Chapter 35 – Starting Anew (2)

The accident was already a foreseen one.

A road where cars and pedestrians mingled.

With a sloped road and a sharp curve, it was a path where traffic accidents were bound to be frequent at first glance.

Even in the midst of almost 75% of it being destroyed by the Korean War, a jeep had hit a person while rounding a corner.

Unable to overcome the centrifugal force, it drifted off the road and collided with an oncoming person.

It happened so instantaneously that there was no time to do anything.

“……!”

“……!”

A situation that unfolded right before their eyes.

Without needing to say who was first, Ji-hyuk and Yun-seok got off their bicycles and rushed to the accident scene.

“Oh my goodness!”

Acrid smoke was rising from the jeep’s hood, which was crumpled like a piece of paper, and a man was inside the vehicle, having lost consciousness.

Ji-hyuk immediately ran to the patient and checked his condition.

“Whew! What a relief! Don’t worry too much. He seems to have lost consciousness from the impact of the accident, but once he stabilizes, he will improve…”

Ji-hyuk checked the driver who was in the accident.

Although he had lost consciousness from the impact of the collision, there were no major abnormalities in the driver’s breathing, pulse, or pupil status.

Fortunately, it was not a major injury.

But

the driver was not the problem.

“Ah! Ji-hyuk! C-Come over here for a second!”

Ji-hyuk looked around because Yun-seok was not in sight. Soon, Yun-seok’s urgent voice was heard.

Yun-seok, who was checking around the accident site, waved his hand and called Ji-hyuk.

‘This can’t be…’

There was another person injured in the traffic accident besides the driver.

A woman was lying beneath a bench on the right side of the road.

Whether she had injured her head, she was bleeding, and large and small bruises were scattered all over her body.

Furthermore, she was in a state of near-unconsciousness.

At first glance, she was definitely an ultra-emergency patient.

“J-Ji-hyuk, w-what should we do about this?”

Yun-seok’s cracking voice came out.

That look in his eyes must have meant for Ji-hyuk to do something.

“…….”

But Ji-hyuk hesitated.

This was 1953, when neither ambulances nor emergency rescue vehicles existed!

It was because touching her carelessly might worsen her condition instead.

Just as Ji-hyuk was hesitating,

the patient lying on the ground grabbed Ji-hyuk’s arm.

“D-Doctor!”

She grabbed Ji-hyuk’s arm with desperate eyes.

Tremble—

Lacking strength, her hand that was holding Ji-hyuk’s arm slipped down, and then she used all her remaining strength to grab Ji-hyuk’s arm again.

“……!”

“D-Doctor, I am pregnant. It is a child I had with great difficulty. Please save our Uram…”

The patient, covered in blood from a head wound,

was, shockingly, a pregnant woman.

‘She, she was a pregnant woman!’

“P-Please save…”

She could not finish her words.

In the end, she powerlessly let go of the arm she was holding and lost consciousness.

“Ji-hyuk! What are you going to do? At this rate, this person will die! Shouldn’t we take action somehow?”

Kim Yun-seok shouted as if screaming.

“……!”

Ji-hyuk still hesitated.

‘I can’t save her! A patient injured to this extent! She is a completely hopeless patient. The probability of saving her is less than 5%!’

“Ji-hyuk!”

‘But if I don’t step in now, even that 5% possibility will disappear! Yes, let’s try it!’

“Yun-seok, step aside!”

Finally, Ji-hyuk seemed to have changed his mind.

“Yeah!”

Yun-seok gave up his spot to Kim Ji-hyuk as if he had been waiting.

And then,

“Hey! Over here!”

Ji-hyuk looked around and gestured toward a pedestrian on the street.

“Yes? Me?”

“Yes, yes. It’s an urgent traffic accident patient!”

As Ji-hyuk gestured like that, two robust men ran over.

“Mister, do you live in this neighborhood?”

“Yes. That is so!”

