Life is Like a Journey – Chapter 22

Volume 1: Rise

Saving a Life

Something’s wrong, Yu Gui went into the fire scene.

“How is it?” Lu Qingshi asked, running to Liu Qingyun’s side while carrying an emergency kit and squatting down.

Liu Qingyun’s hands were both soaked in blood, sweat dripping down from his chin like beads: “I can’t… there’s too much bleeding, I can’t find it.”

“I’ll take over, you go to Yu Gui’s side,” Lu Qingshi said, kneeling beside the patient. “Give me the hemostat (hemostatic clamp).”

The nurse quickly handed her a new one, and Lu Qingshi changed gloves and directly put her hands into the patient’s open bone, searching for the blood vessel between the shattered tissue and muscle.

A patient lying next to them suddenly clutched his chest and spat out a large mouthful of clotted blood, his face pale and his body breaking into a cold sweat.

“Found it,” she said as she pressed the hemostat, glancing at the patient briefly. Just then, the ambulance returned, and she quickly instructed the team to lift the person with the open fracture onto the vehicle and send them to the nearby hospital.

“Sir, sir, can you hear me?” Lu Qingshi asked, patting the shoulder of the patient who had just spat a large amount of blood. She then used a penlight to check his pupils: “Unconscious.”

She then undid his clothes to examine further, noticing a large red bruise on his chest. Gently pressing, blood foam seeped from the corner of the patient’s lips.

“Give me the chest cavity puncture kit.”

The nurse hesitated for a moment: “Do it… here?”

Lu Qingshi said decisively: “Do it! If we don’t, the person will die!”

“Vascular clamp.”

“Give me the muscle retractor.” After cutting open the trachea, Yu Gui swallowed hard, appearing somewhat helpless.

Hao Renjie saw her right hand shaking like she had malaria and nearly rolled his eyes, fainting: “Ancestor, my ancestor, don’t fail at this critical moment!”

“I… I know…” Yu Gui’s voice trembled as she used her left hand to steady her shaking right wrist. She took a deep breath: “This is my first time using a knife on a living person.”

Although she had practiced the surgical method countless times on cadavers, when faced with the dark red fresh blood and the still-beating blood vessels, her hands wouldn’t obey her commands.

Her left hand desperately pinched her right wrist, leaving five fingerprints, but it couldn’t stop the fear from her heart and her reverence for life.

Could she… really do it?

The child’s mother saw her hesitating to make the incision and, in a panic, came over to shake her wrist: “I beg you, doctor, please save her, doctor! She is still so young! She hasn’t even had a chance to see this world properly! Doctor!”

Yu Gui was pushed aside, and the scalpel in her hand fell to the ground. She bit her lip and remained dejectedly silent.

Hao Renjie, trembling with anger, pointed at her and shouted: “Sister Lu wasn’t wrong, you should resign and stop harming people here!”

Yu Gui clenched her fists, her lips tasting of blood from being bitten. But when she saw the tearful face of the little girl’s mother, her whole body shook. It was a gaze filled with hope, and pressing on her was the heavy weight of another life.

She wiped away the tears overflowing from her eyes: “Sister Hao, give me the scalpel. If I don’t do it, it’s death; if I do it, there might be a chance of survival.”

The last sentence was directed at the girl’s mother, who nodded without hesitation: “As long as there is the slightest hope, I will never give up.”

Yu Gui took a deep breath. Although her wrist was still shaking, it was much better than her earlier uncontrollable state. She carefully used the muscle retractor to hook open the isthmus¹ and pull it upward to expose the trachea. With the scalpel, she cut open the front walls of two tracheal rings² from bottom to top. Cutting too shallow would be useless, and cutting too deep would cause a tracheoesophageal fistula³, leaving the child equally unable to survive.

From Hao Renjie’s perspective, Yu Gui was lying on the ground, dusty and dirty, with fine beads of sweat seeping from her forehead, but at least her hands were steady.

Liu Qingyun ran over: “Lu…”

He quickly turned back and shushed, signaling not to disturb her.

“Give me the tracheal tube⁴,” Yu Gui said as she used a curved clamp to hold open the tracheal incision, without turning her head.

Liu Qingyun handed over the tracheal tube, and Yu Gui then sensed something was amiss. She suddenly turned her head and saw Liu Qingyun, who was, after all, a moderately ranked attending doctor, and her hands began to tremble again.

The other person comforted her instead, patting her shoulder: “Your teacher Lu asked me to come over, but I think there’s no need for that. Yu Gui, you did a great job.”

This was the first time she had been praised, and Yu Gui felt her eyes warm with emotion: “Thank you, Brother Liu.”

Soon the ambulance returned, and the seriously injured little girl was arranged to be the first on the vehicle. Her mother turned back before getting on and bowed deeply to her.

