Trauma Center : Golden Hour - Chapter 101

Squeeze.

Blood drained out from the patient’s heart clenched in Kang-hyuk’s hand.

On the monitor connected to the electrocardiogram, the now meaningless ECG line flickered and disappeared.

“Professor! Do you think this will… work?”

Jaewon was doing his best to push the bed from the rear.

Crash, bump!

The bed jolted violently as they forced it across the rough, untended dirt floor.

They had suggested fixing the road several times, but no one seemed to care.

Just like that, even Kang-hyuk’s voice would often scatter away like smoke.

No matter how tough a person is, it’s hard to face a crowd alone.

“What do you mean!”

Kang-hyuk answered while still squeezing the stopped heart.

He didn’t even have time to look back.

Getting the patient inside the hospital was the top priority.

“It’s been over ten minutes since we started [cardiac massage]… Do you think they’ll come back?”

Jaewon shouted again, looking at Kang-hyuk’s sleeve, which had turned crimson and was now caked with blood.

Blood streamed from the right hand inside the patient’s [thoracic cavity].

He had shoved his hand in without even removing his gown due to the urgency.

The gown, originally supposed to be white, was now stained bright red.

Drip.

Just then, blood stuck to the gown dropped to the floor.

By chance, it fell right on a white line crossing the tennis court.

The white and the red blood formed a striking contrast.

“Do you really think they’ll come back?”

He had seen enough blood to be sick of it.

But when he saw this much blood, a creeping sense of despair inevitably welled up.

As someone who hadn’t yet established himself as a trauma surgeon, it was an emotion Jaewon couldn’t avoid.

“Hey, idiot, don’t jinx it—just keep pushing!”

Kang-hyuk, on the other hand, didn’t allow even a trace of despair to seep in.

He was focused solely on how to treat the patient.

Even now, as he squeezed at just the right spot with uncanny precision, it was the same.

Squeeze.

It wasn’t quite a real heartbeat, but it was enough for effective [ventricular ejection].

Rattle.

Soon, the emergency medicine entrance doors opened.

Thanks to Jang-mi’s heads-up, nothing blocked their way.

“Straight to the OR! Agents, go check in and call the guardian again!”

Kang-hyuk yelled, steering the bed like a race car.

He turned the bed so abruptly it nearly left skid marks on the floor.

“Whoa…”

The patient’s guardians in the waiting room gasped involuntarily.

Some took out their phones to record short videos.

“Wow. It’s Baek Kang-hyuk.”

The scene itself was shocking.

It’s hard to believe, even just seeing someone’s hand squeezing a heart inside a living chest.

And now, he was even drifting the bed.

And the one doing it was Baek Kang-hyuk.

It had been a month since the Baekryeongdo incident and the Cheongdam Bridge bus accident—just as it was fading from memory.

But Kang-hyuk’s personal fame hadn’t faded at all.

“Tag him. Tag him.”

“Got it. Tagging Baek Kang-hyuk. Wow, look at the view count already.”

Every time Kang-hyuk was about to be forgotten, he’d pop up in the media through his SNS account.

Thanks to that, ‘#BaekKanghyuk’ consistently got strong traffic.

This video, too, was enough to draw the public’s attention.

<Insane. Now he’s racing beds.>
<Where’s his hand right now?>
<Isn’t he squeezing the heart? I think I saw that in a movie.>
<He’s literally shooting a movie in real life…>

These were the kinds of comments pouring in.

But those actually “shooting the movie” remained calm.

“Yes! Good luck with the surgery!”

“Hey, Team Leader Ahn! Let’s grab dinner sometime!”

“Sure!”

Jung-heon, completely used to it, sent Kang-hyuk to the OR and headed for administration.

He checked the caller’s info, admitted the patient, and called the guardian.

Doctors were supposed to do all this.

Ring.

Jung-heon listened to the dial tone while watching Jaewon’s back.

At some point, Jaewon’s hair in the back had become his trademark—flipped up at the end.

‘He must not even have time to sleep.’

Even just doing rescue work was enough to exhaust someone.

At least Jung-heon and other team members could rotate shifts.

But what about those two?

No rotation—just those two.

They said someone new would be added in May, but…

‘If they want to survive until then…’

They’d need a helping hand, whether they realized it or not.

That’s why Jung-heon took charge of guardian calls, even though it wasn’t his job.

“Ah, hello. Are you Kim Pil-jung’s guardian?”

“Yes. Um… why? I have a lot of missed calls…”

“Yes, well…”

Even though it was a tough, emotionally draining job—

Rattle.

While Jung-heon was backing them up, Kang-hyuk reached the OR without issue.

He shouted to Jaewon as soon as he entered the room.

“[Cardiopulmonary bypass] first! Even I can’t operate like this!”

(T/N: [Cardiopulmonary bypass] is a medical procedure where a machine temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery, maintaining blood
circulation and oxygenation.)

“Yes, yes!”

Jaewon stopped pushing the bed and ran to the [cardiopulmonary bypass machine].

In the past, he might have complained about why general surgery needed [cardiopulmonary bypass].

But not now.

Now, seeing the machine didn’t make him think of cardiothoracic surgery—his hands just moved automatically.

‘Hmm. He’s getting pretty good.’

Kang-hyuk checked that Jaewon was working by the book, then turned his head.

“And anesthesia?”

