Life is Like a Journey – Chapter 76
by Little PandaVolume 2: Inheritance
Teacher
Fallen red petals are not unfeeling things, they transform into spring soil to better nurture the flowers.
“It’s so dark…” The sky was gloomy, and the tunnel after the landslide appeared even more dark and deep. The strong flashlight beam penetrated the darkness, making dust dance in its light, with no end in sight.
Yu Gui swallowed hard. If it weren’t for someone leading the way, it would have been difficult even to enter.
“This is the place.” A huge boulder had blocked the only tunnel entrance. Firefighters had dug out a passage barely wide enough for two people next to it.
Lu Qingshi’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the first aid kit. She took a deep breath, barely steadying herself, and took the lead in squeezing through.
Suddenly, there was a static noise in her earpiece, startling her into a cold sweat. A moment later, she felt relieved.
It was Gu Yanzhi.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m talking to you on a private channel now. You’ll be able to see me once you’re inside.”
“Understood,” Lu Qingshi said, placing the first aid kit in front of her and crawling forward through the mud and water.
In the distance, there was a flickering light. She felt slightly relieved.
“Turn on all the flashlights.”
The dazzling light from several powerful flashlights illuminated a small world around them. The surrounding view gradually became clearer. A firefighting instructor in a flame-blue uniform stood on top of a vehicle, waving at her.
Lu Qingshi got up from the ground. Others also crawled out one after another. The group rushed towards the light source carrying first aid kits.
“What’s the situation?” Gu Yanzhi reached out and pulled her into the vehicle compartment. Lu Qingshi, still catching her breath, put down the first aid kit.
“Students, many of them, trapped under seats, under rocks, under tires. Life signs uncertain. We didn’t dare move them.”
“Not moving them was the right decision. Give me a head-mounted searchlight,” Gu Yanzhi handed over her own. Lu Qingshi put it on swiftly and pressed her communicator.
“Chen Yi and Liu Qingyun, check the injured people outside. Be sure to look for internal and external chest and abdominal injuries. Before lifting them out, administer diuretics and 5% sodium bicarbonate to prevent kidney failure caused by crush syndrome.”
“Understood,” came a clear response, and the team members dispersed.
“Don’t speak. We’re going to rescue you now,” Lu Qingshi reached into the narrow gap to assess her injuries. Both legs were essentially crushed. Yu Gui stood beside her, holding the flashlight.
The female teacher weakly raised her hand and grasped the doctor’s wrist. Her hair was damp with sweat, and her voice was as faint as a mosquito’s buzz: “Save… save the students first…”
Her position was next to the driver, closest to the door. Firefighters had already used cutting tools to open a hole in the severely damaged door.
“No,” Lu Qingshi firmly refused. “If we delay any longer, you’ll die from blood loss.”
The grip on her wrist tightened, leaving five bloody fingerprints on the doctor’s fair skin.
“Please… doctor…” She was breathing heavily from the pain, but her eyes were so bright in the darkness. When their eyes met, Lu Qingshi hesitated for a moment, then withdrew her hand. “Yu Gui, apply pressure bandages to stop her bleeding and administer 5% sodium bicarbonate.”
By the time she finished these tasks, Lu Qingshi had already picked up the first aid kit and moved towards the deeper part of the vehicle.
“Qingshi, there’s an unconscious person here,” Qin Xuan’s life detection device emitted a faint red light. She lay on the ground, reaching her hand into the narrow gap.
“Is anyone there? Can you hear me?” She touched something that could have been a child’s face or hand. The warm sensation made her heart leap with joy.
“Still alive, thank goodness!”
Lu Qingshi also lay down on the ground, her head-mounted searchlight illuminating a small circle. A little boy was curled up under the seat, with a gash on his head that was steadily bleeding.
She stretched out her arm and passed a piece of gauze inside. “Little one, can you hear me?”
“Give me some saline,” Hao Renjie handed it to her.
The doctor’s movements were careful, but the pain still made the little boy frown and cry out: “I’m scared… wah wah wah… sister, save me…”
There was only room to reach in with one arm in the narrow space. Lu Qingshi gently covered his eyelids. “Don’t be afraid, don’t cry. Save your strength. We’ll get you out of here.”
Warm tears flowed onto her fingers. Lu Qingshi wiped them away for him. “Answer a few questions for me.”
“Besides your head, where else does it hurt?”
The little boy, squeezed by the seat and unable to move, said, “My arm… feels numb…”
Lu Qingshi’s heart skipped a beat, but she kept her face neutral. “Open an intravenous line.”
