Chapter 71
Chapter 71
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Despair (2)
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“Suction!”
The sound of sucking up the blood and vomit that gushed from the patient’s mouth sliced through the resuscitation room.
At the same time, Han Jae-eon shoved the laryngoscope in without a moment’s hesitation and rammed the tube home.
Airway secured.
The alpha and omega of trauma patient care.
First, make sure they can breathe—everything else comes after.
My role was Circulation.
Circulation.
Working with Lee Min-jae to stanch the blood leaking from the patient’s body somehow and pump in just as much to replace it.
I climbed onto the patient’s limp body.
A horrific wound exposed beneath the shredded pants. Bone fragments jutting through the skin and muscle, blood surging out in waves around them.
Open pelvic fracture.
“Pelvic binder’s on!”
They cinched a massive belt—a pelvic binder—tight around the patient’s pelvis.
A desperate scramble to stabilize the shattered pelvic bones and reduce the internal bleeding even a little.
But the blood seeping out from under the binder showed no signs of slowing.
Everything was the worst it could be.
In my head, all the words defining the fucked-up scenarios I’d heard drilled into my ears over the past year screamed like a banshee.
Massive hemorrhage, shock, metabolic acidosis, hypothermia, coagulopathy.
Death’s triad, my ass—right now, all I saw in front of me was someone about to die.
“Two liters of fluid in and blood pressure’s still the same?!”
Lee Min-jae practically wailed it.
His hands were squeezing the pressure bag so hard it looked like it might burst.
The two clear fluid bags hanging from the IV pole were already deflated.
The clear liquid poured like mad through the thick vascular line into the patient’s body, but it was like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
Blood was bursting out somewhere faster than we could pour it in.
But the numbers blinking on the monitor just mocked our efforts.
Please go up, you fucking blood pressure.
I cursed the numbers on the monitor in front of me while pressing down on the patient’s abdomen. Those red digits were laughing at all my efforts.
[BP: 65 / 35]
Bullshit.
I spat the curse in my mind.
Two liters? Even twenty wouldn’t make a difference.
We’re flooding him with fluids, and not only is it not rising—it’s dropping further.
Means there’s no more blood left to flow in the vessels.
The patient’s body was nothing but a leaky bucket right now.
Fluid poured in through the line in one arm, while blood fountained out from below the smashed pelvis.
[HR: 145]
Heart rate blinking like crazy.
Yeah, that fucker heart’s the only one working overtime right now.
No blood in the body, so it’s pumping on empty, desperately squeezing out the last drop to the brain and heart.
But that wouldn’t last long either.
It’d go into V-fib or asystole in a heartbeat once it gave out.
[SpO2: 92%]
Even with a 15-liter non-rebreather mask jammed over his nose and mouth, it was dropping.
No blood to carry the oxygen.
What’s the point of a green light if there are no cars on the road?
No delivery truck to take it anywhere.
“Prof! He’s gonna arrest before we even hit the elevator! When’s trauma surgery coming?!”
Baek Eun-seo’s voice was shaking.
To her innocent first-year eyes, this probably looked like the end of the world.
She wasn’t wrong.
At least for that patient, it was.
Lee Min-jae bellowed at Park Seong-jeong, who’d frozen in front of the whiteboard.
Park Seong-jeong’s face was already ghost-white, drained of all color.
Yeah, that’s the normal reaction for a first-year.
I was the crazy one charging into the heart of hell.
“One line’s clogged! Backflow!”
Shit. The nurse’s shout rang out.
That line that had backflow earlier was clogged again?
With blood pressure this low, one of our hard-won lines had died.
“Get an IO needle! We’ll drill a hole in the bone and pump it in!”
Lee Min-jae looked half out of his mind now.
Intraosseous access.
Drill a hole in the tibia and hammer in fluids.
That was a last resort.
But right now, we had nothing else left.
Even amid the chaos, fourth-year Han Jae-eon silently squeezed the Ambu bag at the patient’s head, securing the airway. What the hell was that senior’s mentality made of?
“Han Hyun-jae! Compress properly! Don’t let up!”
Lee Min-jae’s barked order snapped me back.
The sensation under my palms was gruesome. The abdominal wall that should’ve been firm was gone—instead, just a sickening, helpless squish like pressing a bag of blood.
Did leaning my weight into this compress even mean anything? Wasn’t it just flailing to plug a burst dam with my bare hands?
“Blood’s here!”