“Yes! Ready!”

Gyeongwon replied energetically.

Having received patient info from the helicopter, all the drugs were prepared.

“Let’s start! The airway’s okay for now, so just make sure I don’t move.”

“Understood!”

Gyeongwon hurried to position the bed.

In principle, you tilt the patient’s head back to fully expose the [airway].

But with Kang-hyuk, that was almost never possible.

‘Other anesthesiologists must hate this.’

It was a surgery where you could hardly do anything by the book.

Pre-op checks were always skipped.

They’d come straight from the field to the OR—what checkups could there be?

At first, it had been tough for Gyeongwon, too.

“Quickly!”

“Yes, yes!”

But now he’d gotten used to it.

Thɩ𝙨 𝗰hӑp𝖙𝗲r 𝗶𝓈 p𝐨𝗌ṯҽ𝑑 b𝘺 Ḱ𝕀ţ℮𝙣𝘰𝕧𝙚𝐥

No, actually—he kind of enjoyed it.

“Don’t worry! If you fail, Slave will slit the patient’s throat!”

“Yes!”

He always had backup during surgery.

If the tube didn’t go in, someone would nail the [tracheostomy] at just the right moment.

Thanks to that, Gyeongwon could relax and intubate.

‘Can’t see.’

Even with the head tilted back as far as possible, the [airway] was barely visible.

The [airway] is where you breathe.

Because it’s important, it’s covered by the tonsils, tongue, and [epiglottis].

(T/N: [Epiglottis] is a flap of tissue at the base of the tongue that covers the windpipe during swallowing to prevent food from entering the airway.)

So, in this state, it’d be stranger if the airway were visible.

He had to do it by feel alone.

But there were some tricks.

‘No idea why Professor Baek knows these…’

Kang-hyuk had rattled off anesthesia tips even most anesthesiology professors wouldn’t know.

Tap, tap.

Gyeongwon brought his left hand to the patient’s neck.

Where the [thyroid cartilage] was—if the tube went in right, he could feel it with his fingertips.

Pressing here moved the airway backward, making it easier to insert the tube.

‘And go over the tip of the tongue.’

Tips you wouldn’t think of when just looking and jabbing.

But looking back, even outside trauma, like with head and neck cancer patients, there were plenty of times he’d had to intubate like this.

Back then, he’d just called for a [tracheostomy] without trying.

Not anymore.

Slide.

After wandering near the [epiglottis] and [esophagus] a few times, the tube entered the [airway].

Gyeongwon felt it for sure with the left hand pressing the area, but he checked objectively just in case.

He blew air through the tube and listened for breath sounds.

If it had gone into the esophagus, he would’ve heard bubbling in the stomach, not the lungs.

“It’s in!”

“Great, nice job! Start anesthesia. Relax the muscles as slowly as you can! Blood pressure’s way too low!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Slave! Are you done yet?”

At Kang-hyuk’s shout, Jaewon answered in a hurry.

“All set! I’ll scrub in and connect it right away!”

“Good! Hurry! Gangster, disinfect the patient again.”

“Ah… Yes.”

Jang-mi nodded, as if wondering if she’d disinfected before.

She’d had to open the chest so fast that bleeding hadn’t even stopped.

It wasn’t massive bleeding, but blood still oozed from the wound.

Naturally, the disinfectant on the skin was already long gone.

Swipe.

Jang-mi wiped the chest with gauze soaked in Betadine.

Technically, the operating doctor should do this.

Strictly speaking, having Jang-mi wipe was against the rules.

But no one in the room cared.

They had too many people to save to worry about rules.

“Oh, but Professor.”

Jang-mi asked while disinfecting, totally used to it.

Kang-hyuk nodded, still squeezing the heart.

“Why?”

“What’s with this patient? We’ve never had to open the chest and do [cardiac massage] before. No matter how rough we get… this is a first.”

She glanced at the new nurse standing like a sack of rice in the corner.

This was the crazy new nurse who’d just joined the Severe Trauma Center.

Jang-mi wanted her to be as shocked as possible for as long as possible.

She wanted to show her it wasn’t always this bad.

But Kang-hyuk wasn’t that considerate.

“First, my ass. Did you sleep through last week?”

“No, I mean… That was just for a moment, and he came back. We didn’t do it all night like now…”

Jang-mi quickly changed the subject, seeing the new nurse’s face getting paler.

Kang-hyuk still wasn’t paying attention.

“Oh, right. Last week was lucky. The guy’s belly was half-burst, but he lived.”

“Enough about last week!”

“Hey, gangster, I’m squeezing the heart. Don’t hit me.”

“Who’s hitting you! People will think I really hit you!”

“My side still aches from where you hit me.”

“Sometimes I really want to kill you…”

“Don’t say unlucky stuff in the OR.”

“Ugh…”

Jang-mi shook her head at how Kang-hyuk was better at annoying people than saving them.

But before ten seconds had passed, she returned to the original topic.

The new nurse’s increasingly dark expression made it possible.

“Oh! Anyway. Why are we holding onto this patient for so long?”

“Oh. This patient?”

Kang-hyuk glanced at the heart he was holding.

Suddenly, the tense moment in the helicopter flashed through his mind.

Even someone as experienced as Kang-hyuk had trembled with nerves.

“The heart burst. I’m holding it shut with my palm.”