Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 101

#101 Serendipity by the Summer Sea (4)

I stepped on the accelerator.

Vroom!

The taxi lurched forward.

Suddenly, a warning alarm blared from inside the car.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

Sodam, who was sitting next to me, jumped in surprise.

“Sunhan, there’s a strange noise coming from the car? Are you driving okay?”

Ah, right.

I hadn’t released the parking brake.

Damn it, I’m so out of it!

I’m already a beginner driver, and this urgent situation is making me lose my composure.

I quickly released the parking brake, and Yeonseo in the back seat said suspiciously,

“Sunhan, are you sure you can drive?”

“Probably.”

“Probably…?”

Everyone nervously checks their seatbelts again.

“I’m a beginner, but it’s an emergency, so what else can we do? Sodam, can you call the emergency room?”

“Okay, I will!”

After regrouping, we set off again.

Soon, Sodam, sitting in the passenger seat, started calling the emergency room at Gokdam First Hospital.

“Hello? Is this the emergency room? We have a patient who experienced LOC [Loss Of Consciousness] for about 3 minutes and is on the way to your ER. The GCS [Glasgow Coma Scale, a neurological scale to assess level of consciousness] score is probably around 13-14…”

Sodam explained the situation to the emergency room staff.

Meanwhile, I followed the navigation’s guidance and entered Gokdam’s downtown area.

In the back seat, Yeonseo and Geunwook continued to monitor the patient’s condition.

“Do you think this man will be okay?”

“Well, he doesn’t seem seriously injured on the outside.”

“Seriously, what’s with this happening on our first day of dispatch?”

“I know, right? Is this a sign that we’re going to have a lot of difficult patients this month?”

I chimed in on their conversation while driving.

“Even if he looks fine on the outside, there might be bleeding inside his head. Keep checking for lateralizing signs [signs indicating a problem on one side of the brain].”

Lateralizing sign.

It refers to a condition where one side of the limbs has decreased sensation and movement compared to the other due to a problem in the brain.

Soon, the two of them pressed on the patient’s limbs to check his reactions.

Meanwhile, the taxi driver was still rambling nonsense.

“Back in my day, I used to smash the heads of those Blue Dragon gang bastards! If I were ten years younger… I would have won… damn it…”

Yeonseo tilted her head.

“His verbal response in the GCS score seems to be around 3-4? He keeps saying nonsense and strange words.”

“Isn’t that just how he normally talks?”

“I guess so… Anyway, thankfully, his limb sensation and movement seem fine.”

I thought after hearing Yeonseo’s words.

Slightly confused language, but limb sensation is fine?

Then it might not be too dangerous.

Not everyone who loses consciousness has a serious head injury.

But it’s too early to let our guard down.

The fact that he keeps rambling nonsense in a daze is definitely not a good sign.

‘He could suddenly collapse again.’

As I was focused on the patient, the navigation system announced.

<50 meters ahead. Turn right.>

Turn right?

Damn it!

I was so out of it that I changed lanes too late.

I quickly turned on the right turn signal.

Blink, blink.

But I soon realized the harsh reality.

The concept of yielding didn’t exist in Gokdam City’s traffic culture.

“Sunhan, no one’s letting us in?”

Whoosh, whoosh.

The cars nonchalantly zoomed past.

It was like they were all racing on the road.

Why are they going so fast?

Just like the impatient people of Gokdam.

Then, I suddenly remembered a joke I had heard online.

Gokdam’s roads, where even veteran drivers struggle.

It was too rough for a rookie beginner driver like me to dare to merge.

At that moment, Geunwook seemed to have an idea.

“Wait a minute. I have a way! I saw it online before…”

Buzzing—

With a determined look, Geunwook lowered the back seat window.

Then, he stuck his thick arm out of the window and started begging with both hands.

“Please, let us in!”

Is this what a is like?

I’m too busy driving.

Geunwook is opening the window and desperately signaling to the road.

Yeonseo is taking care of the patient.

Sodam is on the phone, diligently explaining the situation.

Even in the midst of all this, the patient continues to ramble nonsense.

It hasn’t even been 10 minutes since we arrived in Gokdam, and the first day is already fantastic.

“Damn it, bring that bastard back… I’ll just stab him with a knife… just stab him!”

His nonsense is also terrifying.

Patient Kim Il-chun.

He was the first patient I met at the dispatch location in August.

And, although I didn’t know it at the time, he was a person who left a lasting impression on my journey in Gokdam until the very end.

* * *

Vroom—

How much did I step on the accelerator?

We were soon able to find a sign pointing to the hospital.

‘Okay, we’re almost there.’

Soon, a faded sign came into view.

< Gok dam First Hos pit al >

I don’t know how old the hospital is, but you could feel the hospital’s history from the sign.

And there was a pine tree that seemed to have been with the hospital’s history, growing beautifully towards the sky.

“We’re here!”

