Life is Like a Journey – Chapter 23

Volume 1: Rise

Struggle

Through the half-open kitchen door, faint firelight is leaping, and the gas canister is burning.

“Okay, I’m coming right away,” Lu Qingshi handed the intercom back to the firefighter, and although Gu Yanzhi said something, she didn’t hear it clearly. Just as she was about to enter the fire scene, someone stopped her.

“Captain Gu said that there is still a lot of thick smoke on the first and second floors. Please, Doctor Lu, go directly up the ladder; she’ll meet you up there.”

Lu Qingshi glanced up at the towering ladder reaching into the clouds, which had just been used to bring many patients down. She nodded, “Okay, please lead the way.”

As the ladder ascended into the sky, Lu Qingshi tightly gripped the railing, her body trembling slightly and imperceptibly. Fortunately, the time suspended in mid-air wasn’t very long, but those few tens of seconds were already an extreme for her. It wasn’t until the ladder was firmly resting by the fourth-floor window that her tense body finally relaxed.

Gu Yanzhi’s face appeared above her, extending a hand toward her: “Come, Doctor Lu.”

Lu Qingshi bit her lip and shook her head: “No need, move aside, I can do it.”

She noticed her face was somewhat pale and touched her nose, thinking: It’s better to take the stairs when going down with her.

Although her agility wasn’t as good as Gu Yanzhi’s, at least so many years of exercise weren’t in vain. She gritted her teeth and got over the one-meter-high windowsill. As she jumped down, Gu Yanzhi supported her, allowing her to land steadily on the ground. The nurse following her was also pulled up by the firefighter, and Lu Qingshi picked up the emergency bag to attend to the patient.

Looking at the two injured patients, one big and one small, she hesitated for a moment but chose to pick up the smaller one first. She lifted the swaddling clothes to check for vital signs and used an electric pen to shine a light into the pupil, shaking her head: “Inhaled too much carbon monoxide, not sure if they can be saved. Establish an intravenous route, supplement with balanced solution, set the infusion speed to maximum.”

While saying this, as the nurse was performing her tasks, Lu Qingshi also picked up the abdominal FAST to check if the baby had any internal organ injuries.

Fortunately, the examination results allowed her to breathe a sigh of relief. Having no combined internal or external injuries is lucky, after all. She glanced at the young woman lying in a pool of blood, acknowledging her as a very great mother.

“Director Lu, the blood pressure and blood oxygen still haven’t improved,” she said, turning her head to look at the straight line on the monitor. She tilted the patient’s head back, raised her chin, and carefully inserted a finger to clear the secretions from her mouth to prevent airway blockage.

“Bring over the bag for artificial ventilation, and administer 0.02 mg of atropine¹ intravenously,” she calmly instructed, her actions methodical and orderly.

“No, Director Lu, the heart rate is too slow, constantly hovering on the edge of shock.”

The nurse’s voice sounded somewhat anxious as Lu Qingshi felt the carotid pulse², realizing it was indeed too weak.

“Prepare for intubation.”

Neonatal intubation³ is a technical skill. If Qin Xuan were here, it would be better, Lu Qingshi thought as she leaned down: “Administer the muscle relaxant, I’ll try.”

“Is anyone there? Is anyone there?” Yu Gui rushed to the fifth floor, running and shouting, while Hao Renjie followed behind, carrying an emergency bag and almost out of breath.

“Stop running… you damn girl!”

As the sky darkened, the entire building lost power, becoming pitch black, making it impossible to see one’s hand in front of their face. Yu Gui searched all her pockets but found no flashlight, so she had to stop and ask Hao Renjie for help: “Sister Hao, the flashlight, give me the flashlight.”

Hao Renjie, gasping for breath, handed the flashlight to her and then sat down heavily against the wall base. Behind him was an iron door, and before he could sit properly, he immediately shouted “F*ck!” and sprang up.

His f*cking hot ass!

