After many twists and turns, the thoracotomy entered its final stage.
Crack.
As the sternum and the ribs on either side were exposed, the heart and lungs came into view.
But Taesu’s brow furrowed as he looked inside.
“The bleeding…”
“Hold on.”
Gurgle, gurgle.
Yun Juseong quickly suctioned out the blood sloshing inside the thoracic cavity.
But something was strange.
The level dropped rapidly.
There was this much visible bleeding, and yet there was no additional hemorrhaging?
“What is this? Then where did all this blood come from?”
Nurse Chu Gangik asked as he assisted.
“Yun, could the diaphragm have ruptured?”
“No. If that were the case, the blood should be pushing up, but it isn’t.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
Yun Juseong and Nurse Chu Gangik, who were examining it together, were thrown into confusion.
That was how strange something felt.
Thud-thud-thud.
But the heart’s violent movement was real.
It was right on the verge of arrhythmia.
It was holding out only because Jo Uncheol had defended it to the point of exhaustion.
To keep watching that heart any longer would be too cruel.
At that moment, Taesu’s hand shot out toward the heart as if by instinct.
Grip.
The instant he seized the heart, he began direct cardiac compression.
Before he knew it, his gaze was fixed on the ECG. And as he counted aloud, he gave an order as well.
“One, two… Doctor Jo, cardiotonic.”
“I administered it three minutes ago, haah, I did.”
“And it’s still like this?”
“Hoo. It was no… joke.”
Jo Uncheol shouted as if pouring out all the irritation he had been suppressing.
But Taesu’s hand and eyes did not waver.
Beep-beep-beep.
“One, two…”
He counted the numbers repeatedly, squeezing and releasing the heart in the same rhythm.
By this point, there should have been some kind of response. Yet, strangely enough, there was absolutely no response from the heart.
Tremble.
The irregular trembling of the heart in his hand continued.
After squeezing it a few more times, Taesu paused.
“Resistance?”
It was faint, but he clearly felt resistance.
The ascending aorta?
No.
It wasn’t an abnormality of the cardiac muscle either.
Then the only things left were the lungs positioned on either side of the heart.
Grip.
Taesu used his other hand to feel the left lung first.
The sensation was worlds apart from touching it with surgical instruments.
The palm could detect minute responses that cold surgical instruments could not.
There was no particular problem on the left.
Then the problem had to be with the right lung.
Press.
He immediately pressed his palm against it.
“…”
There was a faint change in his expression.
And then it happened.
Slowly.
Taesu’s eyebrows rose sharply, and his gaze shifted to his right hand.
Just in case, he had been changing the direction of the heart little by little as he searched for the problem.
And it seemed he had truly found something.
Before anyone realized it, Taesu’s atmosphere sank heavily.
“Hmm.”
“Why? What is it?”
Yun Juseong asked urgently.
Taesu looked at Yun Juseong and asked,
“Have you ever performed lung surgery?”
“Only for pneumothorax or hemothorax. The situation in Oman was no joke either.”
“What about lung rupture and myocardial infarction?”
“What?”
Not only Yun Juseong but Nurse Chu Gangik as well widened their eyes.
Then Brad Kim’s voice rang out.
“The liver gauze packing is done.”
“Brad, I found the cause.”
“What is it?”
“Rupture of the lung. Not the front—the back.”
At Taesu’s words, Brad Kim’s brow furrowed deeply.
“Damn!”
“And myocardial infarction.”
“What?”
Brad Kim looked dumbfounded.
Jeong Minsu reacted the same way.
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s more.”
“What else?”
“The subclavian vein.”
When Taesu reminded him, Jeong Minsu’s eyes shook violently.
“Wh-what are you saying?”
“Doctor Jeong, Doctor Choi is definitely right about the subclavian vein.”
It was Kim Hyeokgwon’s answer.
He was holding Shanmeheum’s cold arm.
A bluish cyanosis was visible at the fingertips.
It meant blood circulation had nearly stopped.
Rustle.
Taesu, meanwhile, had slightly lifted the right lung with a Deaver.
A rib on the back side was broken and piercing the lung.
Drip, drip.
The bleeding was slowly increasing.
It seemed that until now, it had not stood out because the bleeding from the liver had been so severe. But the steady bleeding had filled the chest cavity.
Because of that bleeding, the change in oxygen saturation had also been minimal.
With so many factors mixed together like that, they had been unable to detect the problem with the lung until now.
Lastly, Taesu let go of the heart he had been holding and turned it slightly to the side.
Thud-thud-thud, thud-thud-thud.
Beside the violently beating heart, a black spot was visible.
With hemostatic agents being administered continuously, one of the coronary arteries seemed to have been blocked by a thrombus.
Everyone confirmed the problems he had found.
Their eyes trembled faintly.
“…Damn it.”
“…This is insane.”
The words that came out were close to curses.
If each symptom were considered one by one, they could certainly be resolved.
The problem was that they had all occurred at once.
The difficulty of the emergency surgery had risen sharply.
A highly trained thoracic surgeon and general surgeon would have to take the lead.
