Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 464

Fifth Vital Sign – Episode 465 (464/502)

465. Tinnitus

“Director! This is no time for this!”

“Why?”

“Haa! The emergency room is in chaos.”

Team Leader Choi spoke, barely catching his breath, he was in such a hurry.

“Chaos? Did an emergency patient arrive?”

“No. It’s not so much the patient, well, the patient *is* also a problem, but g-gangsters came, and it’s a complete mess right now.”

“Gangsters?”

Taekyung asked, wondering if he had misheard.

“Yes, you know, those guys in black suits who move around in groups like in the movies? About a dozen of them came to the emergency room and are grabbing Lee Chan-hee’s collar, saying something about their big boss.”

“Grabbing Doctor Lee’s collar?”

Taekyung frowned.

“Are you saying they grabbed a medical staff member by the collar?”

“Yes, Director. These guys are really something…”

Team Leader Choi, who was speaking excitedly, noticed that Taekyung was already far ahead and chased after him.

“Director! Let’s go together.”

Taekyung, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped and turned to look at Team Leader Choi.

“Ah! You startled me. What’s wrong?”

“Team Leader, Doctor Oh will be coming out of the operating room soon. Please bring him here.”

Taekyung told him to bring Oh Chang-gyu, who had been in surgery. He figured that because he was a male nurse, he would be helpful in managing the situation.

“Yes, Director.”

Taekyung, after speaking to Team Leader Choi, quickly headed to the emergency room.

Usually, after surgery, doctors would go to the guardian waiting room and then to the examination room to record the surgery patient’s chart and leave a surgical review in a file.

No matter how similar the surgeries were, the symptoms felt by each person were slightly different, and even the specific issues encountered during surgery varied.

Therefore, leaving a review file was a learning experience in itself and was helpful in many ways.

But now there was no time for reviews. Gangsters had come to the emergency room.

In fact, gangsters coming to the emergency room wasn’t inherently a big problem.

Hospitals, especially emergency rooms, aren’t places that can pick and choose their patients.

Rich people, poor people, children, adults, men, women, and even criminals can come. A hospital is the place with the lowest barrier to entry in the whole country.

However, if gangsters come and threaten medical staff or patients, then the situation changes.

You can’t let your guard down because dangerous things can happen.

Taekyung, who heard that his junior, Lee Chan-hee, had been grabbed by the collar, was worried about the medical staff in the emergency room and felt a surge of frustration.

As he entered the emergency room, he could sense the worry etched on the faces of the patients and medical staff.

Their gazes were all fixed on the treatment room, as if they had made a pact.

“Doctor!”

Choi Mona, who came out after seeing a patient, spotted Taekyung and called out urgently.

“Doctor Lee is unable to treat patients because of the gangsters; they’re interfering even while he’s treating a patient in the treatment room.”

Choi Mona said, sounding exasperated.

“Yes, I heard.”

“Doctor, I don’t like the feeling those people give off. I think something bad will happen.”

“Doctor Choi, nothing has happened *yet*, right? It’s okay.”

Even the air in the emergency room was thick with tension, but Taekyung answered with his usual calm expression and tone.

Taekyung was the director of the hospital.

He was someone that patients and even employees trusted and relied on when things went wrong.

That’s why he deliberately maintained a demeanor that was no different from usual. If the leader is shaken, the employees will become even more nervous and anxious.

“I’ll go in and see what’s happening, so don’t worry too much.”

“I’ll go in with you.”

“No. Doctor Choi has to see other patients. Doctor Jung will be here soon, so see patients together. If you need an extra pair of hands, I’ll call you then.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Taekyung, after asking Choi Mona to take care of the other patients, briefly inquired about the situation with Lee Deuk-hyun inside and walked to the treatment room.

“Hey! You son of a bitch, what did you just say?”

As he approached the treatment room, Goo Dae-chun’s shouting grew louder.

“Our big boss is in danger? So what! Is he going to die right away? Huh!”

The emotion in his voice was full of anger, as if he was ready to kill someone.

“Hey, I’m asking you now!”

Taekyung’s expression, as he hurried to the treatment room, cutting through Goo Dae-chun’s fierce shouting, was noticeably different from before.

The narrowing eyes and frowning eyebrows, which intensified with each step, indicated that he sensed something unusual was happening.

Tak-

Soon, Taekyung opened the half-open treatment room door and went inside.

“What are you doing!!”

He shouted at Goo Dae-chun, who was still grabbing Lee Chan-hee’s collar.

Taekyung, shouting with a powerful voice, suddenly froze like a stone statue.

“……!”

Because he was confronted by the fifth vital sign [an unusual or alarming odor indicating a patient’s critical condition].

The moment he opened the door, it felt like an extreme odor swirled around the room, engulfing Taekyung like a huge storm.

It was as if all conversations were muted for a moment due to tinnitus [ringing in the ears], and the surrounding noise faded as he concentrated on the fifth vital sign.