Screech!

I stopped in front of the hospital’s emergency room.

It felt like a miracle that we didn’t have a car accident.

Sodam, who was sitting next to me, was still holding onto the door handle tightly, probably feeling carsick.

“Sodam, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think I should just stay in the hospital this month… I’m too scared to ride a car in Gokdam again…”

“Anyway, we’re here, so let’s take the patient into the emergency room.”

Soon, Geunwook lifted the patient’s body and took his arm, practically carrying him into the emergency room.

Buzzing—

The door opens.

The overall gray tone of the emergency room came into view.

Our first impression of the emergency room was that it was shabby.

It was a completely different feeling from the recently remodeled emergency room at Yeon Guk University.

I was so used to seeing the best facilities in Korea at Yeon Guk University Hospital that it was hard to adjust here.

Buzzing—

Even at a glance, quite a few patients were already occupying the beds.

The waiting room on the right was crowded with people waiting, and everyone was talking loudly, making it feel like a marketplace.

“What brings you here?”

At that moment, an emergency medical technician in a sky-blue short-sleeved uniform noticed us and approached to ask.

“We’re the patients who called earlier. Head trauma patient…”

“Ah, come this way.”

The emergency medical technician immediately understood and guided us.

However, the place he was pointing to was not inside the emergency room, but a corner of the waiting room.

“We have a lot of patients waiting, so there are no beds available. We’ll do a simple examination here while you sit down.”

We sat the taxi driver down on the sofa in the waiting room.

Soon, the emergency medical technician began asking the patient a few questions.

“Okay, sir. What’s your name? How did you get here, and do you know where you are right now? Do you have a headache right now?”

Meanwhile, I glanced inside the emergency room.

There were many patients and few medical staff.

There were only a few nurses, and only two emergency medical technicians were visible.

There wasn’t even a single doctor wearing a white coat.

‘There are so many patients lying in bed, and they’re taking care of everyone with just this number of medical staff?’

It was unbelievable.

Of course, today is the first day of August, so it’s the interns’ vacancy period [a period when senior doctors are on leave, leaving more responsibility to interns].

Even so, the number of nurses and emergency medical technicians was woefully inadequate compared to the number of patients.

‘It seems like there’s definitely a shortage of manpower because it’s a rural area…’

I felt a bitter feeling.

Of course, this environment is not unfamiliar.

The hospital where I used to intern was also in a poor environment.

But have I become accustomed to Yeon Guk University Hospital in the past six months?

It was a landscape that felt new again.

After a while.

The emergency medical technician took a brief medical history from the patient and said to us.

“Our chief will see you in order. There don’t seem to be any neurological signs right now, so don’t worry too much.”

We nodded.

You could feel the experience in the emergency medical technician’s words.

I’ve heard that experienced nurses and emergency medical technicians are better than rookie doctors in practice, and I wondered if this person was one of those people.

“One of the guardians should stay and wait outside.”

One guardian?

At the emergency medical technician’s words, we looked at each other and hesitated for a moment.

I stepped forward and opened my mouth.

“We brought the patient here, but we’re not guardians, we’re interns who will be working in August.”

“Yes? Interns?”

The emergency medical technician’s eyes widened.

We briefly explained the situation.

Then he burst out laughing and said to us.

“Wow, you’re having a proper initiation ceremony from the first day. You must have had a hard time getting here?”

“Actually, driving was the hardest.”

“Haha, this neighborhood is a bit like that. The elders here have fiery personalities, so the driving is rough, and these neighborhood brawls happen often.”

At that moment, the taxi driver who was sitting in the back suddenly stood up.

Then, a striking sound was heard.

Slap!

Suddenly, the taxi driver slapped the emergency medical technician on the back of the head with his palm.

His movements were swift, as if he had regained his senses.

“Ouch!”

“What the… neighborhood brawl? Do you think I’m some neighborhood thug? Do I look like I came from playing kids’ games?”

Grab!

Before we knew it, the taxi driver was grabbing the emergency medical technician by the collar.

Then, the emergency medical technician panicked and said.

“No, that’s not what I meant, sir… please let go of my collar and let’s talk.”

We who were watching were also horrified.

Surely another fight wouldn’t break out here?

Suddenly, I remembered the incident that happened in the emergency room at Yeon Guk University Hospital.

Of course, we were able to stop it with Sodam’s help back then.

But the situation seems more dangerous now than it was then.

A big accident could happen if we’re not careful.

“Sir, let go of that hand!”

“You can’t do this here!”

Geunwook and I were about to rush in to try to remove the taxi driver’s hand.

Just then, an unfamiliar voice was heard from somewhere.

“Hey, freeze!”

Step, step.

The emergency room door opened, and a man in a white coat walked in.

It was a middle-aged face full of masculine energy.

He shouted in a heavy baritone voice.

“Who’s causing a ruckus in the sacred emergency room? Huh?!”