Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 434

435. Procedure

I wondered if the hospital’s unusual quietness was due to its remote island location or simply the late hour.

“What is this?”

“Why is no one here?”

Park Jun-seok and Lee Jae-hyun spoke simultaneously, their faces showing bewilderment.

Carefully, the three of them moved Lee Jun-hyuk, still cocooned in his sleeping bag, into what appeared to be the emergency room and gently placed him on a bed.

“What kind of hospital is this?”

“Does it look like they’re about to close down?”

“The supplies don’t seem to indicate that… Excuse me!”

Tae-kyung, after quickly checking the monitors and other equipment near Lee Jun-hyuk’s bedside, called out.

Frustration welled up inside him. They had expected everything to be alright once they reached the hospital, but this unexpected situation was a setback.

“Is anyone there?”

“Um…”

“Excuse me?”

Just as Park Jun-seok was about to raise his voice after Tae-kyung, a middle-aged man descended the stairs and approached them.

“We have an injured person. Are you an employee of the hospital?”

“Yes, I am an employee.”

The man, identifying himself as an employee, wore a coat and carried a small bag. He looked as if he was about to leave for the day.

“Are there any other doctors here?”

“More importantly, we have an emergency patient. Can we get a CT scan done here?”

“This is an island, so we don’t have as many patients as hospitals on the mainland, and shift changes make it quiet. But how badly is the patient hurt that it’s an emergency?”

Unlike Tae-kyung, who was urgently trying to convey the situation, the hospital employee’s response was as calm as a gently flowing river.

“He’s a traffic accident victim, and it’s an emergency.”

“An emergency…”

The hospital employee didn’t seem particularly surprised by the word “emergency.”

Then, raising an eyebrow, he scanned Tae-kyung and his friends up and down and said nonchalantly, “You look like tourists who came for a visit and had an accident. Did the car get hit somewhere? It happens all the time. People come to this remote island to drink and have fun, then get into accidents. But when they come here, it’s usually nothing serious, and no one is hurt badly enough to worry about.”

Tae-kyung, who had been standing in front of the nonchalant male employee, took long strides and walked to Lee Jun-hyuk.

“Here!”

Then, staring intently at the male employee, he raised his voice. “Do you see this man?”

“Ah, yes… I see him.”

The male employee, who had approached Tae-kyung, recognized Lee Jun-hyuk lying on the bed.

“Isn’t that the owner of the ‘Pearl in the Sea’ restaurant over there?”

Even on an island, he didn’t know every single resident. But he knew Lee Jun-hyuk.

He had visited a few times because he heard it was a popular restaurant for people coming from the mainland, so he remembered Lee Jun-hyuk’s face.

“That’s right. If this man stays like this, he will die.”

“Huh!? Die? What do you mean…”

“He hit his head on the steering wheel in an accident and lost consciousness.”

Park Jun-seok spoke next, as the man flinched at Tae-kyung’s words about dying.

“He looks fine on the outside, but it seems like there’s a problem inside.”

“These two and I are all doctors.”

“D-Doctors? All three of you are doctors?”

“Yes. He’s in serious and critical condition. We need to take a CT scan quickly to check. Otherwise, this man will die.”

“… !”

At Tae-kyung’s words that they were doctors, the employee now seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation. And his expression slightly hardened at the repeated emphasis on dying.

Perhaps because they lived in a place with good air, good water, and great scenery, the people of Huirak Island were generally healthy.

There hadn’t been anyone seriously ill enough to cause a stir on the island.

There hadn’t been any major accidents either.

Sometimes, tourists who flocked in like the tide during vacation season would come to the hospital, saying they had been in accidents or were injured.

But when they came to the hospital, none of them were serious.

Isn’t that how people are?

People tend to exaggerate even a small scratch or a cold more than a serious illness.

So, he thought it would be the same this time.

Even though he had worked as a radiographer in Huirak Island his whole life, he had never seen such a dramatic situation as in medical dramas.

But at the words that someone was dying, the employee was momentarily startled and didn’t know how to react.

He had seen elderly people die of natural causes, but it was the first time he had seen a young person in critical condition.

It was even stranger because it was someone he knew.

“W-We can take a CT scan. I’m a radiographer. But first, I need to contact the doctor…”

After realizing the situation, the male employee quickly made a phone call.

After holding the phone for a while, the employee eventually hung up due to repeated connection failures.

“He said he wasn’t feeling well, so is he sleeping after taking medicine? Let’s go. I’ll take the scan.”

The employee pushed the bed with Lee Jun-hyuk lying on it, along with Tae-kyung and his group, towards the CT room.

It would be best to inject contrast dye for an accurate reading, but now was not the time to worry about that.

Time was of the essence, so it was a priority to take the scan and see the results first.

“Please wait outside for now.”

“Yes, please.”

After saying goodbye to the three people who laid Lee Jun-hyuk on the CT machine, he came out.

“Ha!”

“Tae-kyung, the results aren’t out yet. He’ll be okay.”

Park Jun-seok and Lee Jae-hyun said on either side of Tae-kyung, who was sighing so deeply that the floor seemed to be sinking.

He hoped so.

He really hoped that nothing was happening inside Lee Jun-hyuk’s body, but the chances of that were slim.

Tae-kyung was even more frustrated because he knew that.

“He has a young child, and the owner is young, so nothing bad should happen…”

“Hematoma [a collection of blood outside of blood vessels].”

As Lee Jae-hyun spoke with a worried tone, Tae-kyung, who couldn’t take his eyes off the CT room door, muttered lowly.

“Right. Tae-kyung, have you been expecting a hematoma since earlier?”

Seeing Tae-kyung nod, Park Jun-seok added that it was highly likely.

The fact that he looked so fine on the outside.