“Please take this person to the hospital! The wound isn’t deep, so he won’t need to go to a large hospital. Can you do that for him?”

“Of course! Isn’t this a world where we should help each other as compatriots?”

The pedestrians readily granted Ji-hyuk’s request.

The driver, whose condition was relatively stable, was secondary.

“Hey. Isn’t there a Yang Surgery Clinic near here?”

“Right! If you turn that corner, there’s a clinic. Let’s take him there.”

With that, the two men set off toward the clinic with the driver on their backs.

“Yun-seok!”

“Yeah!”

Yun-seok was in a state where he looked ready to do whatever he was told.

“Look behind my bicycle; there should be a black bag. There’s a first-aid kit in it! Can you bring that to me?”

In a city turned to ruins by the Korean War, there was a high probability of various accidents happening anytime and anywhere. To prepare for this and use it in emergencies, Kim Ji-hyuk habitually carried a first-aid kit.

“There was a first-aid kit?”

“Yeah.”

Ji-hyuk replied while checking the patient’s pupils and heart sounds.

“When did you start carrying something like that around?”

“I don’t have time to explain that right now. Can you quickly bring it? Every second counts!”

“O-Okay.”

Yun-seok hurried over to where the bicycle was.

‘Right. Let’s try to save them! Both the mother and the baby!’

Kim Ji-hyuk clenched both fists tightly.

A moment later,

Kim Yun-seok arrived with the emergency kit.

“Yun-seok! Press down hard here with this.”

“Yeah!”

Ji-hyuk handed a handkerchief to Yun-seok, who gently pressed down on the affected area with it.

‘The laceration on the scalp is nothing. A few stitches will be enough! But…’

The patient was bleeding from a laceration of about four centimeters around the crown of her head, but it was certainly not a major injury.

‘The problem is the lungs!’

Her ribs must have broken due to the sudden accident, and the broken rib fragments would have become sharp weapons, piercing into her lungs. That must have caused a hemothorax.

‘In that case? A hemothorax accompanied by traumatic pneumothorax!’

“Yun-seok, take out the disinfectant from the front pocket of that bag!”

“Thoracentesis! You’re doing that, right?”

By now, Yun-seok also had a decent eye for medical procedures.

“It’s a hemothorax accompanied by tension pneumothorax.”

“So you’re saying you’re performing a thoracentesis? What about blood bags? Wouldn’t we need a blood bag?”

“Yes. If a large amount of blood accumulates in the thoracic cavity, performing thoracentesis will cause bleeding, requiring a blood transfusion. But right now, we have neither the circumstances nor the luxury for that.”

“Then what do we do?”

Yun-seok stomped his feet in anxiety.

“For now, the heart is being compressed because of the air and blood accumulated in the thoracic cavity, a situation where cardiac arrest could occur at any moment. Let’s start the thoracentesis immediately. As for the rest… we have no choice but to leave it to heaven!”

It was a situation where the patient’s life hung by a thread.

Now was not the time to worry about bleeding.

Fortunately, the amount of blood accumulated in the thoracic cavity was not yet at a level requiring a blood transfusion.

Of course, it would become like that as time passed.

“Okay! It’s do or die! Ji-hyuk! Give it a try. I’ll do my best to assist you.”

“Okay! Give me the syringe and the needle.”

“Got it.”

Yun-seok fitted the needle onto the syringe and handed it to Kim Ji-hyuk.

Puff.

Receiving the syringe, Kim Ji-hyuk inserted the needle without hesitation along the midaxillary line at the sixth intercostal space.

“Tube.”

“Yeah!”

Ji-hyuk connected the tube that Yun-seok brought and inserted one end into the drainage bottle. After a moment, dark red blood and air began to drain out.

“Stop! Tie it!”

Since a certain amount of blood had accumulated in the drainage bottle, there was no need to drain any further.

“Yeah!”

“Dress it. You can do that, right?”

“Yeah! I can easily do this much!”