But there was no specialist here with that level of experience.
Even if they called one in, it did not seem as though the heart would wait any longer.
It was not a vague guess.
It was the kind of instinctive premonition one gained after experiencing numerous surgeries.
In a word, there was no time.
As all those facts piled together, only a dizzying sense of dread remained.
That was why curses naturally spilled out.
But not for Taesu.
He had the guide known as Caprene’s knowledge.
“Why can’t we?”
It was true that he lacked proficiency.
With Taesu’s current skill, it would be difficult to reproduce it perfectly.
But he was not alone.
If he could not do it alone, then he could increase the number of hands to two, to three.
The time they were spending standing around helplessly was more precious.
He decided not to hesitate.
And so he chose the path forward.
A decision made alone would be meaningless.
Slowly.
Taesu looked around at everyone and spoke in a low voice.
“It’s difficult. I know that too. But.”
“…”
“Is there any reason this child has to die in our hands? Any reason at all is fine, so please tell me just one.”
At those words, everyone’s expressions turned bitter.
“There isn’t.”
“How could there be?”
They avoided his gaze as they answered.
Then Taesu asked again.
“If there isn’t, then we have to save him, don’t we?”
“Do you have a way?”
“Somehow.”
The meaning of the word he spat out was far too reckless.
But right now, there was no other word to replace it.
Just as he said, they had to do it “somehow.”
The medical staff slowly nodded.
Yun Juseong and Nurse Chu Gangik did not argue either.
Choi Taesu.
Leaving skill aside, there was one thing they had no choice but to acknowledge.
“He’s stubborn.”
When it came to clinging to a life, he was more tenacious than anyone.
They admitted that they, too, were already being pulled along by that tenacity.
“So what are we doing?”
“We need to do something quickly, don’t we?”
Yun Juseong and Nurse Chu Gangik pressed Taesu fiercely.
At the same time, Taesu’s expression hardened completely.
If he had received his answer?
Then it was time to move.
The most important thing, no matter what anyone said, was the heart.
Stabilizing the heart came first.
From this moment on, they had to examine the heart as quickly and accurately as possible.
Taesu went so far as to set a time limit for himself.
“Two minutes to examine the heart.”
Hearing that, Jeong Minsu immediately made a request.
“Nurse Hwang, please keep time.”
“Confirmed. It’s exactly thirty minutes past the hour now.”
Her voice, too, was full of tension and had become faster. It seemed her chest was tightening without mercy.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu felt her urgency just the same.
Now even the moment it took to call for surgical instruments was a waste, a luxury.
Clack, grip.
They picked them up themselves and began examining on their own.
Fortunately, they were able to find the problem immediately.
No, the problem they found brought shock and bewilderment to both their faces at once.
“What is this?”
“Ah, seriously, this is too much.”
Groans escaped them on their own.
Taesu had judged it that accurately.
One of the coronary arteries was turning dark and discolored.
Because of the continuously administered hemostatic agents, the viscosity of the blood must have increased greatly. And the thrombi that had been traveling through the blood vessels had clearly accumulated and finally blocked it.
Because only a specific area was discolored, they could infer that much.
That was identifying the cause.
No matter how precisely they predicted it, the current situation did not change.
There was only one solution.
CABG. Coronary artery bypass graft.
That was it.
In Taesu’s mind were Caprene’s memories of succeeding a thousand, ten thousand times.
They said seeing once was better than hearing a hundred times.
But.
Doing once was better than seeing a hundred times.
It was fortunate beyond measure that he had performed this surgical method once before.
However, that was not everything.
“We have to cut down the time.”
The key was time.
At minimum, one hour.
With everyone exhausted as they were now, they would probably have to estimate two hours.
But the optimal timing Taesu wanted was within five minutes.
Reduce a gap of fifty-five minutes?
He knew himself that it was absurd.
Even so, Taesu did not despair.
“We have to make it possible.”
For that, he opened everything in his mind.
An immense amount of knowledge and clinical experience came pouring out.
It bestowed pain upon Taesu.
“Grrk.”
Taesu clenched his teeth behind his mask and endured.
Taesu was not the only one hurrying.
Brad Kim’s and Kim Hyeokgwon’s expressions also twisted harshly.
“First, let’s get into position.”
“I’ll stand in the middle.”
“Doctor Choi, Hyeokgwon, me… Good. Let’s set up.”
As Brad Kim reached a conclusion, Jeong Minsu asked,
“What about me?”
“You need to go to the opposite side.”
“Yes.”
Tap-tap-tap.
As Jeong Minsu circled around, Brad Kim continued arranging their positions efficiently.
“That side should be Doctor Jeong, Nurse Chu, Doctor Yun, in that order. That’s the most efficient.”
“A nurse in the middle? Oh, understood.”
“Nurse Hwang, go to Doctor Jo over there. And Nurse Lee, focus on the ankle IV.”
“Yes.”
Rustle.
Everyone moved without another word.
Their hearts had come together as one, so there was no resistance to be found anywhere.
In the blink of an eye, everyone took their positions.