The sensation was intensely uncomfortable, and there he was, clutching his butt and jumping around. Meanwhile, Yu Gui, with the flashlight in hand, had already found her way through the swirling smoke to the door of room 503. Logically, the doors of people who escaped should be open, but this one was locked tight. Yu Gui pushed twice with no result and then poked it with the flashlight.

“Sister Hao, come help.”

“Don’t waste your effort; look at this thick smoke. When we came up from downstairs, we almost didn’t make it out alive, and that’s after the fire was out. If there really were people, they’re probably dead,” Hao Renjie said, starting to cough again. The discomfort wasn’t fake, as he had inhaled a large amount of carbon monoxide in a short time, making his lungs feel like they were being pricked by needles.

“Alive, I want to see the person; dead, I want to see the corpse,” Yu Gui said, slamming her thin shoulder directly against the door, only to be bounced back by the solid wooden door, time and again.

“You…” Hao Renjie was stunned, watching as her shoulder trembled slightly, her eyes filled with resilience, shining overly bright even in the darkness.

He spat into his palm and rubbed his hands together: “Move aside, I’ll do it.”

“Hey—ha!” He assumed an attacking posture and even lifted his skinny leg. Yu Gui, afraid of a tragedy where the door wouldn’t open and a leg might break, covered her eyes, not daring to look, until she heard a loud crash.

Hao Renjie let out a scream; the door did open, but he used too much force, stepped on the scattered wooden debris, and fell headfirst in, tumbling over as dust splashed everywhere.

Yu Gui covered her mouth, coughing: “Didn’t expect the sissy to have some skills.”

Hao Renjie, clutching his butt, couldn’t get up for a long time. He had no time to bicker with her and could only think to himself: I hate this!

“Is anyone there? Is anyone there?” Yu Gui rushed in with the flashlight, and the echo resounded in the empty corridor, circling around and around. Hao Renjie shivered, feeling the hair on his body stand up.

“Stop howling!”

In the narrow living room, there was an old color TV, and the floor was covered with dust. The sofa had several spots of remaining fires. Yu Gui took off her white coat, covered the spots, and patted them vigorously. Fortunately, they were only small sparks and were quickly extinguished.

The two of them stepped cautiously on the dusty floor towards the bedroom. The wooden door creaked open in front of them, revealing the pitch-black interior.

Yu Gui glanced at Hao Renjie: “You go first?”

Hao Renjie waved his hand: “Ladies first.”

After saying that, he pushed her in with one hand. Not knowing what she tripped over, Yu Gui fell face-first, her hands landing on the ground with a sticky, warm sensation.

She brought her hand up to her eyes to see—it was blood. Suddenly, she let out a burst of ghostly wailing, and the flashlight’s beam shook chaotically around. Hao Renjie snatched it away and shone it on the ground, and both of them simultaneously gasped.

How to describe the scene witnessed that day? Later, Yu Gui, after working for several decades, rose from a rookie to stand at the same level as Lu Qingshi. She would still think of that day from time to time, and remember that girl with the tragic fate.

Many things happened that day, but she thought, if time could go back, she would still rush into the fire scene without hesitation.

What tripped her just now was a wheelchair, and the girl had half her body pressed under an iron bookshelf— the kind commonly seen in hospitals, used for holding thick and heavy medical records. Blood was continuously gushing from her body, spreading to Yu Gui’s feet, and there was an inescapable bloody smell at her nose.

She rushed over, trying to lift the cabinet, but even with all her strength it didn’t move. Hao Renjie put down the emergency bag and rushed over to help as well, his neck veins popping with the effort. The heavy iron cabinet remained rooted on the girl’s body, and even their exertions caused it to shake, making the blood flow even more fiercely.

“No way, we can’t save her; let the fire brigade come help,” Hao Renjie said, taking the walkie-talkie out of his pocket.

Yu Gui nodded and followed the little girl’s body to her wrist, trying to establish venous access, but her whole body shook. She incredulously felt again the cold, slippery object in her hand, and when she shone a light with the electric pen, she almost cried out.

“F*ck! What kind of people are these! Beasts!” The girl’s wrist was chained with a thumb-thick iron chain, one end connected to the back of the iron cabinet. This was what had prevented the girl from escaping with others during the fire.

