Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 314

315. 20 Minutes

“M-My legs… My legs are disappearing… It can’t be. My legs… legs…”

He was so shocked that he kept muttering to himself.

“There’s no time for this.”

“Hey! Manager Kim?”

“Yes, Section Chief.”

At Kim Tae-kyung’s words, Lee Hoo-rak quietly leaned back and shouted towards the driver’s seat.

“The director will perform surgery now. Drive smoothly!”

“Yes, I understand.”

It was a swift judgment.

Even though a stranger was holding a knife to his subordinate’s leg, he didn’t say anything more than a single question.

I was worried that Lee Hoo-rak might interfere with the surgery, but he didn’t, and I was even grateful for that.

He must have experienced many situations where he had to make quick decisions like this.

“Director? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Then, please shine the light from your phone.”

“Understood.”

Lee Hoo-rak brightened the lights on both his phone and Tae-kyung’s phone, which he had just received back, and illuminated the injured area on Manager Park’s leg.

“Is this enough?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

Tae-kyung focused on the patient’s leg. The leg is largely divided into four muscle sections.

Fasciotomy [a surgical procedure where the fascia, the connective tissue surrounding muscles, is cut to relieve pressure] incisions must be made in the fascia of all these sections.

The problem is that this fascia is also on the inside of the leg. This means that the patient has to endure the pain of having his muscles dug into without any anesthesia.

It was like surgery in the Middle Ages. It was easier said than done, and it was not easy for either the patient who had to endure the pain or the doctor who had to perform the procedure. Therefore, Tae-kyung’s job was to quickly and accurately complete the desired surgery.

“Just a moment.”

Lee Hoo-rak, who was diligently shining the phone light, picked something up and handed it to Tae-kyung, saying,

“Director, here’s lidocaine (a local anesthetic). I saw the previous medical staff using it often. Wouldn’t it be helpful?”

“Lidocaine can only anesthetize the skin’s surface, and administering the drug under high pressure can be toxic.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it’s meaningless anyway. I’ll do it right away. Manager Park, the situation isn’t good, so I have to make an incision directly on your leg, so it will hurt a lot.”

“I-I’ll endure it.”

Manager Park seemed to have prepared himself and braced himself with a determined expression.

“Stay focused. Let’s begin!!”

“Yes! Aaaaaaaah! Aaaack! Aaaack!”

As soon as Tae-kyung quickly made a long incision on his leg, a loud scream erupted from the burly man.

It was a scream that made you feel the patient’s pain just by listening to it. It was only natural.

No matter how highly trained a person is, there was no way they could endure the pain of cutting into raw flesh.

Even a small paper cut on the skin hurts, so the pain of being cut with a scalpel must be enormous.

“Manager Park, are you okay?”

“Hoo! Hoo! Section Chief Lee, this is more painful than torture training. My vision went blurry, and I felt like I saw stars for a moment.”

“You can do it. Manager Park! If it hurts, don’t hold back, scream more, it’s okay. You won’t die just because a knife touched your skin. The director is trying to heal you. Understand the situation and control your body with your willpower!”

“Yes! Ugh! Ughhhhh!”

As soon as Lee Hoo-rak’s encouragement ended, screams rang out in the car once again.

“Manager Park, you’re doing great.”

Tae-kyung wiped the flowing blood with sterile gauze as he quickly cut the skin. Tae-kyung, who was performing quick surgery in such a confined space, was amazing, but the truly amazing person was Manager Park.

“Ughhh! Hoo!”

Even while screaming like that, he was barely moving his painful leg.

He could have moved and struggled as much as he wanted, but he was enduring it because he was afraid of interfering with the surgery. An ordinary person would not have been able to do that.

“Manager Park, please hang in there a little longer.”

Tae-kyung knew this, so he accelerated the treatment even more.

He was wiping the incision with gauze to quickly check the structures, but to the average person, it looked like chunks of congealed blood were stuck to the red leg.

This was because bleeding had already occurred due to internal fractures, and some of it had hardened.

He could have made several incisions, but he made as few incisions as possible for future surgery and prognosis. Then, he quickly separated the subcutaneous tissues with the opposite side of the scalpel’s sharp edge.

Wiping with gauze, Tae-kyung identified one fascia.

Here, he cuts only the fascia quickly and accurately horizontally, giving as little damage as possible to the muscle. Then, he inserts scissors into it and cuts the fascia lengthwise, up and down.

“Ha!”

From here on, it was so painful that Manager Park began to shake his arms involuntarily.

“Ugh!”

“Hey! You! Manager Park, stay focused and scream!”

“Yes! Section, Section Chief, I’m okay!”

“You have to go and pay back the guy who did this to you. Stay focused!”

“Yes, please let me take on that mission again!”

“Of course. Don’t lose consciousness. Scream if it hurts!”

They roughly guessed that it wasn’t an accident, but they were people who said such chilling things without batting an eye.

Tae-kyung now makes an incision on the opposite side of the skin.

This is where the saphenous vein [a large vein running along the inner leg] is located, and massive bleeding can occur if you make a mistake. Therefore, you have to be more careful.

Tae-kyung roughly grasped the usual route and made an incision.

Of course, intuition or knowledge has a gap with reality, so he inserted his finger after making it about 10cm long to check the approximate structure again.

“Aaaack! It hurts more than before. It hurts more! Ughhh!”

Manager Park, with a face contorted with pain, screamed as if he was struggling. He was right.

Since one side of the muscle mass had already been decompressed, some blood flow would return, and the pain was greater because the sensation was more intact than before.

The remaining compartments of the opposite muscle are decompressed in the same way as before.

A cut of appropriate depth and a quick decompression with scissors were repeated twice more.

