It was the moment Taesu flinched.
Squad Leader Sam explained exactly what it meant.
"If Doctor Choi asks us for a favor, that kind of reaction is only natural."
"......."
"Doctor Choi, we can do it."
Squad Leader Sam put force behind his words with a strong tone.
Taesu soon nodded.
Now was not the time to quibble.
The emergency treatment of patients with various severe injuries was more important.
Taesu suddenly checked his wristwatch.
A little over eight minutes had passed since Squad Leader Sam arrived.
Seventeen minutes remained.
All they had done was load the patient onto a stretcher.
They had to properly check from now on whether it was okay to carry and move him.
'A glorious return won't be easy.'
The road back to the NGO headquarters still felt far.
Taesu's gaze turned back to the patient.
'Since the emergency treatment for the hemothorax is finished.'
It was now time for a blood transfusion and medication.
From now on, they had to pour strength into circulation.
Taesu immediately asked Squad Leader Sam.
"You said you brought blood packs, right?"
"We brought four packs each of the basic ABO blood types."
"Good."
"But they're in Private Anthony's duffel bag. Should I tell him to bring them back?"
"First, let's identify the patient's blood type."
Even in a hurry, there was a proper order to things.
Taesu soon took out a small pouch from his emergency bag.
It contained blood typing reagents.
Taesu's expression stiffened slightly as he looked inside the pouch.
"Is there a problem?"
"We'll have to hope this patient is definitely an ABO blood type. If he's Rh-negative, things are going to get quite difficult."
"Damn."
Squad Leader Sam seemed to understand immediately.
As he had realized, there were only ABO blood typing reagents.
The blood they had prepared was also only ABO.
But if the patient was Rh-negative, even that would become completely useless.
Taesu sharply cut off the ensuing thoughts.
'This will work. No, it will.'
He began by steadying his mind with positivity.
Then, without delay, Taesu proceeded with the test using the reagent.
It was a simple test, so the results could be checked immediately.
"He's type A. Let's hope he's Rh-positive."
"Isn't it dangerous to perform a transfusion when we aren't certain?"
"There's a way to check."
Taesu said no more and took out an IV set and glucose from his bag.
Swish. Click.
He was in the process of adding the necessary ampoules to the glucose.
"Squad leader, here they are."
The sound of Private Anthony coming and going quickly could be heard.
Taesu was searching for the patient's vein.
The blood vessels were too faint.
Due to the lack of blood compounded by severe hypothermia, the veins had hidden themselves.
There was no worry on Taesu's face.
His injection skills, honed through training and mastery, were nothing short of masterful.
Swish. Taptap.
The treatment of piercing the vein with a needle, connecting it, and securing it with tape was done in an instant.
But then he discovered an unexpected problem.
"Ah, there's nowhere to hang it."
There was nothing within ten meters of Taesu.
The only structure was a flat rock where the Ambu bag had been placed.
Other than that, it was nothing but white snowy plains.
The nearest tree was about ten meters away.
It was enough to make one wonder how the patient had ended up here.
While Taesu was looking around like that,
Squad Leader Sam also intuitively understood why he was troubled and asked,
"How about moving the stretcher a bit?"
"Not yet."
"Then I'll hold it."
Squad Leader Sam proposed after thinking it through himself.
But Taesu shook his head.
"We're in a situation where we need to hang and squeeze."
"I can hold it and squeeze."
"You also need to check the automatic blood pressure monitor. And can you keep standing there holding it?"
"Damn."
Squad Leader Sam was flustered, perhaps not having thought that far.
In the meantime, Taesu looked around once more.
Trees that weren't there couldn't suddenly grow, nor could they sprout legs and walk over.
'Damn it all.'
Nothing was proceeding smoothly.
Taesu's gaze moved to the shoulder strap of his emergency bag.
'What about that?'
Taesu's eyes sparkled for a moment.
"Hand me the blood pack and glucose for a moment."
"Here."
"One moment."
Rustle.
Taesu's hands moved frantically.
And shortly after,
Taesu handed the blood pack and glucose back to Squad Leader Sam, stacked together.
The top holes were threaded with a catheter.
"Please hang this on your shoulder."
"Hang it on my— ah."
Squad Leader Sam quickly suppressed his surprise and slung it over his shoulder.
He had become a human IV pole.
Squad Leader Sam was fairly tall, so the position was high.
That was enough.
"Please squeeze so the ratio of blood pack to glucose is about six to four."
"But you said we needed to check if he was Rh-positive too."
"I checked."
"What?"
Squad Leader Sam looked completely unaware.
Taesu picked up the test strip and showed him.
It was the back side of the test strip, and red blood was smeared on it.
"......."
When Squad Leader Sam failed to understand, Taesu added,
"I mixed one drop of the patient's blood with one drop of the transfusion pack blood. It's clumping together well, so it's Rh-positive."
"Does it work like that?"
"If it shows this level of agglutination with the blood we're about to transfuse, there's no problem."
"Ah... everything you mentioned is possible, then."
"Then I'm counting on you."
The moment Taesu spoke politely,
Squad Leader Sam immediately moved.
Squeeze, squeeze.
He squeezed the blood pack and glucose.
Press, press.
He also stepped on the Ambu bag.
