Chapter 1157 - 1030: So That More People Can Survive

Chapter 1157: Chapter 1030: So That More People Can Survive

This summer, a certain phrase sparked widespread attention.

Zhang Guoqing definitely did not expect that his statement "to help more people survive!"

After some propaganda from the political department, quickly became a slogan of Tengshan City and swiftly spread across the nation through various media.

Still stationed at the frontline, Zhang Guoqing was unaware that this summer, the world truly remembered a frontline commander named "Zhang Guoqing."

At this very moment, the greatest tragedy of humanity is unfolding, as every sight is filled with the wounded, and the scenes of devastation leave everyone with no time for personal concerns.

May 1st Square is packed with wounded and fleeing crowds, appearing ever more tragic, with trembling people everywhere, and those who can move around searching for food and clothing.

Let alone the two directions leading from the city to the airport and May 1st Square, where crowds gather like a tide, chaotic, noisy, panicked... this is an unprecedented scale of exodus.

Desperate people see hope at the last moment, hearing voices from loudspeakers, without a doubt, believing that the airport and May 1st Square are places for saving lives, places where there is hope for rebirth, drawing everyone who can move to those locations without hesitation.

Support by leaning on tree branches, helping each other, those with bare bodies, those with bare feet. There are also those carrying relatives whose fate is unknown, walking staggeringly; those with broken legs, stubbornly crawling along the roadside, inching forward from rocks grasped with hands...

Some people, merely with scrapes on their heads and bodies, yet overwhelmed by panic, become part of the fleeing crowd, along a chaotic bloodstained path to survival.

All doctors and medical personnel, whether just rescued with injuries from the first and second hospitals, are too busy to return home, too busy to grieve lost relatives, already too occupied to take even a sip of water.

Even the large units gradually arriving nearby, now all soldiers covered in mud and sweat, not to mention, each bearing light injuries.

Zhang Guoqing cannot utter a word for everyone to rest first, so busy now, even the surviving citizens partake in rescue efforts regardless of their wounds.

Several aftershocks did not deter a single person. Everyone knows time is life, an extra second, an extra minute, may save an additional life.

—Countless lives surviving beneath the ruins await their arrival.

This situation exceeds everyone’s imagination, with an influx of medical equipment and drugs, especially surgical supplies, arriving continuously at the scene, yet still insufficient...

Not mentioning the most needed heavy machinery. Before those arrive, aside from jacks and saws, everyone uses their ten fingers...

Many times, Zhang Guoqing’s eyes blur, as he discreetly wipes his moist eyes while turning to wipe sweat, then continues to issue orders and motivate them through loudspeakers.

"Comrades, the party central just called, Teng Mountain is the center of this earthquake. Leaders request all command officers to embody the revolutionary spirit of fearlessness from hardship and death to aid the people of Tengshan City with all their strength! We must find every way to save more people!"

Applause immediately erupted, numerous people began chanting slogans.

Zhang Guoqing had never been so grateful for this era, these slogans.

It is precisely this supreme worship power that allows the unity of military and civilian heart, giving them a little motivation for maximum enthusiasm.

And surrounding the newly formed command center, along roads leading to May 1st Square, dust and motor roar, with the People’s Liberation Army’s 100,000 disaster relief troops marching without pause toward the quake’s disaster zone.

The radio car with whipping antennae intermittently sends signals to the frontline command center; the health vehicles flying the Red Cross flag urgently deploy rescue work by each medical team.

Numerous Liberation brand trucks filled with soldiers sound their urgent horns, forming long lines on the muddy, uneven roads.

Facing now is a battle, a battle of landslides, a battle with corpses widespread, a battle between humanity and nature.

Anyone who participated in the quake relief military action has not forgotten the intense feelings on that "July 28" day: a relief team racing against time, advancing at maximum speed to the devastated city. Roads blocked required direct walking, every action so rushed...

They couldn’t forget the post-disaster black rain. Similar to many historical major earthquakes, there’d be endless torrential rain.

By 10 a.m., it rained again...

After the quake, black rain poured over every ruin, and unknown from when, red liquid began seeping from Teng Mountain’s ruins.

It seeped more, accumulated thicker, like delicate red springs flowing from cracks, seeping from the gray-white walls and rubble.

This is the blood flowing from victims, from bodies yet to be cleared.

Pale red blood slowly flowed, gathering into red little rivers at low points, leaving trails of lost life on the black-brown ruins.

All rescue soldiers from the "July 28" disaster remember these heart-wrenching scenes amid the rain, especially those along the red trails being rescued survivors. They cannot forget this nightmare throughout their lives.

By the afternoon of the 28th, over 200 medical teams and over 10,000 medical personnel from across the nation spread rapidly over these flattened ruins.

The open space immediately raised Red Cross flags and wooden signs: PLA General Hospital here, Air Force General Hospital here, Navy General Hospital here...

But still not enough...

Almost one-five surviving Tengshan people is severely injured!

The wounded need to be transferred outward!

Command center issues orders continuously to transfer massive wounded outward.

And this night, the PLA General Hospital’s surgeons at the airport, on three set-up operating tables, commenced the most difficult surgeries.

This is the earliest post-disaster surgery for critically injured patients.

—Immobilized patients, life-threatening patients.

They needed extensive debridements and sutures, massive amputations, even craniotomies...

Other medical teams set up nearby on the muddy ground, in reed mat huts, almost saving patients amidst blood pools, with one military doctor’s Liberation shoes dyed red, soaked with blood, yet he couldn’t care about minor details.

His reddening eyes told the world he stood tirelessly at the operating table, working for over ten hours straight...

So many critically injured patients, knowing rescue is hopeless, they’d lift them on the table for two hours surgery, merely to extend patients’ lives by another hour.