Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 132

Fifth Vital Sign – Episode 132 (132/502)

Episode 132. Corpse

“Something’s off…”

She looked normal at first glance, but her expression and overall vibe were subtly strange.

“Are you going to see Sister Kim?”

Nurse Lim Jeong-suk asked Tae-kyung, who was observing Choi Mona.

“Yes.”

“Oh, right! What about your *toegeun* [leaving work]? You said you were going home to prepare for the conference.”

That was the original plan, but Sister Kim Ye-eun’s surgery had changed things.

“I do need to go home for the materials, but the timing is awkward. Did something happen to Doctor Choi?”

“Doctor Choi?”

“Oh my, how did you know, Director?”

Following Nurse Lim Jeong-suk’s curious remark, another nurse working at the station added,

“Her expression and atmosphere are a bit different.”

Tae-kyung, who always cared about Choi Mona and Lee Chan-hee, quickly noticed even minor changes in his juniors.

“Why? Did something happen to Doctor Choi?”

“Yes, Doctor. You could say she almost had a big fight with a guardian?”

“A big fight with a guardian? You mean she fought?”

“Not exactly fought… Ugh! It was so absurd.”

The nurse suddenly looked dumbfounded and, suppressing her anger, trailed off.

“What happened?”

“That person is a real son of a bitch.”

“A s-son of a bitch?”

“I’ve seen my fair share in the ER, though not as much as you, Doctor, but that was the first time I’ve ever seen someone like that.”

For medical professionals working in the emergency room, dealing with unreasonable people was often a daily occurrence, and they were used to it. But if a nurse was saying that much, it was clear that the person was truly strange.

“So, what happened was…”

* * *

An hour earlier. Emergency room situation.

While Tae-kyung was performing surgery on Sister Kim Ye-eun, Choi Mona had finished her rounds and ultrasound examinations for outpatients before entering the emergency room.

“Did you finish the ultrasounds?”

“Yes. Please redress patient number 15 in 30 minutes.”

“Okay. Oh, right! I have a gift for you, Doctor Choi.”

The nurse nodded, looking at Choi Mona, who was sitting in the station’s monitor chair.

“Yes. A gift for you.”

Her birthday was still far away, and there wasn’t anything special that warranted a gift. As Choi Mona pondered, the nurse handed her a small paper bag.

“Here you go.”

“What is this?”

“Take a look.”

“Wow…!”

Choi Mona’s expression brightened rapidly as she rustled the paper bag and checked its contents.

“Are you really giving this to me?”

Inside the bag was a limited edition 30th-anniversary jelly from Choi Mona’s favorite brand. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been released in Korea and was difficult to obtain even through overseas *jikgu* [direct purchase].

It was quite a precious gift for Choi Mona, a jelly enthusiast.

“Yes, my sibling bought it while traveling in the United States and brought it because they thought of you, Doctor Choi. I don’t really like jelly that much.”

“Thank you. You’re going to be so blessed for giving me such a precious thing.”

“I’m happy too because I gifted it to you, Doctor Choi, since you like it.”

“What should I give you in return?”

“Don’t worry about giving me anything. Oh! Just a moment. Yes, this is our hospital’s emergency room.”

The nurse, who had been continuing the conversation, immediately picked up the receiver at the sound of the ringing phone.

-Thank you for your hard work. This is the police from ○○ station.

“Yes. Just a moment. I’ll ask the doctor and let you know right away.”

“Is it an emergency patient?”

Choi Mona asked the nurse, who briefly took the receiver away from her ear.

“No. It’s the police. They said a corpse has been found.”

“Ah…”

“It seems they’ve been dead for about two days, and it’s the body of an old woman. They found her at her home. They want to come here to complete the necessary procedures, such as declaring the death. Should I tell them to come?”

“Yes, we’re not too busy right now, so I think it’s okay for them to come.”

“Okay, I understand.”

Not long after receiving the phone call, the police arrived at the emergency room with the corpse.

“Doctor Choi, the police are here.”

“Yes.”

“Hello. I’m the police officer who contacted you.”

“Hello, I’m Choi Mona. I heard you came for administrative procedures.”

“Yes, a report of a corpse came in.”

When the police find a corpse, they come to the emergency room doctor to handle related administrative tasks such as issuing a death certificate. These things happen quite often, and most of the bodies are of elderly people living alone or the homeless.

Choi Mona and the emergency room staff also thought that the corpse that came in today would be an elderly person living alone.

