“I will never let you down.”
“You don’t have to go that far for us…”
“For the patient and his guardian.”
“Hmph. We won’t let them down either. Of course, we don’t care about disappointing Doctor Choi.”
Doctor Hassan smiled bitterly and threw Taesu’s own words right back at him.
Taesu looked back at him as if it were only natural and said,
“We should have a nice cold drink later.”
“Let’s have something sweet and cold.”
“I’m going.”
Swish.
Doctor Hassan and Doctor Talon turned at the same time and immediately scattered.
Before anyone realized it, patients were approaching the other medical tents.
Taesu’s gaze returned to where it had been.
Now, only the Korean medical team remained in Medical Tent 3.
Of all the emergency patients they had faced so far, this one was in the worst condition.
But he wasn’t worried.
“Koreans of indomitable will.”
He would prove that slogan was true.
Then he looked at Lee Changgyu.
You live.
No matter what.
There were no guarantees in medicine, but just this once, Taesu set that rule aside.
That was how intense his resolve was.
However, the atmosphere on-site kept swinging up and down like a seesaw depending on Lee Changgyu’s condition.
Before he knew it, Taesu had returned to Lee Changgyu’s side.
The intra-abdominal bleeding was far too severe.
Even the stretcher was being dyed crimson with blood.
The efforts of the medical team?
Their bloodstained hands did not rest for even a moment.
Whip, whip, whip.
“Doctor Jeong, faster.”
“I told you, I’m doing it.”
“Nurse Lee, you need to support that side more.”
“You told me to start from here.”
Brad Kim, Jeong Minsu, Nurse Chu Gangik, and Nurse Lee Chorong.
Just looking at the expressions of those stationed at the very front was enough to make the hair stand on end from the tension.
Taesu took everything in with a cold gaze.
It was an emergency treatment scene so cramped that their hands were colliding.
Should he jump in with them?
That would be terribly inefficient.
Just then, Yun Juseong’s voice, filled with frustration, reached Taesu’s ears.
“Damn it. What’s the point of putting it in if it keeps coming back out?”
He was in charge of the IV while monitoring the ECG and trying to stabilize the vitals at the same time.
He wasn’t stopping for even a second, but compared to the effort, the effect was minimal.
In a word, he was being dragged around by the patient’s vitals.
Taesu made his decision immediately.
What they needed right now was a transfusion.
The moment he judged that—
Whip.
Taesu boldly headed toward the patient’s legs.
Medical supplies were scattered all around.
All he had to do was reach out.
“The IV set is…”
Click, slide.
He swiftly connected an IV to the top of the foot.
Then he quickly added the blood packs someone had placed nearby.
A gravity transfusion?
There was no time to wait.
Taesu grabbed two blood packs, one in each hand.
Then he began squeezing and releasing them rhythmically, like pumping.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Urgh.”
Right now, this method was the fastest way to increase the transfusion volume in a short amount of time.
About thirty seconds passed.
Yun Juseong’s voice rang out, mixed with relief and puzzlement.
“Maintaining… Ah. Doctor Choi.”
It seemed he had finally noticed Taesu.
With Taesu actively helping with the transfusion, the ECG readings seemed to be holding.
But Taesu’s expression remained rigid.
He immediately asked Yun Juseong,
“How long can we maintain it?”
“At this state… I don’t think it’ll last long.”
“Hm.”
Just as expected.
He had confirmed that it wasn’t only his own guess.
And again—
Beep, beep, beep.
The sharp sound of the ECG showed no sign of stopping.
There was a limit to transfusion, but no limit to bleeding.
That was the problem.
Taesu’s brow gradually narrowed.
“We have to stop it.”
No matter what, there was only one conclusion.
They needed a groundbreaking method to stop that waterfall-like bleeding.
Desperation creates ideas.
That was what was happening inside Taesu’s head.
Caprene’s knowledge, James’s advice and teachings.
Even all the patient cases he had experienced on his own until now.
Everything combined and began to whirl.
Even so, no answer came to him right away.
His chest felt stifled.
“Is this all you’ve got?”
It was unreasonable.
He was purely forcing himself beyond reason.
That was how serious Lee Changgyu’s condition was.
Taesu drove himself harder, tightening the screws on himself again and again.
Even a dry rag, if twisted and twisted, will produce something.
Taesu’s mind was exactly like that dry rag right now.
When he twisted it—
Flash.
A single drop of an idea surfaced.
Taesu’s face turned pale from how hard he had racked his brain in such a short time.
Throb.
His head screamed as well.
It didn’t matter.
He was just about to move.
“Hup.”
For an instant, his body would not obey him.
It was a phenomenon caused by thinking of too many things in too short a time, leaving the body unable to respond.
Taesu did not despair.
If it wasn’t his hands, he could borrow someone else’s.
There were plenty of other hands here right now.
Squeeze, squeeze.
Taesu absolutely maintained the motion of squeezing the blood packs.
And he immediately called for Brad Kim.
“Brad.”
“Hm? Doctor Choi, why is your face so pale?”
“That can wait.”
Taesu cut him off sharply.
In that instant, Brad Kim seemed to realize something and erased his surprise.
“So what’s the method?”
