Chapter 669: Frontline Medical Records
At the Second Provincial Capital Hospital’s operating theatre.
Everyone flew up.
The old chief of the orthopedics department who was about to retire had been waiting in the operating theater for nearly 24 hours. During that time, he had only had one meal and had been standing next to the operating table for the rest of it.
There were so many injured people that there was no end to them.
The scrub nurse’s eyes turned red as she worked. One of them could not help but cry right there at the operating theater.
As a person in the operating theater, what kind of thing had they not seen? No matter how tragic or sad the matter was, they usually kept a distance.
But now, they could not do it.
Chief Jing remained silent. He stubbornly refused all requests for him to step down from the stage and take a break. He even refused requests from the medical administration division.
After the amputations were completed, another batch of patients was sent over like an unending wave.
Chief Jing did not want to see what was going on. He was old and his legs weren’t as good as before. If he had to go to the frontline, he would have to drag two or three people down to take care of him.
He used his own methods to play the greatest role.
However…
There were simply too many amputees. The amputations he had performed in his lifetime were not as many as the ones he had performed in the past 24 hours.
This was under the premise that most of the seriously injured patients were sent to Huaxi for treatment.
The Second Provincial Hospital was not ranked in the top five in Chengdu in terms of overall medical strength.
But even so, countless seriously injured patients were still sent over.
Chief Jing had endured for nearly 24 hours, his body already overdrawn. He did not crack his usual jokes at the operating table, such as introducing boyfriends to the nurses.
The atmosphere in the operating theater was tense, the air pressure increased by at least five pascals.
He carefully devoted all his energy to the patients— those who were seriously injured had their limbs smashed and crushed by heavy objects, did not receive treatment for a short period of time, and developed compartment syndrome, making the range of amputations much larger than expected.
He tried hard to save as many limbs as possible for all the injured, but he just could not do it.
Compartment syndrome was caused by an increased volume on the compartment due to hematoma and edema of the tissue following a traumatic fracture or by tight wrapping. Local pressure reduced the volume of the compartment and resulted in increased compartment pressure.
When the pressure reached a certain level (8.7 kph, which was around 65 mmHg in the forearm, and 7.3 kph, about 55 mmHg in the lower leg), the small arteries supplying the muscles closed, forming a vicious cycle of ischemia-edema.
This was a more common clinical acute symptom.
Usually, it is enough to cut open the wound to reduce the pressure. There was no need to amputate.
However, in the face of natural disasters, almost all the injured did not receive immediate treatment, and the situation was completely opposite to the usual singing and dancing situation. Even in most of the patients, because there was a heavy weight on the limb, the huge pressure led directly to ischemic necrosis of the limb.
The edema gradually spread upward. That led to ischemic and necrotic death, and the bone fascia compartment syndrome continued to appear above the blackened limbs.
The range of amputations had expanded. Many limbs that did not need to be amputated were amputated under Chief Jing’s hands. He felt that he was committing a crime.
However, if he did not do so, it would inevitably lead to more and more complications. It would cause the injured to fall into an even more troublesome form of infection and poisoning.
Chief Jing carried a huge amount of pressure and self-blame. He carried out one surgery after another in silence.
He knew that the operating theater next door was arranged for orthopedic surgeries. The other surgeries were mainly performed by the neurosurgery department.
However, there were not many patients in the general surgery department and thoracic department. Because of organ bleeding or pneumothorax, it was difficult for the seriously injured to last for more than 48 hours.
A middle-aged male patient that was seriously injured was carried down. His right thigh was amputated.
If it were any other time, the injured patient would only need to perform fracture fixation. If it were any other time, they would just need to perform an incision to reduce the pressure.
But now, one of his thighs had to be amputated…
“Next.” Chief Jing’s voice was completely hoa.r.s.e. Even he himself could not tell that he had just said those words.
Another patient was sent to the operating theater. Chief Jing sat on a stool in the operating theater while he waited and closed his eyes to rest. The junior doctor under him was responsible for carrying the patient and sterilizing them before the operation.
There was a tightly wrapped plastic bag with medical tape on the patient’s chest. The orthopedic surgeon removed the tape without hesitation and threw the plastic bag into the red trash can.
The circulating nurse saw this scene. She had just slept for a few hours and was still in good spirits.
Yes, previously she had only slept for two or three hours a day. The rest of the time was spent working. It was enough to make one break down.
But in the current situation, she was the most energetic person there.
The circulating nurse realized that there might be something important in the plastic bag, such as the patient’s ident.i.ty, so that the patient’s family could find them.
She used the oval pliers to take the plastic bag out of the red trash can and opened it to take a look.
“This patient’s limbs are not very swollen, chief. Sister Su, get ready…” The circulating nurse interrupted the orthopedist halfway through his words.
“This is the medical record left by the frontline doctor,” the circulating nurse said in a deep voice.
“What?” The orthopedist did not understand. The Frontline? Doctors? Medical records?
The frontline lacked everything. In some places, even water had to be dropped by air and the cost of dropping a bottle of purified water by air was at least 100 yuan per bottle.
Even so, due to the weather, most of the water and food could not fall into the hands of the disaster victims and the frontline headquarters did not care about the cost and continued to drop the purified water by air regardless.
They were already so short of things and there was still a doctor who left medical records at the frontline?
Chief Jing opened his eyes immediately. He reached out and said, “Let me take a look.”
A tissue was handed to Chief Jing. The entire piece of tissue was wet. It was very heavy in his hand.
He looked at the messy handwriting on it and felt a lump in his throat.
What kind of difficult conditions were these medical treatments under…
Although he had not experienced it personally, Chief Jing could imagine it.
After watching for nearly three minutes, Chief Jing fell silent and did not say a word. The hand that was carefully holding the tissue trembled slightly. The more it trembled, the stronger it became.
“Chief Jing?” The circulating nurse only took a glance before she handed the tissue to Chief Jing. She saw that Chief Jing’s condition was not right, so she immediately asked.
Chief Jing did not say anything. He used his large hand to carelessly wipe his face. After he calmed down slightly, he said, “This patient underwent embolectomy at the frontline. The time was six hours ago.”
The circulating nurse was stunned.
The orthopedic doctor who was disinfecting was also stunned.
With the conditions at the frontline, how could they still perform embolectomy?
For severe trauma, the difficulty of embolectomy was many times greater than that for common cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.
Because the normal physiological and anatomical structure was destroyed, the thrombectomy was numerous and dense, making it difficult to remove.
This kind of surgery was rarely done in the Second Provincial Hospital, but there were actually people at the frontline who had done it?