Chapter 91: An Unconventional Rescue Operation

Doctor Song hugged the patient tightly while his feet continuously searched for support in an attempt to increase friction.

However, he was at the mercy of the icy pavement.

This sort of rescue was definitely illegal, but special circumstances required special solutions. Were he to follow the standard procedure, the patient would be long gone by then.

Two paramedics used their bodies as a barrier and finally stopped the downward momentum of the duo, but it came at a price. The impact at that speed was almost the same as a full-force kick on the body.

Doctor Song was covered in red, a mixture of both his and his patient’s blood. Ignoring the pain, he carried the victim, who had not suffered any secondary injury, onto the stretcher trolley and slowly pushed him into the ambulance.

Blood pressure readings came back at 80/40mmHg, which meant that the patient was in hemorrhagic shock. He was given supplemental oxygen and medications to induce hypertension after establishment of venous access. The siren sounded even more dreary as the ambulance rushed back to the hospital.

Every vehicle tried to give way to the ambulance as it was the only green channel between life and death.

In the ambulance, aggressive fluid resuscitation and drug administration were performed to maintain the patient’s vital signs. Doctor Song ignored the wounds on his body and thoroughly examined the patient for signs of trauma while constantly reporting his condition to the emergency department so that early preparations could be made.

Twelve minutes later, the ambulance finally arrived at Sea City General Hospital emergency department.

Zheng Ren had been waiting for a long time at the main entrance.

The nurse in the ambulance handed over a few vacutainer tubes of freshly drawn blood for laboratory tests, mainly blood group and screening tests for HIV and syphilis. This was a necessary procedure as severely wounded patients desperately required blood transfusions.

The stretcher trolley was speedily pushed into the resuscitation room. Zheng Ren then inserted a central venous catheter into the subclavian vein while another doctor performed a B-scan ultrasonography on the patient.

At the same time, a nurse performed nasogastric tube insertion, urinary catheterization and preoperative skin preparation.

The senior consultants, highly experienced doctors from various departments—general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery and urology surgery—had been waiting for the patient on high alert, so they knew what to expect after seeing the patient’s condition.

The provisional diagnosis was traumatic hepatosplenic rupture complicated with hemorrhagic shock.

Fortunately, the tall patient had owned a small car, so there was no impact on the chest.

Chief Surgeon Sun said seriously, “Little Zheng, you’re young and fast, so go ahead.”

Zheng Ren nodded in response as this was not a good time for modesty. The emergency operating theater had long been prepared and they could save at least five to ten minutes of precious time by performing the emergency surgery here.

Whether the patient lived or died could depend on these few minutes.

“Get him to the emergency operating theater and prepare for surgery,” instructed Zheng Ren.

“Old Chief Physician Pan, I’m going to perform the emergency surgery. Please take it from here,” he said to Old Chief Physician Pan before he departed.

“I’m guessing there’ll be lots of casualties.” Old Chief Physician Pan frowned and added, “Off you go. I’ll call the operating theater if something happens.”

The conversation was short and simple. There was nothing else to say at this moment.

Chief Zhou of the medical administration division had also arrived a long time ago. Without demanding Zheng Ren’s presence, he began recording the current situation and authorized the emergency department to handle the emergency surgery on behalf of the hospital.

The System’s robotic female voice rang out in Zheng Ren’s ears as he quickly walked upstairs to the emergency operating theater.

[Emergency Mission: Pileup Crash.

[Task: Rescue the injured patients in the multiple-vehicle collision.

[Reward: Unknown.

[Time: One day.]

The System could not provide any details about the mission reward, presumably due to the fact that this was an unexpected occurrence with an unspecified number of casualties.

Zheng Ren had gradually figured out the System’s behavior. The fickle-minded System could either predict the future, although only to a certain extent, or simply felt reluctant to give further information about it.

The liver surgery experience the System had awarded him should be enough to deal with the emergency case at hand, but he lacked knowledge in splenectomy since he had performed it only once.

