Chapter 154: Human hearts can be so evil!
"Doctor Zhang, hurry! There's an emergency patient requiring your treatment! It's of extreme urgency level!" a nurse shouted loudly to Zhang Fan. Ever since Ouyang Hong became the superintendent, she had massively overhauled the way that emergency treatment worked in Chasu City Hospital. The "extreme urgency" level meant that the patient's life was in dire danger. No matter how far away the doctor currently was from the emergency department, they were absolutely required to arrive within three minutes.
Zhang Fan immediately grabbed his stethoscope and started running. There was a special elevator for doctors and a special elevator for surgeries in the surgical department. You would have to swipe your doctor ID in order to use these elevators. The surgical department building was also approximately 200 meters away from the emergency department. Zhang Fan ran at top speed after exiting the elevator. His white doctor's coat had such friction that it made audible sounds as he ran.
Many people surrounded the entrance to the emergency treatment room. These people were all looking through the glass windows of the emergency treatment room. "Let me through!" Zhang Fan shouted in a really loud voice because he was in such a hurry. The group of people turned around to see a doctor, so they hurriedly made way.
Little Wang, the emergency department doctor on duty, immediately gave the patient's CT scan to Zhang Fan when he saw him arrive. Little Wang then swiftly explained the patient's condition. "He was already unconscious upon arrival. The CT scan indicates that he has a cerebral hemorrhage. He's been unconscious for about half an hour."
Zhang Fan's heart skipped a beat when he saw the CT scan! The situation was incredibly severe. "Hurry, give him 250 ml of mannitol by intravenous injection immediately. Give him 60 mg of furosemide within the next 15 minutes by intravenous injection." The moment that Zhang Fan arrived, this meant he was in charge of the emergency treatment room. His words would be absolute commands. The emergency treatment room nurses immediately began taking action. "Where's his family?"
"Outside," Little Wang hurriedly told Zhang Fan.
"Supply the patient with as much oxygen as possible!" Zhang Fan gave another command to Little Wang before he exited the emergency treatment room. Zhang Fan was incredibly anxious because the patient had far too much cerebral bleeding. This might cause a cerebral herniation at any moment. The consequences would be far too frightening if a cerebral herniation occurred. A cerebral herniation would mean almost no chance of recovery.
Right now, no cerebral herniation had occurred as of yet. However, it was impossible for Zhang Fan to guarantee that one wouldn't appear. In fact, it was possible that a cerebral herniation would soon take place! That was why he needed to immediately open the skull and reduce the pressure on the brain. Time was extremely precious. This patient's life was highly likely to be determined by a margin of just a few minutes.
Zhang Fan stood at the entrance of the emergency operating room and extremely quickly spoke, "Family of this patient, this patient requires immediate surgery. Any direct relative, please prepare to sign the surgery paperwork!"
"No! We're going to Raptor City! This place is no good! My brother-in-law will die if he has surgery performed here!" a man who appeared to be around 30 years old loudly refused.
Zhang Fan was rather confused to see this! With the patient's current condition, not only was he not likely to survive until reaching Raptor City, it was unlikely that he would even manage to make it out of Chasu City alive without surgical treatment.
What exactly was the situation? It happened to be that this patient was a very rich businessman whose name was Dai Wengang. He was a real estate tycoon who was worth more than 100 million yuan. Dai Wengang was originally from Jiangsu Province, and had come to the border province together with the people from his village to make a living here. He had worked incredibly hard and suffered through many difficulties. He slowly expanded his business by slowly working on renovation and construction for others at first.
Currently, he and Li Xiao had many business dealings. Both of them counted as some of the top merchants in all of Chasu City. Dai Wengang was currently in his 40s. It could be said that he was a smart and talented man. Although he had earned much money, he also had many problems with his body. He had high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and high blood sugar, the three highs of medicine. Since Dai Wengang had earned his money in the border province, he also found a beautiful wife from the border province.
Dai Wengang had gotten married really late. His son was still only in elementary school. Over the past few years, Dai Wengang's physical condition had constantly worsened, so he had his older brother from Jiangsu Province and his wife's younger brother join his own company and be vice presidents.
Although Dai Wengang's older brother was his blood-related brother, that couldn't compare to pillow talk. Slowly, Dai Wengang's brother-in-law gained more and more power at his company. Dai Wengang's brother-in-law also often slandered Dai Wengang's older brother in front of Dai Wengang, constantly talking bad about the older brother. Dai Wengang had personally built up his own business empire from nothing, so of course he understood the dirty things involved in business with slandering one's rivals. Unfortunately, Dai Wengang's older brother was uneducated and illiterate. That was why Dai Wengang sometimes had to rely on his brother-in-law.
Dai Wengang's wife was the oldest child in the family. Ever since she got married to Dai Wengang, her family's life was immensely improved. Her parents would always nag her to take good care of her younger brother.
