Chapter 253 - 114: Courage (Part 1)

Chapter 253: Chapter 114: Courage (Part 1)

"Not a single one?" the male nurse confirmed again.

"No." Zhang Shutong pressed, "How is he now? I heard you mention internal bleeding, so..."

"That’s not the only problem right now."

The man cut him off anxiously.

"Your teacher has lost a lot of blood and urgently needs a transfusion. But we haven’t identified his blood type yet, so we can’t operate at all. All we can do are some basic measures to stop the bleeding and maintain his condition with medication."

Even though it was winter, Zhang Shutong saw the man wipe sweat from his brow. The male nurse spoke quickly again.

"You’re not the only one who’s anxious; we all are. Everyone is waiting for the lab results. They should be out any second. But we’re a small hospital. Our blood bank isn’t stocked with that many blood types. If he has one of the common ones, that’s fine. We’ll be over the biggest hurdle and can schedule the surgery immediately. But if..."

’But if it’s a rare blood type, then we’re in real trouble.’

Zhang Shutong finished the sentence silently in his mind. He had a bad feeling, and it didn’t linger for long before it fell like a blade—

The light above the emergency room door had gone out.

The doors opened, and the nurses and doctors rushed out, pushing a gurney with various instruments hanging from its head.

"The results are in. Type O," an older doctor ordered. "Xiaohu, call the city hospitals right now and ask who has blood bags. Then tell the ambulance to get ready to move. We can’t waste another second!"

"You few, get the patient into the ambulance now. Keep a constant eye on his heart rate and be ready to inject at any moment. It’s five o’clock, we can still make the ferry... Xiaoli!"

the man yelled again.

"Coming!" the male nurse answered immediately.

"Xiaoli! What about the patient’s family I told you to contact? Where are they? Just tell them to go straight to the ferry terminal. Don’t have them come to the hospital. Time is critical!"

But Xiaoli hesitated.

"I haven’t been able to reach the patient’s family. His phone is password-protected. I just asked his student, who said his parents are out of town, he’s single, and doesn’t have any friends or anything..."

"He’s a teacher? Then hurry up and contact his school’s administration! I don’t care who it is, just get someone. There has to be someone in the ambulance on the way to the city!"

"The school’s contact number isn’t going through. It’s Saturday..."

"Who made the emergency call? Where are they?"

"They didn’t come with..."

"Didn’t I stress that the initial caller must be brought along!"

"But that person..."

Both of them were growing agitated.

"I’ll go." Zhang Shutong pushed himself to his feet, fighting off a wave of dizziness. "Don’t delay any longer. I can go with him. I’ll get in the ambulance right now."

"You..." The doctor saw he was just a kid and was about to refuse.

"My parents are in the city. I can contact them to help take care of him," Zhang Shutong said, looking the doctor in the eye while pulling out his phone and starting to text.

"Alright, then." The doctor gritted his teeth. "We can’t afford to wait. Xiaoli, you take this kid with you. Get in the ambulance now. Hurry, the patient’s heart rate is dropping again..."

Nurse Li quickly ran to the front of the gurney to clear a path. "Make way!"

Zhang Shutong followed at the foot of the gurney. This was the first time he had seen Song’s face. Zhang Shutong took a quick look. The man’s brow was furrowed, and half his face was wrapped in bandages. The situation was grim. He might not even make it to the hospital; he could stop breathing on the way. Zhang Shutong looked away and quickly did a calculation in his head.

It was five o’clock.

Assuming it took ten minutes to get to the port and the ferry ride to the city was twenty minutes, that would make it five-thirty. It was a Saturday, so traffic in the city would be congested. Assuming another twenty minutes to the hospital, it would be five-fifty.

The last ferry back was at six in the evening. This meant if he couldn’t get back to the port before six, he would be stranded in the city for the night.

The math told him not to go, but his heart told him he had to.

The decision was made as he ran downstairs. Zhang Shutong helped the nurses lift the stretcher, carefully getting Song into the vehicle. Then, he turned and ran.

"Aren’t you coming with us?"

Xiaoli yelled.

"I’m taking my bike!"

Zhang Shutong yelled back. He leaped onto his motorcycle, ignited the engine, and took off. He knew if he rode in the ambulance, he would never make it back in time. Only on his motorcycle could he race against the clock.

Zhang Shutong twisted the throttle and sped off. He was much faster than the ambulance, reaching the port in just seven minutes. It was peak time. A ferry was docked at the shore, and the crew was slowly raising the gangway. The whistle blew and the engine roared. Seeing that the ferry was about to depart, Zhang Shutong accelerated sharply, his rear wheel carving an arc on the ground as he yelled to stop them.

"Wait! There’s a medical emergency! The ambulance will be here in three minutes! I’m clearing the way for them!"

’He was right to come along after all.’

No one would joke about something like this, so the crew didn’t doubt him. Zhang Shutong rode his motorcycle onto the ferry. It was nearly full, so he asked the crew to help him request that the passengers clear an empty space for the ambulance.

By the time all this was done, he could faintly hear the siren. He breathed a sigh of relief. Once the ambulance was parked securely on the deck, he immediately ran to the back doors.

"How is he?"

"Okay for now. We just gave him a saline drip," Xiaoli said. "The hospital in the city got back to us. First People’s Hospital. You know where that is, right?"

Zhang Shutong nodded. He used the moment to call his mom. She and his dad had been eating at a restaurant, but they dropped their chopsticks and started driving over as soon as they got his text.

"So we’ll wait for you and your teacher at the hospital?" his mom asked seriously.

"Yeah, we should arrive around five-thirty."

"Okay, good. I happen to have a former classmate in the ER there. I’ll give them a call and get back to you..."

His mom always trusted herself to handle a crisis.

Zhang Shutong hung up. He had no intention of enjoying the lake breeze on deck, so he went and sat inside the ambulance.

Only now did he have a chance to ask Xiaoli where exactly Song had been found.

"The western suburbs. By the time we got there, the car had already run off the road. All the airbags had deployed. Your teacher was already unconscious."

"What did he hit?" Zhang Shutong asked, startled.

"A tree. Probably driver fatigue or the car skidded," Xiaoli muttered. "These kinds of accidents happen as soon as it snows. It’s hard to say for sure. There are no surveillance cameras out there either. Let me give you an example. We had a patient once who swerved to avoid a kid that darted out from the roadside, lost control of the car, and was knocked unconscious. The kid saw he’d caused trouble and just ran off without a word. A passerby was the one who found the driver. In a situation like that, who are you supposed to blame?"

"Were there any other marks at the scene? My teacher wouldn’t have been driving drowsy, and he’s not the type to lose control of his car," Zhang Shutong said. He knew how well Song Nanshan could drive.

"That’s hard to say. It’s always the experienced drivers who get into the worst trouble. Besides, we’re not the police or an insurance company. We were just focused on getting him out of the car. We didn’t have time to survey the scene. I did take a picture, though. Here, take a look."

Zhang Shutong took the phone and zoomed in on the image. The front of the Fox was caved in at the center. There was a hole smashed through the driver’s side window. Song was lucky to be alive. If the impact had been just a little bit different, he probably wouldn’t have even had the chance to be rushed to the hospital for saving.

As per regulations, the ambulance crew only photographs the accident scene itself, so the picture only showed the car and offered no further clues. Zhang Shutong studied it for a moment before handing the phone back.

He had been circling the island all afternoon. If Song had crashed in the western suburbs, there was no reason he wouldn’t have seen the car. But he hadn’t. That proved, at the very least, that the accident must have happened while he was on his way back.

"What about the person who called for the ambulance? Why didn’t they come with?"