‘The hemothorax is resolved to some extent! However, the more serious problem is the abdomen. Isn’t this patient pregnant? If my guess is correct, the organs inside must have collapsed like soft tofu.’

After leaving the dressing to Kim Yun-seok, Kim Ji-hyuk immediately examined the patient’s abdomen.

‘It’s… this bad?!’

The patient’s abdomen was protruding. It was not simply because she was pregnant.

The patient’s condition was far more serious, exceeding Ji-hyuk’s expectations.

Intra-abdominal hemorrhage.

Although she looked fine on the outside, there was a high probability that her organs had ruptured, accumulating a large amount of blood in her abdomen.

Her ribs had broken, and their sharp fragments had damaged her lungs; her organs, including her liver, pancreas, and kidneys, must have been damaged, causing blood to continuously gush out.

Considering that the popliteal artery was severed, preventing any blood from flowing toward the leg, it was a fully predictable situation.

To make matters worse, the patient was pregnant, and if blood did not circulate properly like this, it would be fatal to the baby as well.

‘Can I really save both the mother and the baby?’

Ji-hyuk temporarily lost confidence, but since he had already made up his mind, he intended to save this patient and the child no matter what.

Moreover, since he had the experience of performing surgery on Grandma Mi-seon, who had been run over by an armored vehicle last year, it was not entirely impossible.

“Yun-seok, I think we need to move her to the hospital right now and perform surgery!”

“To the hospital? You mean the National Medical Center?”

“Yes. So, listen to me carefully. I’ll go to the hospital as soon as I finish the emergency treatment here, so you go right now and tell the obstetrician and orthopedic doctors. Okay?”

“Sigh, this is driving me crazy.”

Yun-seok had a troubled expression.

“Quickly! You must hurry. Otherwise, both the mother and the baby will be in danger.”

“O-Okay. I don’t know if there will be an obstetrician in this chaos, but I’ll do my best.”

Even in the 1950s, the place where babies were delivered was not an obstetrics clinic but a local midwife’s house. As such, there was no demand for obstetrics clinics. Naturally, obstetricians were extremely scarce.

The same was true for the National Medical Center, where Ji-hyuk and Yun-seok were going to work.

Because of this, Yun-seok had shown a troubled look.

“An obstetrician! You must bring one no matter what, Yun-seok!”

“I got it!”

Ring-ring—

With that, Yun-seok set off first for the hospital on his bicycle.

* * *

A moment later, at the National Medical Center.

Ji-hyuk, who had hitched a ride on a passing truck, brought the patient to the hospital.

“Thank you! Truly, I will never forget this kindness!”

“No need for thanks! I was so proud to see a young doctor working so hard that I put everything aside and came here! So, make sure you save this lady, okay?”

“Yes! I will do my best!”

“Young people like you must take responsibility for this country now. Please do your best.”

“Yes!”

Right then.

“Ji-hyuk! Over here!”

Seeing Ji-hyuk, Yun-seok waved both hands.

“What about the obstetrician?”

In Ji-hyuk’s head, there was only the question of whether an obstetrician had come.

“I brought her!”

“Really? You actually brought a real obstetrician?”

Ji-hyuk, who was half in anticipation and half in concern,

seemed to have actually brought an obstetrician.

“Where is she?”

“Ah! There she comes. Professor Lee Gil-sook!”

Yun-seok pointed to a woman running in a hurry from afar.

“How did you bring her?”

“That’s not what’s important right now, let’s get the patient to the operating room quickly!”

“Ah, okay.”

With that, Professor Lee Gil-sook approached Ji-hyuk.

“I’m Lee Gil-sook! You said the pregnant woman was in a traffic accident?”

‘Wait! If it’s Lee Gil-sook… Wh-what? The famous Ji-cheon-sook Foundation’s Chairwoman, Lee Gil-sook??’

She was the founder Lee Gil-sook, who later became the president of Ji-cheon Medical University.

“You are Professor Lee Gil-sook?”

Surprised, Ji-hyuk raised his voice.