Cut vertically.
Then, I simply inserted an iron rod.
There's no material, not even plastic or rubber, that can maintain a hole like this, so it was a last resort...
'Breathe...'
I removed all the blood clots blocking the airway from the back of the neck.
I made a vertical cut and just cleared it out with my hands.
If only we had proper equipment...
'If I told Joseph to suck it out with a straw...'
That kind of thing...
Shouldn't be something one person asks of another, right?
I heard rumors of a doctor who used to do such things...
Ugh.
"Ugh."
The Lord must be watching.
At least the patient started exhaling.
Despite not having an Ambu bag or any manual ventilator, and even though breathing had momentarily stopped, spontaneous breathing returned.
Well done, nameless patient.
It would've been better if you hadn't ridden the bicycle, though...
"Ugh!"
Ah.
There was a reason why spontaneous breathing returned.
"You, what is this..."
Liston and I had to endure the bloody phlegm the patient spat out through the hole I made in their throat.
Normally, you'd stop out of guilt by now...
"Cough!"
The patient kept coughing violently.
In the end, it was a good thing.
Maybe the iron rod in the airway caused enough irritation to wake them up.
If not, they'd probably be at the gates of heaven by now, meeting St. Peter or something, right?
"Do something!"
"Yes, yes!"
We couldn't just leave it like this.
They'll cough themselves to death.
What I did was just create an airway...
It's not like I treated any injuries.
*Click.*
I opened the gas canister.
Haa...
This...
Weird smell.
No matter how much I tried to avoid it, I couldn't completely block it out.
There wasn't even a proper tube to connect the gas canister to the patient's mouth.
If we had done that, they might've died.
Why?
Because oxygen wouldn't get in...
"Haa."
"Huuuu."
So Liston and I had to turn our heads away and take deep breaths several times.
Even Liston, who had trained under me and became a master at amputating limbs, once got knocked out by the anesthesia before surgery, so we had to come up with a solution.
"Ugh."
Of course, our so-called anesthesia wasn't that strong, so despite the gas, the patient was only in a deep sleep.
At least they weren't coughing, just groaning.
"Isn't this too weak?"
"The stimulation must be strong."
"Even when amputating limbs, they stay still with this gas, right?"
"Well, that..."
The pain of having an iron rod shoved down your throat... must be worse than having a limb amputated, right?
I wanted to say that, but I couldn't bring myself to.
"Ah..."
Now that we've secured the airway, shouldn't we check the patient's condition?
With that thought, I looked... and oh no...
The tongue was almost shredded.
I couldn't do it, but Liston could probably tear it apart just by pulling hard.
'The tongue... is too important...'
Blood was already dripping.
This place is a bloodbath anyway.
But the bigger problem was that if the front of the tongue was this damaged, it wouldn't hold its shape and would roll back.
Look at it now.
It wasn't just the blood blocking the airway—it was the tongue.
I carefully pulled the tongue forward to prevent it from tearing completely.
"You... seem timid at times, but then you do things like this..."
His voice trembled slightly, so I glanced over and saw Liston couldn't even look at the surgery.
Seriously.
What's the big deal about pulling a tongue?
With that thought, I started removing the debris stuck in the tongue.
'Ugh.'
Good thing I wore a mask.
The smell of blood would've overwhelmed everything...
The patient's breath was... almost like a bacterial culture.
If you took a sample, you could probably grow a whole bowl of bacteria.
*Click.*
Thinking that made the smell seem a bit less intense.
And...
As I carefully removed the debris with tweezers, I felt like I was back in the old operating room, even if just for a moment.
"Haha."
I couldn't help but laugh.
*Click.*
Hey, look at this.
If I had just one proper pair of tweezers, I could've done this much already.
The debris in the tongue is all gone.
"Ugh."
To say "ugh" at such a triumphant moment...
How disrespectful...
"Huh?"
I turned around and Liston was already gone.
The one who said "ugh" was the guy messing around with the cautery iron.
Is he insane?
Doesn't he realize how disgusting what he's doing is?
I'm in the middle of treating someone here.
"Needle. Ah... Joseph!"
Anyway, I couldn't finish this treatment alone.
There's no fire, so I can't do anything complicated like suturing.
"Ah... I'm so scared."
When I called, Joseph peeked out from behind Liston's massive frame.
Seriously...
You've done autopsies, and this is what scares you?
I'm making sure they're still breathing, okay?
This person isn't dead yet.
But if we leave them like this, they will be.
"What's so scary? Come here."