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If he exchanged 14920 experience points for surgery intensive training time, he would have little over four hours to practice.

Splenectomy was relatively simple compared to liver repair surgery.

More than four hours of surgery intensive training time should be just enough for Zheng Ren, who had achieved the Expert rank in general surgery.

It could be inadequate for being proficient in the surgical repair of a ruptured spleen, but he could definitely master splenectomy in that short a time.

Zheng Ren trotted all the way to the emergency operating theater. Xie Yiren was preparing the surgical instruments and the Chu sisters were preparing general anesthesia. Even the frequently absent and quiet anesthesiologist responsible for training junior doctors had also appeared in the operating theater and was silently assisting the ladies with preparations.

Since the surgery preparation was still ongoing, he figured it was time to change his attire and mentally prepare himself for the surgery.

After reaching the locker room, Zheng Ren exchanged his points for surgery intensive training time and began practicing splenectomy.

In a sense, a splenectomy was even simpler than an appendectomy.

In a complicated case of appendicitis, the inflamed appendix could be in an ectopic position, a huge headache for all surgeons, but the spleen was rarely ectopic.

It was basically location, dissection, clamping and removal. There was nothing difficult about it as long as the arteries, veins and ligaments were clearly visible.

Zheng Ren practiced forty-three splenectomies in 4.14 hours, averaging less than six minutes per surgery.

He would never complete the surgery so rapidly in reality, but in the System, all he had to do was cut through the abdomen, face various types of splenic ruptures and excise it without worrying about irrigation or abdominal wound closure.

The most difficult part of the surgery was the careful maneuvering around the abnormally developed short gastric arteries when handling the gastrosplenic ligaments to prevent damage to the gastric wall. Secondary to that was the location of the splenic artery and vein; if the anatomical structures could be clearly visualized, the chance of surgical failure was close to zero.

Zheng Ren even resolved several complicated cases of splenic tuberculosis, and the overall process was performed smoothly.

When his time was finally up, Zheng Ren glanced at his skill trees.

Based on his calculations, his general surgery skill tree should have increased from 2044 to around 2200 skill points after his revision, completing actual surgeries and the splenectomy intensive training.

However, he was flabbergasted upon seeing the skill tree.

The skill tree had grown directly from 2044 to 3154 points!

What the hell had happened?

After recalling recent events, Zheng Ren assumed that the tremendous growth in his skill tree was related to the three hundred liver surgery experiences the System had awarded him.

Whatever the case, it was good news.

Zheng Ren also decided to keep a closer eye on his skill trees from now on.

With 1529 skill points still in his inventory, he still needed a little more than 300 skill points for a skill upgrade from the Expert to Master rank.

He felt a tinge of regret. If a rank upgrade was possible, he would definitely have obtained it to ensure the success of the rescue operation. Besides, even if he used up every skill point now, he could still regain them from missions in the future, right?

The System also notified him that the main quest had been completed. Zheng Ren gave this some thought and figured that the gangrenous appendicitis case had been equivalent to tier-three or four surgery, which had completed it sooner.

After accepting the reward—1000 experience points and 10 skill points, he noticed that there was only one bar left in the mission completion rate.

Zheng Ren ignored the rewards as they were not useful right now.

He summoned his mind back to reality and changed into surgical attire before proceeding to perform a surgical scrub.

When he walked into the operating theater after decontamination, Xie Yiren handed him a pair of large forceps and a kidney dish containing iodophor-soaked cottons.

During disinfection of the surgical site, Xie Yiren informed Zheng Ren that the blood bank had prepared 16U of fresh frozen red blood cells and 1000mL of fresh frozen plasma for the patient, and the circulating nurse was currently on her way to retrieve them.

‘I don’t think those are enough,’ Zheng Ren thought while disinfecting and draping the surgical site.

He put on a surgical gown and stood under the surgical lighthead. Then, a sharp scalpel was handed to him.

Zheng Ren accepted it and the surgery officially began!