If they had arrived a moment later, everything in this room would have turned to ashes, including this young life.

Hao Renjie communicated the situation to the others and also squatted down to prepare to establish venous access. Having been in the profession for not too long or too short a time—just five years—he had seen the warmth and coldness of humanity as much as anyone.

“Don’t just cry. To prevent children with mental issues from getting lost, I’ve even seen people locked in garages, chained in basements, confined in cattle sheds. When brought to the hospital, they were ten or so years old and still couldn’t speak.”

Yu Gui cupped the girl’s face, who was not yet ten years old, thin and pitiful. Because of excessive blood loss, she appeared overly pale, her hair messy and clumped together with dirt, impossible to untangle with fingers.

“They’re people, not beasts! If they’re sick, treat the illness—why treat them like this…” Yu Gui choked, tears dropping one by one onto the little girl’s face in the darkness.

“Not every family can afford to treat illness! Not every hospital is as kind as ours. Previously, there was Wang Youshi,” Hao Renjie said, searching for the girl’s vein in the dark.

“If it weren’t for the director insisting on keeping him, it would have been a fate of waiting for death! Come over and shine the light, I can’t see!”

Yu Gui, trembling, handed over the flashlight. Hao Renjie smoothly inserted the needle into the vein, securing it with tape without lifting his head.

“If you really want to save her, then quickly think of a way. If the blood keeps flowing like this, she won’t last until the fire brigade arrives, and in this life, she’ll be relieved.”

Not at all! Death is not relief! Living on is braver than just dying!

Yu Gui wanted to refute him, but said nothing. She took out plasma from the emergency bag: “I only have 400 milliliters of blood here, what about you?”

Hao Renjie rummaged through his bag: “I only have 200 milliliters.”

Yu Gui gritted her teeth: “Hang it up first, I’ll try to find the bleeding vessel to block.”

In her mind, she recalled Lu Qingshi’s method for blocking blood vessels each time. She lay in the pool of blood, biting the electric pen with her teeth, and extended the hemostatic clamp through the gap between the cabinet and her body.

However, she almost instantly had tears in her eyes; the comminuted fracture (bone that’s broken in at least two places), blood vessels, and nerves were all crushed. She had no way to proceed, holding the hemostatic clamp with her whole body shaking.

“Gauze, give me gauze.”

Hao Renjie handed her clean gauze, and Yu Gui stuffed it in all at once. It was quickly soaked, and warm blood overflowed onto the back of her hand, her whole body trembling.

“Good… good sister… why hasn’t the fire brigade come? Con… contact Teacher Lu… I need medical support!”

Lu Qingshi had just inserted the tube when the walkie-talkie pinned to her chest sounded. Yu Gui’s voice in the darkness was particularly trembling: “Lu… Teacher Lu… What should I do… I…”

She cried uncontrollably, her words failing to convey meaning, but hearing her voice indicated that the person was temporarily safe.

Lu Qingshi’s brows furrowed: “Describe the situation.”

Yu Gui, holding the walkie-talkie, steadied herself: “A girl not yet ten years old, her legs trapped under an iron cabinet. I and Sister Hao can’t lift it; the bleeding won’t stop. We’ve already transfused 400 milliliters of plasma. What should we do now?”

“How long has she been trapped underneath?” Lu Qingshi asked while pressing two fingers on the baby’s chest, performing CPR.

Yu Gui looked at her watch: “It’s now past seven in the evening. Her family left early when the fire occurred, so it’s conservatively estimated to have been more than five hours.”

“Director Lu, the spontaneous heartbeat and breathing have been restored!” The nurse beside her was overjoyed. Lu Qingshi picked up the baby and handed him to her arms: “You take him down first; the ambulance is waiting downstairs.”

The nurse, holding the baby and lifting the IV drip with one hand, went back up the ladder with the firefighter’s help. She then squatted to check another patient’s injuries.

Meanwhile, Yu Gui’s stubborn team arrived, ready to use a crowbar to move the cabinet and simultaneously use a hydraulic cutter to cut the rebar and lift the person out.