Hao Renjie crawled in with an IV catheter. Lu Qingshi took the opportunity to stand up and brace her shoulder against the seat, pushing hard a few times, but it didn’t budge.
“Gu Yanzhi?”
A response came through the earpiece: “What is it?”
“Where are you? I need your help.”
Gu Yanzhi handed her fire shovel to a teammate: “Three minutes. I’ll be right there.”
“Hang in there, don’t fall asleep, don’t sleep. Talk to me, let’s chat,” Yu Gui covered the wound with one hand, the gauze in her hand completely soaked. She replaced it with a new one and pressed down, constantly using her words to keep the female teacher, who was about to slip into sleep, awake.
“What’s your name?”
“Wang Yuting.”
“That’s a lovely name,” Yu Gui said, placing one hand under the back of her head.
“And you?” She looked at the doctor, who was about the same age as her, with a weak smile on her lips. The color was draining from her face, making it increasingly pale.
“My name is Yu Gui. ‘Yu’ as in ‘to be’, ‘Gui’ as in ‘return’.” This feeling of life slipping through her fingers with each passing second made her voice choke up.
“‘The son returns, suitable for his home and family.’ It’s a good name,” the female teacher held her fingertips with her blood-covered hand.
“Help… help me see… how my children are doing…”
Yu Gui knelt on the ground holding her, turning her head to look. Qin Xuan was carrying a girl out through the hole in the vehicle door. Firefighters immediately placed her on a stretcher, and a group of people ran out.
She turned back: “Don’t worry, the children are all being sent out. You’ll be fine too.”
The female teacher’s phone by her hand still showed the last unsent message: Dad, Mom, I love you.
Qin Xuan was returning to the team after sending an injured person back when, just as she entered the tunnel entrance, a blood-covered man rushed out of the darkness and tightly grabbed her arm.
“Doctor, doctor, save me! Save me! I’m dying!”
Qin Xuan was startled, only relaxing slightly when she felt the man’s still-beating pulse. She helped him lean against an overturned truck nearby.
“What’s wrong? Where do you feel unwell?” She quickly listened to his heart sounds with a stethoscope and then pressed on his abdomen.
The man, unshaven, kept repeating that he was “about to die” and “quickly get him out,” but after a brief examination, she found no external chest or abdominal injuries. There was a minor abrasion on his head, and his limbs were intact and mobile.
Qin Xuan was slightly puzzled. With no external injuries, where did the blood come from?
“Where did you come from? Why didn’t you wait for our rescue team to reach you?”
The man’s gaze was somewhat evasive. Qin Xuan noticed he was wearing a wedding ring and suddenly grabbed his collar, trying to scare him: “Tell me, where did you leave your wife?!”
Qin Xuan dragged him along as he limped, with several firefighters following behind. They quickly arrived at two minivans crushed together.
When the landslide occurred, a huge boulder had fallen from above, splitting one of the minivans in two. The severed front of the van, due to gravity, had violently crashed into the opposite vehicle, slamming its body into the hard rock. Human ingenuity in craftsmanship was no match for nature’s force.
The minivan wedged between the rock and the front of the other vehicle was as thin as a sheet of paper, and the pregnant woman was trapped between the passenger seat and the rock.
“She’s… she’s right there…” The man trembled, seemingly unable to bear looking anymore, and collapsed to the ground, covering his face and weeping.
Qin Xuan stuck her head under the vehicle, her white coat getting caught and torn: “Why are you crying?! She’s not dead yet!”
“Give… give me a flashlight…” A firefighter handed her a powerful flashlight. When she saw the situation inside clearly, she also gasped.
The pregnant woman was protecting her belly with her hands. Her head had hit the hard granite, bleeding profusely. There was also a pool of blood beneath her, and a bluish-purple foot of the baby was visible between her legs.
She was instantly covered in cold sweat. Umbilical cord prolapse – both mother and child were in mortal danger.
Qin Xuan pulled herself out from under the car: “Can this vehicle be lifted or moved?”
Several firefighters tried with hydraulic clamps: “No, the road is blocked by fallen rocks. We can’t get a crane in here, and there’s a risk of secondary collapse. We don’t dare use it.”
“I’ve tried… can’t pull her out… give up… give up… please… can you get me out first?” The man got up from the ground, tugging at her pants leg, crying a mess of snot and tears.
Qin Xuan wanted to slap him twice to wake him up: “Do you have any conscience left?! That’s your wife and child!!!”