Earlier today, Dai Wengang had drunk a lot of alcohol because he was at an important meal, discussing a highly important project with some of his collaborators. He then went to his company. After he returned home, he felt a bad headache and lots of discomfort. He believed it to be his high blood pressure, so he took some high blood pressure medication and then went to sleep.
Dai Wengang's wife was a stay-at-home mom. After she put their son to sleep, she returned to their bedroom to discover that her husband was snoring ridiculously loudly and smelled badly of alcohol. Although Dai Wengang typically snored as well, he never snored this loudly before.
"Here, let's change your pillow. This pillow might be a little high," she said to Dai Wengang as he slept. She was about to change the pillow, but then discovered that Dai Wengang had vomited. She hurriedly turned on the light and saw that something seemed to be wrong about the situation. "Old Dai! Old Dai!" Dai Wengang didn't react at all, although his snores got even louder.
His wife cried and screamed while calling for an ambulance. She also hurriedly arranged for a babysitter and called all her relatives and friends. In Dai Wengang's company, his older brother was the leader of one faction, while his brother-in-law was the leader of the other faction. Neither faction was able to do anything to the other. However, the members of Dai Wengang's brother's faction were all from their old village in rural Jiangsu. They were all uneducated and illiterate, which was why they were the weaker faction.
When the brother-in-law saw Dai Wengang's current condition, he immediately consulted a doctor friend that he knew. This was the reason why he had loudly objected to Dai Wengang getting treated here. He actually wanted Dai Wengang to die!
Although Dai Wengang's older brother was uneducated and illiterate, he knew human nature. He knew that Dai Wengang's brother-in-law was truly a bastard who often illegally filled his own pockets and liked to stir up trouble. If it weren't for Dai Wengang always telling his brother to leave his brother-in-law alone, the brother would have long since dealt with this bastard of a brother-in-law already.
"Shut up! Do you think that a thing like you matters? You have no right to have a say in this!" Right after Dai Wengang's older brother cursed at the brother-in-law, he immediately told Zhang Fan, "Doctor, what do you still need? Please hurry. You have to save my younger brother!" Dai Wengang's older brother was incredibly worried! He forcefully suppressed the anger in his heart.
"Sister! Sister, crying is useless. Hurry and say something! The hospital here wouldn't possibly know how to perform a brain surgery like this. We need to hurry! Use the company's business van. This way, my brother-in-law can lie down flat as we hurry over to Raptor City's best hospital. My brother-in-law will surely die if he gets surgery here!" The brother-in-law pretended to be really worried while shouting at his sister.
Dai Wengang's older brother truly became anxious with this. Although the patient was his blood-related younger brother, the hospital would never perform surgery on Dai Wengang unless his wife agreed 1.
"Sister-in-law! That's your husband inside there! The father of your son! You should know quite well what type of person your younger brother is, right? He just wants to misappropriate your wealth. You definitely can't believe what he says. If your husband really dies here, your ingrate of a younger brother will immediately kick you and your son out of the family even though you'll be a widow!"
"Sister! Sister! I would never do such a thing! Believe me! I swear to the heavens that if I'm lying, I shall be struck by thunder! I'll call our parents over right now. Even if you don't trust me, you'll trust our parents, right?" The brother-in-law's expression was becoming somewhat vicious.
Money could motivate people to do incredibly evil things! Working for his brother-in-law and working for himself were two very different things. The brother-in-law was an incredibly villainous person who felt that this was a perfect opportunity. As long as his brother-in-law Dai Wengang really died here, well, his older sister was a stay-at-home mom, his nephew was a young child who didn't know anything yet, and Dai Wengang's older brother was uneducated and illiterate. He would be in full control of Dai Wengang's company and money which was worth several hundred million yuan.
He would succeed as long as he was able to convince his sister not to have surgery performed here, because the doctor friend told him already that in such a situation, Dai Wengang absolutely required immediate surgery.
"Sister-in-law, I beg you, as long as you promise to have the surgery performed, I'll leave immediately and quit the company. I only have this one brother. I'm begging you!" Tears were now streaming down the face of Dai Wengang's brother.
Dai Wengang's wife was purely a stay-at-home mom. Apart from being really beautiful, she actually had no skills at all. She never had to deal with anything major in her life. Dai Wengang was the type who would never say a word to his wife or son about his difficulties no matter how much hardship or bitterness he experienced during work.
Over all these years, Dai Wengang had protected his wife so well that she had lost all understanding of how society was, along with a corresponding decrease in her decision-making ability! Right now, her mind was completely blank! She felt absolute despair about what she should do. She had no idea what to choose. She felt like both her younger brother and brother-in-law were correct! Just what should she do?
"Dad, Mom, hurry over to Chasu City Hospital. My brother-in-law is severely ill and needs to go to Raptor City for a surgery. You need to hurry here to watch over my sister!" The brother-in-law took advantage of a lull to call his parents.