At this, Yu Gui couldn’t hold back any longer and broke into a smile through her tears.

Hao Renjie nudged her: “Alright, don’t get too carried away with happiness.”

He casually pointed to the open ground where a large group of injured people still lay, cries of distress everywhere: “There’s still a large number of injured people not yet sent away, get to work!”

Yu Gui sent the injured beside her onto the vehicle, and Lu Qingshi pressed the communicator to call her name: “How is it over there?”

The voice on the other end carried some joy: “Teacher Lu, I succeeded! The patient has already been sent onto the ambulance heading to Renji Medical University, and before leaving, their vital signs were stable.”

Lu Qingshi’s brow quietly relaxed: “Hmm, who’s with the vehicle?”

“Brother Liu went, and coincidentally, a patient with a bone injury is also on the vehicle.”

Liu Qingyun’s words should be fine, right?

As Lu Qingshi was thinking this, she hadn’t had time to reply when the other party’s communicator suddenly burst into noise, and she faintly heard a few sentences: “Doctor, please, save her, my child is still on the fifth floor and hasn’t come out!”

Lu Qingshi’s brow furrowed.

A middle-aged woman knelt on the street, kowtowing to her, both crying and wailing, her clothes tattered, her face covered in black soot and tears mixed together, looking extremely distressed.

About the same age as her own mother, Yu Gui’s heart suddenly softened, and she quickly helped the woman up: “Don’t worry… the fire brigade is already searching for survivors…”

Seeing that the open flames had almost been extinguished and the victims’ bodies were gradually being carried out, yet still not seeing her own child, the middle-aged woman’s expression flickered with hope. She grabbed the doctor’s white coat, crying and pleading: “Doctor, please have mercy! I beg you, doctor! Those carried down by the fire brigade are all dead! My poor An’an was born with cerebral palsy⁵, and seeking medical treatment for so many years left us with nothing. This fire took everything! If my An’an can’t live, I won’t live either!”

As she said this, she was about to hit the wall, but Yu Gui quickly pulled her back. She glanced at the fire scene, noting that the open flames had been mostly extinguished, and gritted her teeth: “Tell me which room on the fifth floor.”

The woman sat on the ground, snot and tears flowing, and pulled her sleeve again: “Fifth floor 503, doctor, doctor, you are a good person. If An’an can live, our family will be grateful to you forever, and An’an can recognize you as a godmother, no, even as a real sister!”

Yu Gui slightly curved her lips, slung the first aid kit on her back: “That’s not necessary, living well is better than anything.”

Hao Renjie, having finished bandaging a patient, came over to pull her: “You’re crazy! The fire may be out now, but do you know what’s inside?! You…”

Yu Gui shook him off: “The lady is right, the group rental house has a total of six floors, with about ten households per floor. Look at how many have been carried out now; there must still be many people trapped inside waiting for rescue. Teacher Lu said that during rescue, time is life. Waiting for the fire brigade to carry people out…”

She glanced back at the black tag area, where deceased patients were already covered with shrouds, filling a whole row, while family members beside them cried earth-shatteringly.

“Even though I am not very professional, if I can save one person, I will…”

She said this as she plunged into the fire scene, and Hao Renjie didn’t have time to stop her, angrily stomping in place and cursing her for having a stubborn brain as rigid as wood, with a temper stubborn like a mule!

After cursing, still not feeling at ease, he gritted his teeth and also plunged into the fire scene, while running, used the walkie-talkie to contact Lu Qingshi: “Sister Lu, something’s wrong, Yu Gui went into the fire scene!”

Lu Qingshi stood up, searched around the emergency scene and found no one, her heart sinking: “I understand, you follow her and make sure to bring her back. I will go find the fire brigade.”

Yu Gui entered the fire scene and was immediately covered in soot and dirt. Although the open flames were extinguished, thick smoke continued to roll in, filling her throat with dust and causing her to cough continuously. She had to lower her body and crawl forward.

Hao Renjie followed behind with a flashlight, catching up while coughing and trying to speak: “Cough… cough cough… you… cough cough cough…”

Finally, he stopped talking, took out a mask from the first aid kit and put it on, then pulled out a piece of non-woven fabric to cover his mouth and nose, also tossing one to Yu Gui.

“Yu Gui, I’m warning you, come out immediately, otherwise…” Lu Qingshi’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.

Yu Gui gritted her teeth, put on the mask that Hao Renjie threw to her, and rolled up from the ground: “Sorry, Teacher Lu.”

She turned off the communicator, and Lu Qingshi’s voice disappeared into the silence.

The fire and explosion occurred at the first-floor hallway entrance, and the open flames from the explosion quickly ignited the debris and cardboard boxes piled in the hallway, spreading into the residents’ homes, one after another. Most people living here have low incomes, and very few have installed fireproof and burglar-proof doors, so a sea of fire silently swept through the entire building.