The fire chief barely managed to pry open a passage wide enough for one person with hydraulic clamps. Several people were sweating profusely: “Hurry up, we can’t hold it much longer.”
Qin Xuan didn’t waste any more words with him. She grabbed the first aid kit and crawled back in. The doctor’s face was covered in black diesel fuel, her white coat torn by metal edges, her shoulder stinging with pain.
Qin Xuan gritted her teeth, pulled out an IV catheter to establish intravenous access for her, and tried to wake her: “Can you hear me? I’m a doctor…”
The woman’s head tilted slightly, her voice barely a whisper: “Save… save me…”
“Take deep breaths, conserve your strength, don’t move. The baby’s foot is already out,” Qin Xuan inserted her hand into the woman’s birth canal, supporting the baby’s exposed foot to reduce pressure on the umbilical cord. She used her shoulder to press the communicator to talk to Lu Qingshi.
“Qingshi, I have a very dangerous situation here with a pregnant woman. Umbilical cord prolapse, the newborn could suffocate at any moment. Can you come over?”
Lu Qingshi handed the needle holder to Yu Gui: “It’s up to you now.”
Yu Gui looked at the patient’s mangled leg wound, then glanced back at her: “Teacher Lu!”
Lu Qingshi placed her hand on her chest where her name tag hung, and lightly tapped it: “Even though you’re not wearing a white coat, you’re still a doctor from Renji Medical University. Believe in yourself. You can do it.”
Yu Gui pressed her lips together, quickly nodded, and the sound of her steady footsteps gradually faded away.
The prolonged lifting made her arms ache unbearably. Qin Xuan bit her lip and switched to her other hand. Lu Qingshi crawled under the car with the first aid kit.
“What’s the pregnant woman’s condition?”
“Very low heart rate, oxygen saturation 70%, high blood pressure, and the fetal heartbeat is failing,” Qin Xuan spat out forcefully: “F*ck, if this were in a hospital, we could handle ten umbilical cord prolapses, but it had to be in a place like this where I can’t even free my hands!”
Lu Qingshi lay on her side, taking out another puncture needle from her bag and inserting it into the pregnant woman’s central vein.
“Let’s deliver the baby. As soon as it’s out, I’ll immediately intubate and start chest compressions.”
The man waiting nearby, hearing that the child could be saved, also poked his head under the car: “Doctor, doctor, save my son first.”
Qin Xuan immediately cursed, spitting saliva all over Lu Qingshi’s face: “Go to hell, you heartless bastard!”
Lu Qingshi’s expression remained unchanged: “I think he’s right.”
“You…” Qin Xuan was stunned.
The gloved hand quickly lifted the pregnant woman’s eyelids, shining a penlight to check them, and announced the worst result.
“Unequal pupil sizes, there’s an intracranial hematoma.”
She gently pressed on the woman’s chest, and blood foam seeped from the corner of her mouth: “There’s fluid in the chest cavity. I’ll do a closed drainage first. The outcome is uncertain. Prepare for a cesarean section.”
The already small space became even more cramped with two adult women squeezed in. Outside, the firefighters holding the hydraulic clamps were about to give out, their legs starting to tremble.
“Doctors, hurry up…”
As soon as the words were spoken, a pair of hands steadily took over his work. Gu Yanzhi replaced him: “Go rest over there. Coordinates 130.50. Need backup.”
“Roger.”
“Roger.”
“Roger.”
…
Uniform responses came through the earpiece as more and more firefighters began to converge in this direction.
Dust danced in the dim light. “Ding dong,” water dripping from the rocks splashed into her eyes. Lu Qingshi blinked quickly and took a deep breath.
“What’s wrong?”
“Shine the flashlight for me. I can’t see clearly.”
Qin Xuan gritted her teeth and freed one hand to illuminate for her: “Hurry… I can’t… hold it much longer…”
The needle tip steadily pierced the skin, drawing back a syringe of black liquid mixed with organ fragments.
Lu Qingshi shook her head and switched to a larger tube: “It’s no good. The pleural effusion is too severe, and there’s organ damage. If we don’t do a C-section now, we won’t be able to save either of them.”
Qin Xuan clenched her teeth: “A C-section in this environment? If she hemorrhages, it’s still death!”
“Yes, yes, doctor, hurry up and do the C-section. I can’t lose both my wife and child. That would be too tragic. Please, doctors, hurry up with the C-section, then send me and the child to the hospital,” the man outside was still begging shamelessly.
“F*ck…” Just as Qin Xuan was about to get up in anger, Lu Qingshi grabbed her wrist: “If you can’t do it, I will.”
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