Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The three nurses sat in a row. There were hemostatic forceps, scissors, iodine, alcohol, blood bags, cotton swabs, disposable gloves, and other medical consumables on the table in front of them.
The members of the supply ship stood in queues of groups of threes and entered the place from one end of the passageway.
“Wang Yun, right?” A young nurse checked the member’s identity. She then glanced at a blood bag and the tube attached to it and asked, “Have you had your blood drawn for transfusions before?”
“If you mean voluntary blood donation, no.” Wang Yun shook his head.
The young nurse raised her head a little and asked, “Does it mean that you have sold your blood before?”
“No,” Wang Yun said with a calm expression, “But this is the third time I’m participating in a mandatory blood donation.”
The young nurse suddenly understood what was going on.
The supply ship member who was sitting beside Wang Yun laughed. “This is my fourth time already. On average, this happens to me once every two years.”
“This happens to me once every one and a half years on average.”
“Just wait until you work for more years. It will be once every two years on average.”
“Our team goes on missions more than your team.”
“There’re fewer people in my team.”
“Our blood… is thicker!”
…..
“Please sit for ten minutes after donating your blood before leaving,” the young nurse said in a gentle tone.
The burly men who were queueing up to have their blood drawn nodded. They then left with their blood donation certificates, as if they only nodded just now because an unknown force was moving their heads, as they were trying to impress the nurse in front of them.
Five members of the rescue team also joined them on the ship. They actually volunteered to have their blood drawn, but Lin Honghou said no without hesitation.
The five of them were among the first batch of rescue team members who went to the site of the storm and by now, they had worked for more than twenty-four hours. Their bodies would become overwhelmed if they were to participate in the blood donation.
There were not any suitable place for them to rest on the hospital ship either. Hence, even though they had the intention to be dispatched to the site of the storm again, without orders from the command center, they had no choice but to leave. They were regretful that they could not help, but were relieved all the same.
“It’s a good thing to be able to return home in one piece, isn’t it? Cheer up.” The supply ship members greeted them in an unconventional manner.
The men from the rescue team merely sat on the deck and said nothing.
“You guys have done enough by completing what is asked of you. Don’t think too much. Just take a look at us. We didn’t even go to the site of the storm and are merely responsible for sending supplies over. We’ll still be proud of what we’ve done after we return to our homes.” The chief officer of the supply ship took the opportunity to console the members of the rescue team. Aside from ferrying supply, supply ships were actually also used to ferry members of the rescue team. If they were deployed a little earlier, they would probably be fetching rescue team members to the site of the storm right now.
This was why the chief officer of the supply ship could understand what the men in the rescue team were feeling rather well. He even had quite a bit of admiration for them.
The five members of the rescue team remained silent.
The chief officer of the supply ship spoke a few more words of consolation before going off to get some work done. The five rescue team members only stood up facing the direction of the site of the storm and offered their salutations when the hospital ship was about to leave.
The chief officer of the supply ship sighed. When the rescue team members were done with their salutations, he asked, “I heard that things are pretty tough at the site of the storm?”
“Both ships were stranded and sunk. There are people who are stuck inside.” The team captain finally spoke. “Since we are familiar with the site of the storm and are experienced too, we should have been dispatched again.”
“You should give the others a chance to contribute too. Just kidding.” The chief officer giggled. He then looked at the four other rescue team members. He tried to acquaint himself with them and said, “We have just sent eight rescue team members over there just now. They look pretty capable. They are quite talkative too.”
The team captain nodded slowly. “There are eight people in our team too.”
“Then…” The chief officer suddenly stopped speaking. He was so nervous that he was at a loss for words.
“The rest got injured. They were sent to the hospital ship.” For some strange reason, the team captain suddenly laughed out loud. “Two only sustained minor injuries. Only one of them was badly injured, but I heard that his surgery went quite smoothly.”
The chief officer no longer knew what to say. He thought for a while and said, “Fate always favors good men. Of course, his surgery went smoothly.”
“It should be so. His surgery definitely went smoothly.” Aside from the team captain, the other rescue team members also muttered the same thing.
…..
“The surgery will definitely go smoothly. When we’re done treating him, we’ll send him back.” Huo Congjun’s tone was calm and solemn as he held the receiver. He almost wanted to slap his chest to prove a point.
Huo Congjun communicated via satellite phone for two minutes. After the call ended, Huo Congjun returned to the operating theater. He glanced and Ling Ran and asked, “Are things going smoothly?”
“Yes.” Ling Ran was suturing a blood vessel, and he was in a rather good mood.
The patient was the vice-captain of a rescue team, and when he was sent to the hospital ship, his abdominal cavity was a mess.
It was a long and arduous task to reattach the blood vessels that were in a haphazard state so that they could become functional again. There were even a lot of times where Ling Ran had to give up suturing certain blood vessels together so that there would be enough blood vessels that could be used to ensure blood supply to important parts of the abdominal cavity.
If this were to happen on land, the preoperative discussion for such a surgery would have taken a few hours. It might even take twenty or thirty hours before the surgery was started.
Aside from suturing severed blood vessels, doctors also had to make judgments regarding how important a blood vessel was.
Everyone knew that arteries and large veins were very important. But aside from these two types of main blood vessels, there were also thousands of other blood vessels in the human body. It would be an impossible task to suture all severed blood vessels, but it was important to suture important blood vessels. Ranking a patient’s blood vessels in terms of how important they were was something that must be done.
In the hospital, this task itself took doctors a long time.
Aside from this, identifying blood vessels was also something that often left clinicians dumbfounded. To do this, a doctor must first know the anatomical structures within the abdominal cavity very well. It was only then that would they be able to look for the blood vessels and categorize them…
Since Ling Ran was doing an emergency surgery right now, he did not have the time to slowly identify the blood vessels. He did not have a team behind him to help him do so either. Hence, he had no choice but to make decisions on the spot.
Such a surgery was beyond Huo Congjun’s comprehension.
However, Huo Congjun did not have the intention to understand it. It was more than enough for him to enter the operating theater and ensure that the surgery was going well.
After being the department director of the Emergency Medical Center for such a long time, slowly, Huo Congjun no longer strived to complete medical tasks with his own hands.
“Since it’s going smoothly, do try your best to finish it up as soon as possible. You can then continue… Hmm… Ling Ran, do you still have the energy to carry out surgeries?” As Huo Congjun spoke, he suddenly started worrying about Ling Ran.
Ling Ran exercised his shoulders and said, “I’ll probably need to rest for an hour or two, and I’ll be able to carry on after that.”
“You can take a longer rest too. Qi Zhenhai and a few other doctors have just arrived, and they’re still pretty energetic. They might be sending some specialists over after this too.” Huo Congjun was speaking in a relatively relaxed tone, since up until now, no patient had died in the hospital ship. As the supervisor of the treatment effort of a rescue mission, something like this was very hard to come by.
Ling Ran merely nodded before he lowered his head and continued suturing the patient’s blood vessels.
Soon, Zuo Cidian ran over to take a look at the situation too.
Without hesitation, Ling Ran asked Zuo Cidian to replace Lu Wenbin. Fifteen minutes later, Ling Ran tossed the needle holder he was holding aside and asked Zuo Cidian, “Do you want to perform abdominal closure for the vice-captain?”
“Oh… okay. I’ll do it!” Zuo Cidian was feeling extremely emotional.