"Haa..."
Anyway, Joseph came over, though he looked visibly uncomfortable.
That's more like it.
That's my apprentice... no, my friend.
"Alfred, senior. You come too."
"I..."
"Oh, so you're not going to be a doctor?"
"What kind of medicine is that?"
"Oh, it exists."
Honestly, this is nothing.
There's even a surgery called commando surgery...
It has nothing to do with commandos, but it's called that because both the patient and the doctor need to be as brave as commandos to pull it off.
Compared to that, this is...
"Come here and hold the light. We need to see what we're doing."
"Uh... fine. Can I look away, though?"
Hah.
If you were a resident, I'd have smacked you by now.
But you're a senior...
You're the money source, right?
You'll probably just invest in me later and live a cushy life without being a doctor, huh?
Thinking that made holding the light seem like a big deal.
"Hey! I can't look at this either!"
"No, you can't."
You...
You have to be a doctor.
Surgery usually requires two or three people.
And you have good hands.
Colin too, but...
"Needle."
"Uh... here."
After some struggle, with the senior holding the lamp to light the mouth, I started suturing the patient's tongue with the needle Joseph handed me.
Of course, being a skilled surgeon with experience in trauma centers, I didn't just suture—I also assessed the overall situation.
It was a mess.
I couldn't even say it was okay as a white lie...
'The front teeth... will probably be hard to recover.'
Implants might be developed someday...
But when will that be?
It'll take over a hundred years, won't it?
Which means this person will have to live without front teeth... upper teeth, at that.
'People look so incomplete without front teeth...'
Back when I was serving as a military doctor, a colleague got drunk and chewed on a skewer, losing a front tooth. The commander thought he couldn't perform his duties and immediately gave him leave.
He told him to get a fake tooth or even gum to stick on within a week.
'Hmm. Maybe I'll stick some gum on later.'
They won't be able to chew, but at least it'll help with pronunciation, right?
If nothing else, it'll prevent them from looking ridiculous.
"Oh..."
While I was lost in thought, Joseph let out an admiring sound.
Can't blame him.
The tongue was coming together.
Whether it'll function properly...
I honestly don't know.
There'll probably be some speech impairment.
But muscles are one of the organs that recover well, so I'm hopeful it'll improve.
"How is it? Looks much better than before, right?"
"Yeah. Wow... is it healed?"
"No, it's not that simple."
Common sense says it can't be fully healed yet.
At least... it looks somewhat better.
But the real problem is elsewhere.
'Blood is... flowing back.'
The lamp is terrible, so I can't see the throat properly.
The guy holding the lamp is looking the other way, so...
"Hey, hey! Senior! The lamp just pointed at my head!"
"Oh, sorry."
"Can't you just watch what you're doing?"
"Uh... not yet."
"Sigh."
If anything, I'm just glad he's not setting my head on fire right now.
From what I can see intermittently...
There's blood flowing back.
What does that mean?
There must be wounds in the nasal cavity too...
Common sense says no one would've poked their nostrils, so it's not a direct injury, right?
'Damn it.'
This patient... must've hit the ground face-first.
And it looks like they landed chin-first...
'If it's just a concussion, that's lucky, but the skull base might be fractured.'
At least there's no dark bruising under the eyes yet.
If we could tell everything just by looking, why would we need X-rays or CT scans?
Microfractures are impossible to detect.
"Alright. Let's move the patient if we're almost done!"
Liston, who had been cringing at the sight of the severed tongue, suddenly gained courage after the suturing and tried to lift the patient.
With suspected microfractures, that's a no-go.
No.
We'd be killing them.
"Wait... just a moment. The patient is too injured. Let's move them slowly."
"Huh? What are you talking about? It's just the tongue, right? They're breathing."
"Well..."
Suspecting unseen injuries is too advanced for them.
It's not like I can tell them about X-ray vision or something.
"I sutured the tongue, so can't I handle this my way?"
I insisted, still holding the needle.
"Hmm."
Liston's eyes wavered.
Probably remembering the patient's severed tongue, because he stepped back slightly.
"Fine."
Thanks to that, I managed to...
Move the patient onto a stretcher.
"Look at that lunatic..."
"Did you see him laughing while breaking the tongue?"
"If you mess with him, you're dead..."
"Even Liston stepped back..."
"I heard he was famous as a fighter in Joseon."
"Joseon?"
"Yeah, that. The land of medicine, they say."
"Wow. There's a place like that?"
I decided to ignore the chatter that followed.