What Yu Gui didn’t know was that shortly after she left, the middle-aged woman got up from the ground and hugged her little son: “Luckily, you’re okay, you’re okay…”

The five or six-year-old child looked bewildered, his face covered in soot, his black eyes staring at his mother: “Mom, why didn’t we take sister and run together…” (LP: What?!)

After passing through the most severely affected first and second floors, the thick smoke gradually lessened, and Yu Gui leaned on her knees, bent over and coughing, feeling as if she had almost coughed out her bronchial tubes. Behind her, Hao Renjie wasn’t much better off, leaning on the stair railing, his breathing sounding like a bellows.

“Sister Lu… told you to go back…”

Yu Gui rested for a while, then climbed up holding the scorching stair railing: “If you want to go back, go back yourself.”

The thought of passing through the thick smoke again to go down made Hao Renjie’s scalp tingle; he finally understood what suffocation feels like.

“You… why don’t you listen…” he cursed, yet still followed Yu Gui step by step.

The passing firefighters all wore hurried expressions, and Lu Qingshi casually pulled one aside: “Where is Captain Gu? I have an urgent matter to discuss with her.”

“We…” The firefighter turned back impatiently, but upon seeing it was a doctor, his attitude softened somewhat, and he pressed the walkie-talkie on his chest: “Captain Gu, a doctor wants to speak with you.”

Gu Yanzhi was searching for survivors on the fourth floor, having just used hydraulic pliers to break open a severely damaged apartment door: “Who? I’m busy right now.”

The firefighter glanced at Lu Qingshi’s name badge: “Oh, someone named… Lu Qingshi.”

“Captain, we’ve found a survivor!” a team member shouted as they rushed into the smoke-filled bedroom.

Gu Yanzhi leaned over to take a look and saw a young woman trapped under the burned and collapsed door: “Give the walkie-talkie to that doctor.”

As she spoke, she and the team members worked together to lift the door panel: “One, two, three, lift!”

The thick wooden door was lifted and thrown to the other side, raising a cloud of dust as it landed.

When a firefighter intended to move the woman onto a stretcher, Gu Yanzhi gestured to stop him, crouched down, and used a penlight to examine her pupils: “Doctor Lu.”

“Captain Gu.”

Both of them spoke at the same time and were momentarily stunned, but Gu Yanzhi recovered first, with a low hint of laughter in her voice: “You speak first.”

“It’s like this: my student, Yu Gui, rushed into the fire scene. Please could you…”

Gu Yanzhi glanced outside the door, noticing that the thick smoke had gradually dissipated: “Don’t worry, do you know which floor? I’ll send someone to search.”

Lu Qingshi swallowed, feeling slightly relieved: “Fifth floor, 503.”

“Okay,” she gestured with a five, then a fist, three fingers open, and finally a “go” gesture towards a crew member, who understood and quickly went upstairs with full gear.

“Thank you.”

Gu Yanzhi’s lips, hidden under the gas mask, curved slightly: “Rest assured, there’s no smoke above the third floor, so it should be very safe. However, I do need Doctor Lu’s help here.”

“What is it?” Lu Qingshi asked, placing the first aid kit on her back.

“A patient with a head injury who is not suitable for moving,” Gu Yanzhi said, as she tried to turn the injured woman over to lie on her back. She discovered something seemed to be hidden under the woman’s abdomen. Upon lifting it to look, she found a baby still in swaddling clothes, the palm-sized face already blackened by smoke, mouth and nose filled with dust, but no external injuries on the body. The baby was likely protected in the mother’s arms when the door fell.

“And… a baby.”

1. Isthmus: In medical terms, the isthmus refers to a narrow piece of tissue connecting two larger parts, often seen in organs such as the thyroid gland. It serves as a bridge or connection between these areas.
2. Two Tracheal Rings: The trachea is supported by a series of cartilaginous rings, which provide structure and maintain an open airway. When referring to “two tracheal rings,” it indicates the specific sections of these supportive rings that are involved or affected in a procedure or condition.
3. Tracheoesophageal Fistula: This is an abnormal connection between the trachea (windpipe) and the esophagus (food pipe), which can lead to severe complications such as difficulty swallowing, aspiration, and respiratory issues. It often requires surgical intervention to correct.
4. Tracheal tube: A medical device inserted into the trachea to maintain an open airway, allowing for ventilation and the delivery of oxygen to the lungs. It is often used in surgical procedures, emergency situations, or when a patient requires mechanical ventilation.
5. Cerebral palsy: A group of neurological disorders that affect movement, muscle tone, and posture, caused by damage to the developing brain, often before or during birth. It can result in varying degrees of physical disability and may also affect communication and cognitive abilities.