Chapter 108
Chapter 108
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Argh, Flying Doctor! (Complete)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Swish.
My consciousness sank beneath the surface of sleep.
And something began to fill the void it left behind.
Me—
No.
More precisely, the Cardiology Ghost wearing Han Hyun-jae's skin opened his eyes.
The Cardiology Ghost furrowed his brow the moment he opened them.
The rotor noise tearing at his ears, the intense vibrations rising from below, and the pungent smells of sweat and aviation fuel assaulting his nose.
He glanced around, took in the cramped cabin and the ocean visible through the window, and recoiled in shock.
"What the fuck!"
A gravelly curse burst from my mouth in a raw voice.
Professor Kang Hyun-jun, sitting beside him, jumped and stared at me.
"Huh? Hey, what the hell was that..."
But his bewilderment lasted less than a second.
The owner of my body instantly sharpened the focus in his eyes.
And just like that, he donned a calm, polite expression, as if the double curse from moments ago had been a hallucination.
"Oh, no, sorry about that."
He cleared his throat once, then reached out toward Professor Kang, who was sweating profusely as he positioned himself for chest compressions.
"H-hand it over. I'll take it."
His voice was steady.
'...Huh?'
I was impressed.
He's not like God's Scalpel.
That guy started barking orders in casual speech the second he possessed me, but this one at least knows manners.
'He's got... more class than he does in the gallery, I guess.'
Well, internal medicine docs do have that smart, gentle image.
Surgeons, on the other hand, deal with hands-on work and blood, so they're bound to be hot-tempered.
Of course, not all surgeons are devils, and not all internists are gentlemen.
In the end, it's person by person—hospitals are full of hysterical assholes regardless of department.
Anyway...
'So God's Scalpel really was the distilled essence of every surgeon's hysteria...'
No, let's drop that thought.
The guy borrowing my body right now was a notorious foul-mouthed troll in the gallery too.
The Cardiology Ghost expertly placed his hands on the patient's chest and began compressions.
At the same time, his eyes darted restlessly.
He checked the memo I'd left in my mind just before possession.
[Electrical Storm / SGB pls]
The Cardiology Ghost muttered under his breath.
"SGB? You think I know an anesthesiologist, you lunatic?"
He grumbled away diligently—it was obvious.
But it wasn't refusal.
He'd bragged about being an SGB expert plenty of times before.
Professor Kang Hyun-jun wiped his sweat and looked up.
"Hyun-jae. You're really gonna do SGB?"
Doubt and worry filled the professor's eyes.
No matter how you sliced it, the procedure was a gamble in this situation.
My mouth opened.
"Uh, Professor, theoretically, to calm a sympathetic storm..."
It was right then.
Beep—
Beep. Beep.
The monitor's alarm stopped, replaced by steady beeps.
The chaotic waveform settled into narrow but regular QRS complexes.
"Huh? Got it!"
Anna Yeon shouted.
"ROSC! Pulse is back!"
Professor Kang hurriedly checked the patient's carotid.
"It's beating! He's back!"
Ah, the heart was beating again.
After the fifth shock and relentless CPR, the heart had finally returned to normal.
"Phew..."
Professor Kang let out a deep sigh of relief and slumped to the floor.
The tension in the helicopter cabin melted away in an instant.
"Hyun-jae. We're good now, right? ROSC achieved, rhythm stable. Hospital's close—just monitor and go. Twenty minutes tops."
Professor Kang waved it off, trying to wrap things up.
It was the obvious call.
No point sticking a needle in the neck when the heart was already beating.
But.
"No."
Professor Kang's eyes widened.
"What?"
"We have to do it."
The Cardiology Ghost didn't budge an inch.
"ROSC? Heart's back now. Why?"
Professor Kang sounded exasperated.
"You know it's not fully back."
He pointed at the monitor.
"Sympathetic overdrive means even a tiny stimulus could trigger VF again. It might not come back next time."
"Still, hospital's twenty minutes away."
"Twenty minutes? This heart won't last two."
The owner of my body was firm.
"We block the storm."
He spotted the portable ultrasound shoved in the helicopter's corner.