The biggest possibility for Lee Jun-hyuk, who was still unconscious, was a hematoma.

After a car accident, his organs could have ruptured. But Tae-kyung and Park Jun-seok, who had carefully examined Lee Jun-hyuk earlier, concluded that it wasn’t organ rupture.

“I think it might be SDH [Subdural Hematoma, a type of hematoma].”

Just as Park Jun-seok was about to say something with a short “Ah!” the CT room door burst open.

Click-

“The scan is finished.”

When the employee opened the door and said the scan was finished, the three people came inside and moved Lee Jun-hyuk to the mobile bed.

“But isn’t there a doctor on duty here?”

“Of course, there is!”

The employee said bluntly, with a nuance of “What are you talking about?”

“There is. There’s a doctor on duty. An internal medicine doctor.”

Unlike Tae-kyung, who was looking at Lee Jun-hyuk’s face and thinking about the results, Lee Jae-hyun and Park Jun-seok had surprised expressions at the words that the doctor on duty was in internal medicine.

Soon after, the employee told them the reason.

“Usually, there are many doctors in emergency medicine or surgery, but this is an island. There haven’t been any major accidents or injuries on the island so far, but since there are more elderly people than young people, the necessary personnel naturally became internal medicine.”

It made sense.

Unless it was a specific illness or something like that, people tend to visit internal medicine more as they get older.

“And even the people who come to the island for vacation usually come to the hospital with body aches or digestive problems, not with serious injuries.”

“I guess that’s possible.”

“So, when this restaurant owner said he was dying and in critical condition, I was so surprised. It would be unfair for such a young person to die so early.”

“But why hasn’t the doctor on duty come down?”

“Oh, I was going to say that, but the conversation went off on a tangent.”

The employee, who had only listed the reasons why the doctor on duty was in internal medicine, added the reason why he wasn’t visible.

“The doctor said he had a cold today, and it seems like he fell asleep after taking medicine. Vacation season is long gone, and there are usually no patients at this time, so he probably took medicine and slept comfortably.”

The rattling sound that had been echoing on the hallway stopped, and the four people walked to what appeared to be the emergency room where they had first arrived.

“I’ve left a message for the doctor on duty, so he’ll come down when he sees it. And Ms. Oh Sim-bo, the head nurse, will come down to help.”

“Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome. I work at the hospital, so I’m just doing my job. Our head nurse is a fixture here…”

The employee hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to say it or not, then completed the sentence.

“She’s a bit prickly.”

With those words, the employee headed back to the CT room.

“Anyway, Tae-kyung?”

“Yeah? What is it?”

Tae-kyung, who was feeling for the fifth vital sign [the sense of smell], coming from Lee Jun-hyuk’s body, especially the pungent smell of formalin [a preservative solution], was still fixed his gaze on Lee Jun-hyuk and replied.

“This, the owner…”

“Excuse me!”

Before Lee Jae-hyun could finish his sentence, a sharp, high-pitched female voice was heard nearby.

When the three turned their heads, the head nurse, who looked to be in her 50s and who the employee had mentioned, approached with a faded file in her hand.

Her appearance, with the white sandals that nurses used to wear a lot, a neat uniform, and pointy horn-rimmed glasses, gave off a strong feeling that she would be difficult to deal with.

“You took a CT scan?”

“Yes, it was such an urgent situation…”

“I know.”

Oh Sim-bo, who mercilessly cut off Tae-kyung’s words, raised the end of her horn-rimmed glasses slightly with one hand and continued.

Something about the employee’s words that she was prickly and the feeling that she would be uncooperative was strong.

“I received a call from the radiographer and heard the explanation. But even so, you shouldn’t do things so recklessly.”

“Recklessly?”

“You said you were doctors, all three of you.”

“Yes, we are doctors.”

“If you’re doctors, you’ll know better. From your accent, it sounds like you’re from Seoul, so you’ll know even better… No matter how urgent it is, you have to follow the procedures. It’s not like you can ignore a hospital on an island, and you shouldn’t take a CT scan so arbitrarily just because you’re a doctor when there’s no one in charge, right?”

“I’m sorry. We were so out of it because of the patient’s urgent situation.”

“Even if you’re out of it, that’s not right. Would you have acted like that even if this was a hospital in Seoul?”

Oh Sim-bo seemed quite displeased that they had taken a CT scan without telling her.

“Ms. Oh Sim-bo?”

Lee Jae-hyun, who had been listening quietly, confirmed her name and spoke.

“Yes?”

“You keep talking about procedures, but when we came to the hospital, there was no one, and we waited and waited until the employee came out and we begged him to take it.”

“Here! Can’t you see this?”

At Lee Jae-hyun’s words, Oh Sim-bo gave more strength to her voice than before and pointed to the station with her finger, but there was nothing there.

“Where did it go?”

Oh Sim-bo, who went inside the station because the memo that should have been next to the phone was not visible, picked up a fallen piece of paper and continued.

“Why is this falling and making a fuss.”

Oh Sim-bo, who pursed her lips as if embarrassed, reattached the memo with the message ‘Please call if you came to see a doctor’ and the phone number to the station.

“First, please register the patient.”

“Excuse me, could you please check when the CT results will be out? The situation is a bit urgent.”

“I just told you, register first. The results will come out if you wait, right?”

Although Tae-kyung spoke politely, Oh Sim-bo once again talked about registration.

“Ms. Oh, the results are out.”

And then, the technician who took the CT scan glanced at Oh Sim-bo and shouted loudly as he went out of the hospital.

“I’m off work.”

“How can you leave work after causing trouble?”

“What trouble did I cause? And my shift is over. Then, have a good night on duty.”

“Ugh! Really, we don’t get along.”

“Let’s see the CT scan quickly.”

Tae-kyung said hastily.