“Open the wound wider first.”
“Wider than this?”
“Quickly.”
Taesu pressed him harshly.
Brad Kim also steadied himself after his momentary lapse and put strength into his hands.
“Nurse Chu, pull the retractor farther.”
“Grrrgh.”
Riiip.
Brad Kim and Nurse Chu Gangik coordinated their strength.
The wound widened that much more.
And the result?
Drip, drip.
As if all their efforts to stop the bleeding until now had been for nothing, even more blood poured out.
Taesu knew the greatest risk of the emergency treatment method they were using now.
It was infection.
Brad Kim, who was pulling the retractor, showed his concern.
“If we pull it open like this, ngh.”
“The risk of infection is considerable. Grrgh.”
Nurse Chu Gangik added.
They were opening the wound in a medical tent exposed on all sides.
They could not rule out the risk of infection.
Taesu heard their concern, but his gaze hardened as he said one thing.
“Does infection take priority over life?”
“…”
No one could answer.
It wasn’t that Taesu had struck at the heart of the matter.
They already knew it, so there was nothing more to say.
Then Taesu added,
“A person’s will to live is not weak.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Hahap. Pull harder.”
Brad Kim and Nurse Chu Gangik seemed ashamed that they had shrunk back, and they exerted even more strength.
They, too, believed in the tenacity of life.
Taesu’s gaze immediately turned toward another member of the medical team.
It was Jeong Minsu.
“Minsu, draw out the bleeding. Suction, whatever—just get it out somehow.”
“You bastard, do I look like I’m playing around to you?”
He roared.
Jeong Minsu took out his frustration at the unstoppable bleeding on Taesu.
Taesu didn’t mind.
He understood that feeling perfectly. But there was a limit to how much bleeding Jeong Minsu could clear away on his own.
Taesu immediately searched for someone to help him.
What they needed more than skill was strength.
The right person immediately entered his sight.
“Nurse Chu, please assist Doctor Jeong.”
“I’m, pulling, right now, aren’t I? Grrgh.”
Nurse Chu Gangik, whose face had turned bright red from exertion, snapped at him.
That was when—
Slip.
A hand suddenly shot out beside him.
It quickly found its position and began helping Jeong Minsu.
The owner of that hand was?
Jo Uncheol.
“Doctor Jeong, gauze here.”
“Huh. No, didn’t you leave earlier?”
“For some reason, my feet wouldn’t move.”
“Do you perhaps have foresight?”
Jeong Minsu asked with a stunned expression.
As far as he knew, Jo Uncheol had been heading to another deployment site with Doctor Johnson that morning.
He had wondered why he hadn’t seen him when they departed.
So it was only natural that he was shocked to see him appear so suddenly like this.
Taesu felt the same.
But that was a matter for later.
Right now, Jo Uncheol’s appearance was worth more than a thousand troops and ten thousand horses.
Just seeing the way he threw himself into the emergency treatment so aggressively at this moment was reassuring.
Taesu immediately organized the situation first.
“Minsu, don’t get shaken.”
“I know, you bastard.”
“Doctor Jo, don’t just assist. Be more proactive.”
Jo Uncheol answered Taesu’s order swiftly as well.
“I was planning to.”
Swish, slide.
His hands became even quicker and more forceful.
As they had seen when working together before, even though he was an anesthesiologist, his sense for emergency treatment was remarkably sharp.
With his addition, Jeong Minsu’s burden lightened a little.
With his shoulders feeling lighter, Jeong Minsu’s hands grew even faster.
“Uuugh.”
“There, don’t just move your hands. Watch the flow.”
“I’m watching it.”
“A little farther down.”
“Grrgh.”
Whip, whip.
Jeong Minsu and Jo Uncheol raised their voices as they moved in a hurry.
Perhaps because they had operated together once before, their coordination was quite good.
Yun Juseong, who had been pinned down by the ECG, was flustered by Jo Uncheol’s appearance.
“Where do these Koreans keep coming from?”
“That’s everyone.”
When Taesu answered immediately, Yun Juseong quickly accepted it.
“Right. Let’s handle the emergency first and think later.”
“Doctor Yun, add hemostatics and antiarrhythmics first.”
“I’m a surgeon… What do positions matter in an emergency?”
Click, slide.
Yun Juseong swallowed his own complaint and added the injections.
Taesu also had no time to sort out everyone’s positions, which had become tangled due to the sudden situation.
A surgeon was handling the ECG, and an anesthesiologist was assisting a resident.
Their tangled and twisted positions could fairly be called chaos.
But there was no time to straighten it out.
For now, they had to proceed like this.
Just then, Jeong Minsu shouted,
“Taesu, it’s a flood. This place is a flood.”
“Scoop it out with your hands.”
“Crazy… Ah, screw it.”
Jeong Minsu, who had been cursing, had a flash in his eyes.
Then he actually cupped his hands and began scooping blood from inside.
Splat, splat.
At his touch, the amount of blood spilling out increased even more.
Jeong Minsu did not care.
The blood he was clearing away right now had nothing to do with the bleeding from the wound itself.
That blood was, in a word, dead blood.
It had already come into contact with the air and been contaminated, so even if it fell to the floor, no one felt sorry for it.