"Ultrasound."
Anna Yeon rummaged in the cramped corner and pulled out the portable unit.
It powered on, screen flickering to life.
Professor Kang Hyun-jun still couldn't let go, grabbing at the hand about to squeeze ultrasound gel and blurting out urgently.
"Wait. We're almost there anyway... If it's electrical storm, beta-blockers could work. No need for this risky procedure..."
The Cardiology Ghost let out a deep sigh.
"Professor."
"Yeah, Hyun-jae."
"Esmolol?"
"...Yeah, that."
"BP."
"...BP?"
"Check the blood pressure now."
Only then did Professor Kang turn to the monitor.
[BP 80 / 50]
The blood pressure of a patient just revived from cardiac arrest.
Myocardium on strike from infarction, vessels shredded from repeated shocks.
"Systolic 80, and you want to drop cardiac contractility with beta-blockers? Instant cardiogenic shock."
Professor Kang's jaw dropped.
"And crucially."
The Cardiology Ghost nodded toward the crash cart.
"No esmolol in this chopper. It's all resuscitation meds. Best beta-blocker's labetalol at most—and you can't use that here."
"...Right."
Professor Kang Hyun-jun was out of rebuttals.
No drug, no BP to support it.
One option left.
"Let's do it."
The Cardiology Ghost pressed the probe to the patient's neck.
The helicopter still jolted around.
'Is this even possible?'
His hand didn't shake.
Guess the gallery's full of lunatics after all.
A black-and-white cross-section of the neck appeared on screen.
"Got it."
Without hesitation, the Cardiology Ghost plunged the lidocaine syringe into the neck skin.
The white needle tip grazed the carotid on the ultrasound, a hair's breadth away.
A slight miss would've punctured the vessel and caused massive bleeding, but mercifully, it hit the target dead-on.
"Injecting."
Pushing the plunger, the drug spread visibly on screen.
1cc, 2cc, 5cc...
A bit later...
Beep—
The erratic tachycardia calmed noticeably.
Heart rate dropping from over 140 to 100, 90.
The ectopics swarming the ECG vanished like a lie.
Success.
Storm over.
The Cardiology Ghost calmly withdrew the needle and pressed gauze to the neck.
Horner's syndrome appeared: slight droop in the patient's left eyelid.
Proof the procedure was perfect.
About seven more minutes in the air.
Our hospital's rooftop H-mark came into view.
The helicopter descended for landing.
"Hyun-jae."
"Yes, Professor."
"You're second-year, right?"
The Cardiology Ghost gave a curt, uneasy reply.
"...Yes."
Thud.
The chopper touched down on the rooftop helipad. Before the rotor whine faded, the door flew open.
A gust of wind brought a team in plastic PPE, stretcher in tow.
Cardiology fellows and emergency docs.
"Patient out! Careful!"
As we transferred him to the rooftop stretcher, a cardiology fellow asked frantically.
"Patient status? Heard arrest en route!"
The Cardiology Ghost yelled while pushing the bed.
"Post-ROSC VF storm—did SGB in-flight! Rhythm stable now!"
"Huh?"
The fellow nearly tripped mid-stride.
"What'd you do?"
"SGB! Left Horner's confirms it! Sympathetics blocked—no rhythm issues short-term! Stent him now!"
"A... uh... got it!"
The fellow nodded dazedly.
SGB in a chopper? Unbelievable—but the patient arrived alive, stable rhythm. No arguing.
Surrounded by staff, the patient vanished into the elevator for his blocked artery.
The rooftop fell quiet, wind the only sound.
Professor Kang Hyun-jun and Anna Yeon headed back to the chopper for gear.
The Cardiology Ghost leaned alone against the stairwell wall by the railing.
He gazed at the sky and sighed deeply.
"Haa..."
He lifted my hand and stared at it.
The long-lost sensation of hands that saved a life.
The Cardiology Ghost smirked and murmured softly.
"Han Hyun-jae... Heli Slave's name was Hyun-jae, huh."
He gave a wry smile and left his final words.
"You fucking bastard, Han Hyun-jae..."
Swish.
The world spun once more.