Because these were tasks to be done simultaneously, Squad Leader Sam looked a bit comical.
But the meaning behind those actions was absolutely no laughing matter.
Taesu let out a breath of relief and turned his gaze back to the patient.
No time had been wasted.
It was all time necessary for the patient's life.
Now that the transfusion had begun, his vitals would rise somewhat.
Now was the time to accurately identify the affected areas.
Whoosh.
Taesu unhesitatingly threw back the sleeping bag covering the patient's body.
He then began checking the patient's limbs.
'Right calf fracture, clavicle fracture....'
The injuries were concentrated on the right side.
He had guessed that hemothorax had occurred only in the right lung, and indeed that was the case.
The probability was high that he had fallen to the right.
Then, the organs he needed to examine were immediately drawn in his mind.
First, the liver.
It was an organ vulnerable to shock and with a large blood volume.
However, the patient's abdomen was not very swollen.
That was somewhat puzzling.
Optimistically speaking, it might not be a liver rupture.
But he couldn't be sure.
To get a more accurate diagnosis, he put the stethoscope back on.
'.......'
He couldn't hear any sounds from the abdomen.
The organ movement might have slowed due to hypothermia.
Keeping that possibility open, he lightly pressed on the abdomen.
Slosh.
The movement was strange.
It felt like a waterbed.
That much indicated movement as if the patient's stomach was filled with water.
Intra-abdominal hemorrhage?
'No.'
Taesu pushed the hypothesis away.
Usually, if intra-abdominal hemorrhage occurs, symptoms of abdominal distension appear.
When pressed, a rebound force should be felt.
But this patient was not like that.
Something was clearly wrong, but it was unclear what kind of abnormality it was.
Just as Taesu was confused,
Squad Leader Sam informed him of the time.
"Fifteen minutes have passed."
"......."
Now, not fifteen, but ten minutes remained.
Time had already flowed by so much. While he was briefly delayed examining the affected area, time had caught up to him so quickly.
Taesu, who had been calm, was gradually growing anxious.
Should he hold out like this and examine properly while moving to the helicopter?
For now, that might be the wisest course.
But somehow, it bothered him.
Tap, tap.
Taesu moved the chest piece of the stethoscope here and there over the abdomen as he asked Squad Leader Sam a favor.
"Sam, current vitals?"
Beep.
"Current pulse is... and body temperature is 32.9 degrees, SO2 is 43."
Squad Leader Sam immediately checked and reported.
Taesu, who had been listening to those numbers with half an ear, paused and asked,
"Why is the pulse fast and the blood pressure erratic... more than that, what did you say the SO2 level was?"
"43."
"Vitals, again."
Beep.
"Pulse is... lastly, S02 is 47."
Hearing that, Taesu's expression turned puzzled.
'That low?'
He couldn't understand it.
It meant the patient was gasping for breath.
Evidence supporting that was the extremely fast pulse and the inconsistent blood pressure readings.
The more he chewed it over, the more tangled Taesu's mind became.
'Could it not be the hemothorax? Then is it because the intra-abdominal hemorrhage is too severe? No, not the lung, but a blood vessel like the pulmonary vein....'
Dozens of symptoms came to mind in an instant.
All were related to symptoms of rough breathing, and the etiologies were extremely varied.
The correct answer had to be among them.
But Taesu's experience was still lacking.
Picking one correct answer from numerous symptoms was impossible.
At a time like this?
The knowledge of Kaprene, the bible of thoracic surgery, was needed.
The knowledge that had been sleeping in his mind poured out in an instant.
Flip, flip.
Taesu recalled similar cases from among them.
While mulling over several cases, Taesu paused.
"Oh."
Adding up all the abnormal symptoms, he could find one answer.
But there was a problem.
It was the symptom he most wanted to avoid in this kind of field operation.
\- traumatic diaphragmatic hernia (traumatic diaphragmatic herniation).
It was a medical term referring to a state where the diaphragm had ruptured due to a penetrating or blunt injury.
It meant the boundary between the thoracic and abdominal cavities had become ambiguous.
Suddenly, a curse burst from Taesu's mouth.
"Damn it all."
"Wh-what?"
Squad Leader Sam flinched and reacted.
Even though he didn't know Korean, he understood curses with freakish accuracy.
Meanwhile,
Taesu was filled with a dark expression at the result he had reached.
A diaphragm rupture was a first for Taesu too.
It was a what-if scenario.
He chewed over the symptoms and began verifying again.
Thud.
He spread his legs, planted his feet on the ground, bent at the waist, and placed his hands on both sides of the patient's chest.
Maintaining that uncomfortable posture, he found Squad Leader Sam.
"Sam, the details later... step on the Ambu bag twice and stand by."
"Sir, one... two."
Hiss, wheeze.
Reading the mood, Squad Leader Sam stepped on the Ambu bag seriously.
Taesu felt something through the palms of his hands pressing on the patient's chest.
But the lungs definitely couldn't inflate.
The feeling that air was spreading to the sides when it came in was stronger.
'As expected.'
A diaphragm rupture was certain.
The diaphragm was not merely a boundary dividing the chest and abdomen.
Preventing organ invasion, maintaining internal pressure, and so on.
It was a thin membrane performing many roles.
But now, the patient's diaphragm was unable to perform its role.