The only way to minimize the pain while digging into the muscles was to do it quickly, so he had no choice but to ignore Manager Park’s screams and do it quickly.

That was the only way to end the patient’s pain quickly, so he couldn’t delay.

All of this happened in 20 minutes.

You can never do this quickly in the operating room. No, there was no need to.

It was fortunate that Tae-kyung was here, and above all, it was fortunate that the patient was Manager Park. It was the result of their collaboration.

“Haa! Ha…….”

Manager Park was breathing heavily and had an exhausted expression. It was absurd that he hadn’t fainted in this situation and was only at this level.

Lee Hoo-rak, who had been watching quietly, shouted to the front seat.

“Manager Kim?”

“Yes, Section Chief.”

“Increase the speed just enough so he doesn’t die. Let’s overtake and get to the hospital quickly!”

“Yes! I understand.”

“Director, was it successful for now?”

“Yes, it’s all thanks to the patient. Manager Park did a great job.”

“I watched from the side, and he’s a really amazing guy.”

“Since we’ll be doing internal surgery as soon as we get to the hospital, I’ll just do skin sutures for now.”

“Thank you.”

Tae-kyung took out a large needle and loosely attached the skin so that it would not dangle.

Now, all that’s left is to enter our hospital and proceed with the surgery quickly. The urgent situation, where raw flesh was cut without any anesthesia and loud voices were exchanged, was temporarily over.

Manager Park and Lee Hoo-rak, who were involved, couldn’t believe that all of this had happened in a short time inside a moving car.

“Manager Park, you endured it well. You really suffered.”

“Ah, no. The director suffered more.”

Tae-kyung encouraged Manager Park and shifted his gaze to his toes.

Unlike before, the red color had returned. And the smell of formalin, which had been suppressing the smell of feces, had also subsided. It was a relief.

“Director? I don’t know if it’s because I’ve become bolder while working in this field, but I’m someone who doesn’t even flinch at ordinary things, but I was quite surprised to see you today. You’re really amazing.”

“You’re welcome. Any other medical staff would have done this, too.”

“Well, I’ve seen quite a few medical staff, but it seems to be different for each person. Anyway, I think I know why Assemblyman Gam Deok-chan recommended you.”

“But Section Chief, how long will it take to get to the hospital?”

“Manager Kim, how long do you think it will take to get to the hospital?”

“We’ll arrive within 30 minutes.”

“It seems like we’ll be there soon.”

“Yes.”

Tae-kyung exchanged words with Lee Hoo-rak and continued to look after Manager Park while going to the hospital.

Before long, the car that had been running on the dawn road arrived at the hospital. Tae-kyung looked at Lee Hoo-rak and said.

“Section Chief, please give me my phone.”

“Here it is. I’ll give you all the money in cash, so please make sure there are no records left. And…….”

“Yes, I know very well what you’re going to say. You don’t have to worry. But I also have something to say. Please promise me one thing. You must listen to me.”

“A promise? Okay. Tell me.”

“I will discharge Manager Park as soon as possible after the surgery, as you wish.”

“Thank you.”

“However, please ensure that Manager Park receives good care until he is completely cured in a place accompanied by medical staff after discharge. That’s my condition.”

“Yes, of course. Don’t worry about that.”

Tae-kyung now carried Manager Park on a stretcher and guided the unit members to a different place than where patients usually came and went.

It seemed that the entrance had not been used for a long time, so it was locked, so he picked up his phone and started calling someone.

* * *

Our Hospital-

“Nurse Soo?”

“Yes.”

Lee Chan-hee, who had been seeing a patient, asked Lim Jeong-sook, the nurse who was working at the station.

“Nurse Soo, do you know where the director went?”

It had already been several hours since Tae-kyung left the hospital. By this time, everyone was starting to wonder where he had gone.

“Well……. Why are you asking me that?”

“Hey! Nurse Soo, you know.”

“How would I know where the director went? He just said he was leaving, but I don’t know either.”

“Really? I see. I’ll go to the ward. Nurse Go? Did you adjust the IV fluid rate for bed 7?”

“Yes, Nurse Soo.”

“Thank you. Oh, 깜짝아! [Kkamjjak-a! – Korean expression for being startled!]”

After Lee Chan-hee left the emergency room and Nurse Lim Jeong-sook was checking her work, she was startled to see Team Leader Choi standing right next to her, sticking his face in.

“Team Leader, why are you doing that? You really startled me.”

“Nurse Lim, this is not the time to be surprised. Take a look at this.”

“What are you asking me to look at again?”

With a serious face, Team Leader Choi showed her a collection of accident videos on YouTube, including content about kidnapping.

“See here? Nurse Lim, could our director have been kid…….”

“Team Leader, what are you talking about! Stop watching things like this. Kidnapping? What kidnapping.”

“No, it’s just that he was dragged away by those big, dark guys, and even though it’s a call from a member of the National Assembly, I haven’t been able to reach him for hours, and it’s a bit unsettling.”

“The director said that he wouldn’t be available for a while.”

“That’s true, but……. Nurse Lim, do you know Assemblyman Gam’s contact information?”

“Why? Are you going to try to contact him directly?”

“If I knew, I would.”

“How would I know the contact information of a member of the National Assembly? Team Leader, don’t worry too much and go do your work. I have to work too.”

“Hmph! Okay.”

Team Leader Choi still had an uneasy expression as he left the emergency room and continued to mutter to himself.

“Those men were big and the atmosphere wasn’t normal……. No, the director is completely out of touch, but everyone is too relaxed……!”

Team Leader Choi, who had been grumbling to himself for a while while going to the bathroom, flinched as he looked at his suddenly ringing cell phone.