Shen Zichen was in the middle of surgery in the operation room when Li Xiuying and Song Zexi were rushed to the ER. He only stepped out after an hour and noticed that most of the nurses were panicking, some even tripped as they ran to the emergency room. "What"s wrong? What"s happening there?" He stopped one of the nurses on duty to ask.
"Oh, Doctor Shen, this is really bad. Lady Li and her bodyguard were involved in an accident and were rushed in. The Li family had been pressuring the doctors on duty to save them. Both of them are in a critical situation,"
As soon as he heard that Li Xiuying was involved in an accident, the hold on his colleague"s arm loosened as his mind went blank for a while.
Once reality sank soon after, Shen Zichen removed his surgical gown and gloves at once and quickly threw them in the appropriate bin. He then ran at full speed to the emergency room in fear and panic.
Fear was foreign to Shen Zichen. The last time he felt indescribable fear was when he was young and his mother was involved in a gas explosion in the restaurant she was working in.
It had been a long time since he felt this kind of fear. He ignored the people calling out for him to stop. His mind was filled with Ying and only with her.
"No. No. This couldn"t be happening! Ying should be on her way to see Chuntao overseas. How did she end up in the emergency room at this time?" he thought.
When he saw Li Xiuying unconscious, with her skin bluish and cold. Her lips had lost its color while Song Zexi was on the other bed, surrounded by other doctors who were trying to resuscitate her. There were signs that Song Zexi suffered from a head trauma which puts her at high risk.
Shen Zichen couldn"t do anything but to watch as doctors tend to the woman she loved. It was improper for him to intervene his fellow doctors" effort and see Li Xiuying himself. Instead, he gritted his teeth and went to the front desk to find out what happened.
But before he could reach the front desk, he saw Li Yuren and Zheng Yue rus.h.i.+ng in to look for their niece. Zheng Yue held her husband"s arm, fear and worry written all over her face.
They were immediately informed about the accident but with the bad weather, persistently raining outside, the rescuers had a hard time rescuing Li Xiuying and Song Zexi from the river as the waves started to drag them away.
"Uncle Yuren," Shen Zichen nodded his head to greet the older man.
Li Yuren pressed his lips together as he looked towards his niece being surrounded by the doctors and nurses. His niece, who he raised as his own, was now facing death for the second time.
"Ying… can you save her?" There was a hint of hopelessness and despair in Li Yuren"s tone that caught Shen Zichen off guard.
"I-I cannot promise anything as of now," he responded truthfully. He could never give them false hope when he himself couldn"t a.s.sure Li Xiuying"s recovery.
For the first time in Shen Zichen"s life, he felt useless and he didn"t like it.
Lowering his head in shame, he excused himself to find out what caused Li Xiuying"s accident. He later found out that the car she was on was involved in the multiple-vehicle collision and they were rescued from the river.
Shen Zichen, being Li Xiuying"s childhood friend, knew well that she couldn"t swim and was nearly drowned once when she was ten years old. The memory of it was still clear in his mind and he could remember seeing the panic and terror on Li Yuren"s face when he rescued Ying from the pool and held her limp body like a fragile doll.
His thoughts were momentarily put on hold as he heard the gasp and panic around Li Xiuying.
"She"s having a cardiac arrest!" Someone exclaimed.
Zheng Yue started to hyperventilate as a panic attack hit her which forced Li Yuren to take his wife away from the scene, praying in his heart that Ying would survive. He wouldn"t be able to survive another heartache if he lost Ying now. He wouldn"t be able to face his dead sister for failing to protect and take care of Ying.
Shen Zichen couldn"t help but barge in to see Li Xiuying"s condition. As she laid there unmoving, he could feel a tight squeeze in his chest. Li Xiuying"s vitals were dropping at an alarming rate and he couldn"t do anything to help her. Being submerged in cold water caused her abnormal heart rates.
"Doctor Shen! You aren"t allowed in here! Please step back!" One of the nurses blocked him, not letting him disturb the doctors tending to their patient.
"Ying! Save her! Save her life!" He tried to force his way but another male nurse stepped forward and stopped him. Of course, the nurses knew about his relations.h.i.+p with Li Xiuying but they couldn"t allow him to make a scene while the doctor tried to treat her.
A lack of oxygen or any chemical changes in the lungs may cause the heart to stop beating. This cardiac arrest would stop the flow of blood and thus would stop the transport of oxygen to the brain.
The brain cannot survive long without oxygen and the continued lack of oxygen in the blood combined with the cardiac arrest will lead to the deterioration of brain cells causing, first, brain damage and eventually brain death from which recovery is generally considered impossible.
The brain will die after approximately six minutes without oxygen at normal body temperature, but hypothermia of the central nervous system may prolong this. Shen Zichen was aware of this and he fear gripped his heart as Li Xiuying"s vitals remained unstable as seconds pa.s.sed by.
Her life couldn"t possibly end like this! Not like this! Li Xiuying didn"t deserve any of this!
What had she done wrong to suffer like this? Li Xiuying was the most kind-hearted person he knew in his life and surely didn"t deserve the pain she was in.
The feeling of not being able to do anything… Shen Zichen truly despised it. How would he explain it to Chuntao if they lost Ying tonight? He promised Li Chuntao to look after her twin sister but now he wasn"t sure if he would be able to keep his promise to her.
What was the point of being one of the best doctors in the capital if he couldn"t even save the life of the woman he loved? Those t.i.tles, those recognitions he received from everyone meant nothing to him if he couldn"t help Li Xiuying at all.
"Doctor Shen, please. Don"t make this hard for us…" The nurse begged for his cooperation.
Shen Zichen stepped back and looked helplessly at Li Xiuying as one of the doctors started giving her continuous chest compression. He could tell that they knew what they were doing and doing their best to save Li Xiuying"s life but she remained unresponsive.
"I… I couldn"t save her?" He muttered to himself as his mind tuned out everything around him as his eyes fixated on Li Xiuying"s limp form.