“Doctor, is everything finished now?”

“Yes, everything is finished.”

With Choi Mona’s help, the police were able to quickly complete the administrative tasks related to the corpse.

“By the way, how did the deceased end up like this?”

The nurse next to her asked the police, seemingly curious about the story.

“The deceased was renting a semi-basement, and the landlady found her. She made a living collecting *paeji* [waste paper/recyclables] during her lifetime, I heard.”

As she listened to the police’s explanation, Choi Mona’s gaze shifted to the body.

The fingertips of the deceased, a small and petite woman with neatly tied white hair, were all cracked and worn.

Looking at her rough hands, it seemed she had been collecting *paeji* for quite some time.

“She always went out with her handcart at a set time every morning, but she hadn’t been seen for two days, so they went inside and found her dead.”

The deceased was wearing clothes and gloves, so it seemed she had an accident while going to work.

“That’s so sad. How unfortunate! Does she not have any family?”

“We heard she had a son, so we’re trying to find him, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to contact him.”

The staff always felt bad whenever they saw an elderly person living alone meet such a lonely death.

“Anyway, we have another case, so we’ll be going now. Thank you for your hard work.”

“Yes, thank you for your hard work.”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

After the police finished their work and left the emergency room, Choi Mona brought a pair of stationery scissors from the station.

“Doctor Choi, why did you bring scissors?”

“I brought them to cut this.”

“The loose thread?”

“Yes.”

Choi Mona pointed to the loose thread on the gloves the deceased was wearing. A strand of thread that had come loose from the end of the gloves, which had the fingers cut off for easy *paeji* collection, was tangled around the deceased’s finger.

Choi Mona had been bothered by that tangled thread since earlier.

“Doctor, shall we move the body?”

“Yes, we should move it.”

Usually, the *National Forensic Service* (국과수) takes the body of a *byeonsache* [unnatural death]. Most of the *National Forensic Service* staff come within the day, so it is kept in the treatment room and then handed over.

“Doctor?”

The youngest nurse in the emergency room approached Choi Mona and said.

“The police officer who came to the hospital earlier called and said the deceased’s son is coming.”

“That’s good. But the son will be very surprised when he comes…”

“It would be best to move it to the treatment room first.”

With the news that the son was coming, Choi Mona and the nurses moved the body to the treatment room and then focused on their work again.

After 20 minutes, a man stopped a nurse who was busily walking around the emergency room.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes, are you here for treatment?”

“Not really, is that Yi Gwi-nam person here?”

The man with wavy, shoulder-length hair and a tattoo on the side of his neck looked to be in his mid to late 30s. The person he was looking for was the old woman who had come in as a *byeonsache*.

“Excuse me, what is your relationship to her?”

“I’m her son. The police said she was here, so I came.”

“I’ll call the *dangsang seonsaengnim* [doctor in charge] for you. Please wait a moment.”

The nurse, who had turned around to call Choi Mona, paused for a moment at the sound from behind.

“Seriously, old woman. So late…”

The nurse thought she had misheard the faint sound and continued walking.

“Hello. I’m the doctor in charge. Are you the son?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“First of all, your mother was found already in cardiac arrest when she was discovered. As far as we can tell, the cause of death is…”

The man didn’t seem to want to hear Choi Mona’s words and interrupted her in the middle, looking for his mother.

‘Right. There’s no way he can hear the explanation right now.’

His overly calm expression and actions were unsettling, but she thought it was because he was in shock.

“She’s in this treatment room.”

As she turned to guide the deceased, the man’s unbelievable words and actions shocked Choi Mona.

“Ah! This damn old woman.”

The man, who was supposed to be her son, began searching the body of his deceased mother.

“Where the hell did she hide it? Damn it!”

Choi Mona, who watched the scene from the entrance of the treatment room, was dumbfounded. The nurse, who had approached after sensing something was wrong, was equally dumbfounded.

While working at the hospital, there were times when they saw patients or guardians who seemed to have given up on being human, but this was one of those times. No, it was the worst case.

“Still, this is a bit much…”

“Excuse me, guardian, what are you doing right now?”

Choi Mona, leaving behind the nurse’s whispered words, entered the treatment room and asked the man.

“What?”

“I asked what you’re doing right now.”

“I’m looking for her credit card and bankbook.”

“So, you’re saying you’re looking for her card and bankbook from your deceased mother right now?”

“Yes, I’ll just take that. You can take care of the rest. Ha! Where is it… Oh! Found it.”