Lu Qingshi, listening, suddenly shouted: “Do not lift! If you lift the person now, the necrotic muscle⁴ will release a large amount of toxins into the blood circulation, causing shock and kidney failure. They will die within three minutes, and even gods can’t save them!”

Over there, Yu Gui, listening, punched the ground and cried out: “Are we just going to watch her die like this?!”

“Calm down, you’re a doctor too. Amputate,” Lu Qingshi said expressionlessly, shining the electric pen on the young female patient’s pupils, which were already starting to dilate and were unequal in size.

She rummaged through her emergency bag, found no cranial drill, and turned to Gu Yanzhi for help: “Do you have an electric drill?”

“Yes, yes,” Gu Yanzhi replied, taking off the toolbox from her back and handing her an electric drill.

The firefighter’s electric drill was heavier than a medical one but barely usable. She pressed the switch to test it and took iodine-soaked gauze to carefully disinfect.

“You… want to use this for a craniotomy⁵?” Gu Yanzhi felt a burst of scalp tingling. Although she had both killed and saved lives, such a bloody rescue method was something she was seeing for the first time.

Lu Qingshi marked a craniotomy area with a pen and poured an entire bottle of iodine on it: “Yes, it’s an epidural hematoma⁶. If we don’t perform the craniotomy to remove the hematoma⁷, she won’t make it to the hospital.”

Over there, Yu Gui heard her coldly finish this sentence and collapsed on the ground with tears streaming down her face: “She is still so small, already brain-damaged, how will she live after the amputation…”

For some reason, Hao Renjie felt a bit dizzy. He stood up, groped his way to the window, opened it, and let the cool night breeze blow in a bit, dispelling the persistent bloody smell in his nostrils.

“Did you smell something?” he sniffed.

Gu Yanzhi, not wearing a gas mask, also sniffed: “When I came in, it felt strange. With this window open, it’s more obvious, a bit like…”

She exited the bedroom, stepping on debris while searching for the source of the pollution: “The smell of a gas leak.”

She pushed open the kitchen wall next door, and cold sweat suddenly flowed down her forehead. She exclaimed “F*ck” and nearly collapsed to the ground, rolled back to pull Yu Gui and Hao Renjie.

“Go, go, go, quickly leave!!!”

Through the half-open kitchen door, faint firelight is leaping, and the gas canister is burning.

Yu Gui’s pupils suddenly contracted.

1. Atropine: A medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings, as well as some types of slow heart rate (bradycardia), and to decrease saliva production during surgery.
2. Carotid pulse: The pulse that can be felt over the carotid artery, which is located in the neck. The carotid arteries are major blood vessels that supply blood to the brain, neck, and face.
3. Neonatal intubation: A medical procedure used to establish an airway in newborn infants, particularly those who are experiencing difficulty breathing or require respiratory support. This procedure involves inserting a tube (called an endotracheal tube) through the infant’s mouth or nose and into the trachea (windpipe) to ensure that air can reach the lungs, either through mechanical ventilation or manual assistance.
4. Necrotic muscle: Refers to muscle tissue that has died due to a lack of blood supply, injury, or infection. Necrosis is the process of tissue death, and in the context of muscle, it can result from severe trauma, prolonged compression (as in crush injuries), or conditions that impair circulation. When muscle tissue becomes necrotic, it loses its ability to function and can release harmful substances into the bloodstream, potentially leading to complications like infection, inflammation, and systemic toxicity. If not treated promptly, necrotic muscle can contribute to severe health issues, including shock and organ failure.
5. Craniotomy: A surgical procedure in which a portion of the skull is removed to access the brain for medical treatment, such as relieving pressure or removing a tumor.
6. Epidural hematoma: A type of traumatic brain injury where a buildup of blood occurs between the dura mater (the outer membrane covering the brain) and the skull, often requiring prompt surgical intervention to relieve pressure on the brain.
7. Hematoma: A localized collection of blood outside of blood vessels, usually in liquid form within the tissue, caused by injury or trauma that breaks blood vessels.