgery…… Oh, that’s—”
“Move, clear the way.”
The medical staff, who normally would not have budged, hurriedly urged one another and opened a path.
Through the gap, Brad Kim truly appeared.
But he was not alone.
Two more people were carrying something.
It was none other than an ultrasound machine.
As soon as Brad Kim arrived, he urged the medical staff on.
“Hurry up and assemble the ultrasound machine first.”
“Where’s the outlet?”
“Make room first.”
“Don’t talk, move.”
The medical staff became noisy.
Right now, the ultrasound machine was the only device that could look inside the patient.
Such reinforcements had arrived like a thousand troops and ten thousand horses.
It was only natural that expectation surged.
Brad Kim’s gaze turned to the emergency patient.
The moment he saw Lee Changgyu, his brow furrowed deeply.
Fiercely.
“Damn, that young kid……”
“Brad.”
“Don’t say a word and just watch until it’s assembled. Hey. Everybody, hurry.”
Brad Kim strongly exuded the dignity of a specialist as he urged everyone on.
Under that pressure, the ultrasound machine was assembled in an instant.
The power had not even turned on yet, but the probe was already in Brad Kim’s hand.
After checking the vital signs on the ECG, his expression grew even more anxious.
“Hurry, come on.”
A voice soon responded to him.
“It’s working.”
“Okay. What’s the problem? What the hell is it?”
Slide, slide.
With the probe generously coated in gel, he began scanning from the chest.
Not only Taesu and Jeong Minsu, but everyone’s eyes were fixed on the ultrasound monitor.
Soon, the inside began to appear in white on the black screen.
Wasn’t there a saying that too many boatmen would take the boat up a mountain?
Requests rang out nonstop from all over.
“Brad, a little lower.”
“Dr. Kim. To the side, the side.”
“No, not there, I said a little lower.”
Crowd, crowd.
It was so chaotic with urging from all sides that even a marketplace could not compare.
As the noise began to shake his concentration, Taesu, unable to endure it, shouted.
“Quiet.”
“……”
“Please, just be quiet. Please.”
Taesu even pleaded with an anxious face.
No one could say that he was going too far.
They all acknowledged that they themselves had been urging him so much it made one’s ears ache.
But the silence lasted only a moment.
Perhaps he had found an abnormal area on the monitor, because Dr. Talon shouted urgently.
“Hup, there. The upper part of the lung. Dr. Kim.”
“What…… Damn, damn.”
Brad Kim’s puzzled face twisted in an instant.
The image was blurry, but he had the eye to see the affected area precisely.
The same was true for Taesu and Jeong Minsu, who had undergone special training in reading ultrasound images for the past several days.
Jeong Minsu spoke first.
“The clavicle is broken.”
“I’m not even surprised. But……”
“That’s the subclavian vein, right?”
“Yeah. Damn it. It’s torn.”
It was clear that the fractured clavicle had struck the surrounding blood vessels.
Taesu quickly turned his head left and right, then loudly asked in English.
“Please take notes.”
“I’m writing it down.”
Nurse Hwang Jisu answered reflexively.
But she was not the only one writing.
Scratch, scratch.
Similar scenes could be seen here and there.
Medical terminology had a strong tendency for a single word to change a symptom completely.
It was an action full of sense, born from their concern over that.
But that was not the only problem.
As the probe swept over the whole body like an X-ray, more problems were revealed.
“Lower right lung, the middle part of the left lung is torn, and……”
“If there’s one stroke of luck, the heart itself hasn’t been hit. The cardiovascular system seems all right too, but……”
“The problem is, as expected.”
“Yeah. As expected, it’s the liver.”
The voices Taesu and Jeong Minsu exchanged were gravely serious.