Zhang Fan could roughly guess at what was going on after seeing all of this. If it wasn't for the fact that the patient's situation was dire and every minute was critical, he would really want to stay on the sidelines and watch how things played out. He had only heard about such conflicts within rich families before, but never seen one for himself!
But, there was no time left. No matter what, the patient in the emergency treatment room was his patient. No matter if the patient was a millionaire or an ordinary commoner, Zhang Fan would treat all of his patients equally. He thus spoke up at this time.
"Quiet down! This is the hospital, not your home. Lower your voice. If you dare to speak loudly again, I'll have security kick you out!" Zhang Fan said in an incredibly severe tone.
"Hurry! Are you going to approve the surgery or not? If you don't agree to the surgery, your man is going to die!" he then shouted at the patient's wife, who currently collapsed on the ground, not knowing what to do.
Zhang Fan intentionally spoke in the border province's accent as he loudly shouted at the woman. This was in order to give her a reminder and have her subconsciously choose to have the surgery performed. There was no helping it. Zhang Fan was doing this for the sake of saving the patient's life!
"Yes! Do the surgery right now! I'm begging you, doctor, you must save him! I wouldn't know how to live on without him!" Zhang Fan's loud and rough-sounding accented voice stimulated Dai Wengang's wife. She suddenly jerked as if she had just woken up, and started crying while tugging on Zhang Fan's doctor's coat.
Zhang Fan didn't care about anything else. He only heard that she had agreed! Zhang Fan immediately turned around and told the emergency department doctor Little Wang, "Immediately begin the preparations for surgery. You take care of the paperwork! Remember to get two signatures, one from the wife and one from the patient's older brother!" Zhang Fan decided to get an extra signature just in case!
Dai Wengang was wheeled into the elevator reserved for surgeries. The brother-in-law was incredibly angry and pulled on Zhang Fan, refusing to let him go. "You don't care about people's lives! Can you really take such responsibility? I'm going to complain to your superintendent! I'm going to report you, and sue you until you're bankrupt, and—"
The brother-in-law didn't get a chance to finish, because Dai Wengang's older brother knocked him over with a single punch. "You're a beast who doesn't deserve to be wearing human skin!" The older brother then shouted at Zhang Fan's back as the latter rapidly left to go perform the surgery, "Doctor, please! You must save my brother's life! I'll kowtow to you!"
As the doors to the surgical elevator gradually closed, Zhang Fan saw that the patient's brother was already kneeling and kowtowing to him with tears all over his face! There was no more time left, so Zhang Fan did his very best to calm down and be as still as water. Earlier in the emergency treatment room, when he saw the patient's CT scan, he had already told a nurse to notify neurosurgery vice director Liu Zhaoyun!
The nurses and anesthesiologist were already prepared for the surgery in the operating room. "Anesthesia!"
"Doctor Zhang, will you be performing this surgery by yourself?" the anesthesiologist asked.
"Start the anesthesia first. Other doctors from my neurosurgery department will soon be arriving. Hurry, there's not much time left. It will truly become troublesome if a cerebral herniation appears."
Liu Zhaoyun and Xia Huadong arrived in the operating room one after the other. Zhang Fan had already begun the disinfecting process.
"This is troublesome!" Xia Huadong muttered to himself before Liu Zhaoyun could even say anything. Xia Huadong's assessment was correct. His three years of experience as a graduate student had indeed given him such judgement ability.
Liu Zhaoyun glared at Xia Huadong, and told him, "What, does that mean we're not going to help him? Go wash your hands!"
At the operating table, Liu Zhaoyun asked Zhang Fan, "Shall I be the primary surgeon for this patient? You're still young!"
This was a highly dangerous surgery where the patient was at great risk of dying. Neurosurgery director Yu Bin constantly sang Zhang Fan's praises, and vice director Liu Zhaoyun had also been present for both of Zhang Fan's achievements for the emergency military patient and vice director Wang Weiping! It wasn't that Liu Zhaoyun was looking down on Zhang Fan's abilities. Rather, he was trying to protect Zhang Fan! This was an old bird's way of protecting a young bird before the young bird finally took flight!
"Thank you, Director, but allow me to be the primary surgeon! I saw the patient's CT scan before you did, so I had more time to mentally prepare!" Zhang Fan spoke quite politely, but it was still easy for everyone to tell that this was only an excuse! Zhang Fan was far too selfish about performing surgeries. He would never give up a surgery to anyone else! This was also the aura of a primary surgeon! He would always be willing to perform surgery!
Footnotes:
Ch 154 Footnote 1
TL/N: In China, the law states that the spouse's opinion trumps all other opinions, including that of parents and blood-related siblings. This means that in this scenario, if Dai Wengang's wife refuses to allow the surgery to be performed, the hospital will be unable to perform the surgery for the patient, no matter how much the patient's older brother wants it. It would be the same even if the patient's parents were here.