In fact, the reason why Taekyung’s expression changed as he entered the emergency room and headed to the treatment room wasn’t just because of Goo Dae-chun’s shouting.

It was because of this fifth vital sign.

It wasn’t stage 1, stage 2, or stage 3. It wasn’t even stage 4, the formaldehyde smell.

It was the stage 5 smell of facing death.

The smell of rotting animals or corpses, difficult to distinguish clearly, and the smell of sulfur filled the treatment room.

It was really dizzying and made his nose tingle.

Taekyung, who diagnosed patients by smell and was trained to identify odors, had encountered such smells before.

The problem was that it wasn’t clear who the source of the smell was.

Normally, he could clearly distinguish the person it was coming from, but the target was obscured by the terribly foul odor.

“……What the hell!”

“Who are you!”

Taekyung, who had been completely distracted by the ridiculous smell, could now hear the loud voices clearly.

“Hey! I asked you who you are!!”

Taekyung walked towards Goo Dae-chun, who was shouting at him. He put his hand on Goo Dae-chun’s hand, which was grabbing Lee Chan-hee’s collar, and said.

“Me? My name is Kim Taekyung, the director of this hospital.”

“Director? You’re the director of this hospital?”

Goo Dae-chun looked at Taekyung’s gown and checked his name.

“Oh! He’s the director.”

“Let’s put this down and talk.”

“Why should I let go of his collar? This bastard is spouting nonsense that our big boss is in danger. How can I stay still? Huh?”

“It’s not nonsense. The big boss you brought *is* in danger, so let go of him quickly.”

The rough talk and murderous glint in his eyes made it clear that these were real gangsters. Taekyung could tell.

But Taekyung didn’t feel scared.

Rather, he became more and more calm, which surprised him.

People who harm others with knives and physical force can’t be overcome with force. Anyone who faces these people is scared and afraid.

The reason why Taekyung was so calm was because of the fifth vital sign.

The fifth vital sign, which brought the stinging smell of death, was more frightening than the gangsters in front of him.

As of now, the priority was to find out who was the source of this smell.

Even now, the fifth vital sign was overwhelmingly strong.

“If you want to save this patient, you’d better let go of him quickly.”

“Hey, Kim Taekyung, you said you’re the director, right?”

“That’s right. I’m the director.”

“The thing about our big boss being in danger, that’s not a joke, right? It better not be. If it’s a joke, I won’t let you off.”

Goo Dae-chun, who had been screaming, lowered his voice and stared at Taekyung, asking seriously.

“Doctors don’t joke about a patient’s condition.”

“Okay. Then, if I let go of him, are you, the director, going to treat him?”

“I will treat him.”

“Instead, if what you just said was nonsense, then I won’t let you off. Huh!”

Only then did Goo Dae-chun release Lee Chan-hee’s collar.

“Doctor Lee, are you okay?”

“Yes, Doctor. I’m fine.”

From the moment Taekyung entered the treatment room, Lee Chan-hee’s anxiety disappeared, and he felt reassured.

“What’s the patient’s condition?”

“He is 65 years old and came to the hospital with hematochezia [blood in the stool]. Currently, when I pull down the lower part of his eyelids, there isn’t much blood, his tongue is dry, and I was about to perform a basic examination.”

While listening to the briefing on the patient, Taekyung thought: *Who is the source of this terrible smell?* His eyes, filled with seriousness, profoundness, and focus, busily scanned the treatment room.

Of course, he had a strong suspicion, but he wasn’t certain.

First of all, Lee Chan-hee, Im Jung-sook, and the medical staff, including Jang Deuk-chil, were all excluded.

If this level of smell was coming from employees he had encountered several times throughout the day, he would have noticed.

Soon, Taekyung’s eyes turned to the gangster trio.

Goo Dae-chun with long hair, the taciturn man behind him, and another man next to him.

Of course, you can’t know what’s going on inside the body just by looking at the outside, but as of now, it didn’t seem like it was any of the three of them either.

Then that left the other person.

The most likely person was Lee Deuk-hyun, 65 years old, who was currently lying on the bed and whom the gangsters called their big boss.

He would have to do an examination and judge based on the accurate results, but so far, he suspected it was the old man.

“Patient, I am the director of this hospital. I will examine you now.”

Taekyung approached Lee Deuk-hyun while being watched by the gangster trio.

“Since when have you had hematochezia symptoms?”

“That’s…….”

Taekyung lowered his ear to Lee Deuk-hyun’s mouth, who seemed to have difficulty speaking because he was so weak.

“It’s been like that since last night. ……you.”

Lee Deuk-hyun continued with a short word, but it wasn’t heard well because he whispered quite softly and slurred the end of his words.

“Patient, if it’s hard to speak, you can speak as slowly as possible. Do you have any underlying diseases you are currently suffering from?”

“I don’t have any now… I had a tube inserted in my chest once.”