A savior’s voice. An intern from the blood bank clutched two O-neg bags.
“Yeah, hook it up! Hurry!”
Lee Min-jae yelled. The nurse disconnected the fluid line and attached the blood bag. Squeezing the pressure bag sent dark red blood flowing through the tube into the patient.
I kept compressing the abdomen like a maniac.
Ah, worst tactile feedback ever.
‘…Fuck.’
Was this it? Just watch someone slowly cool under my hands like this? Were all these efforts, all this struggling, just a show to delay an inevitable death by a few minutes?
Helplessness crashed over me. That shitty sensation I’d felt countless times since stepping into this hellish ER, but never got used to.
Everything in front of me seemed to slow down.
The monitor’s wailing alarms, the seniors’ screams bordering on sobs, the faint warmth of life fading under my palms.
Ah, damn. Should I open the gallery?
A memory from my first year flashed up.
Possession.
And God’s Scalpel.
Use possession again?
I shook my head.
No.
This wasn’t like before.
Even if I cut open the abdomen in this state, it wouldn’t work…
Back then it was just the abdomen, but now the pelvis was fucked too.
Double the problems.
I’d just waste more time and get nothing.
My body would be wrecked for twelve hours in hell instead.
Patient dies, I end up half-crippled.
Not a rational choice.
Fuck, whatever.
I shook off the temptation.
Focus on the basics I could do right now.
“Prof!”
I yelled at Lee Min-jae, who was half-mad squeezing the bag.
“Blood! I’ll squeeze the blood! Prof, just check the ultrasound one more time!”
“Yeah, thanks!”
Lee Min-jae handed me the pressure bag and grabbed the ultrasound probe again.
“Eun-seo!”
I grabbed Baek Eun-seo’s shoulder as she stood there lost.
“You! That! Hold the pelvic binder tight on both sides so it doesn’t loosen! More bleeding from the pelvis and we’re done!”
“Yes!”
Baek Eun-seo scrambled to grip the binder.
Lee Min-jae’s face glistened with sweat.
“FAST! Let’s see the FAST! Where’s it gushing from?!”
His face twisted moments later.
“Ha… spleen. The spleen…”
I squeezed the pump on the blood bag like a maniac.
Cold blood flowed through the tube into the patient.
Yeah, now I’m on the blood bag…
Time to ask for help.
Earlier there was too much going on, but now it’s just squeezing the bag. No time later.
I hurriedly opened the blue window in midair and started typing.
[Washed-Up Medics Gallery]
Title: HelpHelpFuckThisIsUltraUrgent
Author: HellJoseonSlave1
20s/M, TA, Open pelvic Fx w massive hemoperitoneum. BP 60s, HR 140s. MTP running but no response. Waiting on trauma team, ETA 10+ min.
[Comments]
Anon (210.94): Whoa… that’s bad. Half-dead already, right?
SurgeryRoomGhost3: How’s it feel, you medics? This is the real battlefield. Nothing like you chart-jockeys clicking away all day.
ㄴ LatteIsJustWords: Spend less time typing bullshit comments and think about how to save this patient, you psycho fuck.
The gallery spewed useless comments.
What did it mean that even the gallery—which always gave clear answers—was filled with meaningless bullshit?
Would those ghost psychos—who were supposedly dead serious about saving lives—post crap like that if there was a real solution?
Nah.
It meant this was a seriously hopeless situation.
Right then.
Han Jae-eon’s voice came from the head of the bed, where he was squeezing the Ambu bag.
“Prof.”
“What? What?!”
Lee Min-jae snapped his head up.
“EtCO2 is 20. Heart’s about to stop. No time.”
Normal range: 35 to 45.
EtCO2 at 20 meant almost no blood pumping from the heart—not even enough to carry CO2 to the lungs.
One of the strongest harbingers of cardiac arrest.
And that harbinger turned real right away.
“BP 55 over 30! Still dropping!”
The nurse’s scream erupted.
The heart rate on the monitor shot up like a last desperate frenzy.
155 bpm.
160 bpm.
165 bpm…
“Ha, fuck! This is insane! No! No way, heart! Hold on!”
Lee Min-jae screamed at the monitor.
Amid it all, I caught the latest refreshed comment in my head’s gallery window.
God’s Scalpel: Use possession, anon. I’ll fix it.
…
…?
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Fix it?
This?
ㄴ HellJoseonSlave1: You say there’s a way? How?