The man’s expression was bright as he found the card and bankbook in the inside pocket of the vest the deceased was wearing. The man, who had been indifferent to his mother’s death, showed great interest in the money.

It seemed that money was more important to the man than his mother’s death.

“One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand… Oh! 15 million won.”

He had seen countless patients and guardians, but such filial impiety was rare.

“Look here! Don’t you think your actions are too much right now?”

Choi Mona, unable to watch any longer, said to the man as he left the treatment room. She didn’t know what kind of story there was between the deceased and the man, but this was not right.

“Too much? Listen here, Doctor. I’ve been estranged from this old woman for over 20 years. What does that mean? It means we didn’t have a good relationship. But the old woman suddenly contacted me a few months ago, as if she knew she was going to die, and told me to take the money she had saved when she died, so I came to find it. Okay?”

“Still, shouldn’t you show at least some respect to your mother?”

“Respect?”

“Say goodbye… Isn’t it too much to do this to the deceased when it’s not even difficult to say goodbye?”

“I don’t think so. You, the well-educated doctor, can keep the *yeui* [formalities/decorum]. Just think of it as a crazy bastard came and went. Then, goodbye.”

The man, as if he didn’t want to hear any more of Choi Mona’s words, maintained a nonchalant expression until the end and quickly left the emergency room.

He was in such a hurry and didn’t look back, so she couldn’t say anything more.

“No, Doctor, what did we just see?”

“What a son of a bitch.”

“How can a person who is supposed to be a child act like that in front of their deceased mother?”

“The world seems to be getting more and more brutal.”

The staff who saw this situation together poured out their words with dumbfounded expressions.

“That kind of person isn’t even worth cursing.”

Choi Mona entered the treatment room and quietly straightened the deceased’s disheveled clothes.

The money the man took was probably the money the deceased had collected from *paeji*. It was heartbreaking to think that she had saved such precious money for such a son.

“Grandmother, you’ve worked hard all this time. Rest in peace.”

Choi Mona, refastening the crooked button, whispered quietly to the deceased, who had her eyes closed.

* * *

“Doctor Choi?”

Tae-kyung, who had heard the whole story of the *byeonsache*, called out to Choi Mona as she approached the station after finishing treating a patient.

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay now. I was so upset earlier… I think I was too much.”

“You weren’t too much. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. I would have been even more furious. And you can stop now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Stop doing rounds and seeing specific patients.”

In the meantime, Choi Mona had been in charge of night rounds and elderly and child patients.

Tae-kyung had ordered her to do it in the hope that she would understand the patients’ hearts even a little.

Of course, when there were many patients or when she was alone in the emergency room, she saw all the patients, but when Tae-kyung and Lee Chan-hee were there, she treated elderly and child patients when they came.

“Really?”

“It seems to me that you understand the patients’ hearts now. Or not?”

“Not as much as you, Doctor, but I understand them little by little.”

Choi Mona had changed without even realizing it while working with Tae-kyung.

“Not at all and a little are very different. And don’t set that standard as me. I’m not the answer, so make yourself the standard. Remember? You told me you would never change.”

“I remember.”

“But look at you now. You feel how much you’ve changed.”

Sometimes, there are people who think that the job of a doctor is chosen with a great sense of duty. But the reality is not like that.

Of course, there are those who come to save patients with a sense of duty, but not all of them are like that.

There are also people who become doctors because of their parents’ recommendations, for money, to inherit the hospital, or simply because their grades were good enough to get into medical school.

It didn’t matter to Tae-kyung what purpose every doctor had in becoming a doctor.

However, if they were doctors who would grow the hospital and work together in the future, he wanted them to at least have a heart that cared for patients. Especially if they were his juniors.

So, he had been pushing Choi Mona and assigning her unpleasant tasks.

He may have helped in the process of changing Choi Mona’s heart, but in the end, it was Choi Mona herself who realized and changed.

Tae-kyung was proud of such a junior.

“Choi Mona?”

“Yes.”

“You’re doing well.”

“Thank you.”

Choi Mona liked hearing Tae-kyung’s compliment. It was the first time in her life that she had received such a sincere compliment.

“And I’m *toegeun* now, so please take care with Doctor Lee. See you tomorrow.”

“Yes, see you tomorrow.”

Tae-kyung, who had been *gomin* [pondering], decided to *toegeun* due to preparations for the conference and left the emergency room with a satisfied expression.