The next day.
a.m.
In the operating room.
Currently being performed is a brachial plexus injury repair surgery hosted by Deputy Chief Neurology Surgeon Ning Yunhao.
Zhao Heng, of course, is monitoring the patient’s intraoperative data alongside Gao Jun to ensure the surgery proceeds normally.
This brachial plexus injury repair technique is quite common in neurology, and technically, it’s certainly quite familiar.
Zhao Heng intently watched Deputy Chief Neurology Surgeon Ning Yunhao perform surgery. Sitting beside him, Gao Jun assumed that Zhao Heng was deeply yearning to take over the operating table.
However, Zhao Heng’s intense focus on the lead surgeon was naturally to see if he could acquire any experience points from this deputy chief surgeon.
The surgery proceeded steadily, and after a while, Zhao Heng noticed a white light orb falling from Ning Yunhao.
Recently, Zhao Heng seemed almost addicted to absorbing skill light orbs.
The sensation was phenomenal. The moment of fusing with a skill light orb brought instant acquisition of skills and expertise that usually took others years or even decades to master.
This sense of progression was truly addictive and hard to resist.
Nowadays, Zhao Heng felt his skills advancing on all fronts daily, and this visible progress was genuinely intoxicating.
Familiar with the procedure, Zhao Heng mentally absorbed the light orb.
"Ding! Acquired [Brachial Plexus Repair Technique (Perfect Level)]."
Perfect level?
After fusing with the skill light orb, Zhao Heng was slightly surprised. Such perfect level skill light orbs were quite rare.
Previously, it had only appeared during operations performed by Huang Jincheng, the Head of Cardiology.
It seemed that even though Ning Yunhao was only a deputy chief physician, his mastery of the brachial plexus repair surgery had reached a peak state.
Indeed, being a deputy chief doctor was no easy feat!
In the medical field, it’s a challenging profession; many doctors struggle for years in villages, while a select few, with extraordinary talent, master a perfect-level surgical skill, allowing them to excel and thrive.
Reviewing the perfect-level brachial plexus repair technique now embedded in his mind, Zhao Heng realized that the key to perfecting this surgery lay in mastering nerve suturing.
Suturing may sound simple, but nerve suturing is remarkably challenging.
Many nerves are minute, often requiring neurosurgeons to perform microscopic operations on nerves finer than hair under a microscope.
The focused precision resembling needlepoint skill is the hallmark specialty of neurosurgeons.
On the operating table, under Ning Yunhao’s guidance, they had resected the gracilis muscle, preparing to transplant it to the affected arm.
At that moment, Zhao Heng, watching the vital signs monitor, saw the patient’s blood pressure suddenly drop to 77/35mmHg.
Zhao Heng immediately reacted, just about to report to Gao Jun when he saw the heart rate on the life monitor suddenly flatline!
Beep beep beep!
A rapid alarm sounded.
"Patient’s heart has stopped!"
Zhao Heng shouted.
What?!
The entire team under Ning Yunhao performing the surgery froze as the alarming words turned them pale!
"Quick, external compressions!"
Ning Yunhao displayed his mettle as a deputy chief physician, swiftly responding by putting down the scalpel and beginning cardiac compressions on the patient’s chest.
"10mg of adrenaline!"
Gao Jun jumped to his feet urgently telling Zhao Heng.
Without hesitation, Zhao Heng grabbed a syringe from the emergency kit, drew 10mg of adrenaline, and injected it into the vein.
"1, 2, 3... 30!"
Again.
"1, 2, 3... 30!"
Ning Yunhao did not dare pause in administering external chest compressions. In no time, two rounds had been completed.
Yet the monitor showed a harsh zero in the heart rate column!
The patient’s heart didn’t make any movements.
This scene made everyone in the operating room feel a chill run down their spine.
No one could have imagined a routine brachial plexus nerve injury repair surgery would suddenly result in cardiac arrest!
"Again!"
"Again!"
Ning Yunhao and Gao Jun voiced almost instinctively.
Ning Yunhao continued external cardiac compressions, while Zhao Heng quickly drew another 10mg of adrenaline for injection into the patient.
However, neither the compressions nor the adrenaline injection made any difference—the heart monitor remained a flatline, showing no electrical activity at all.
At this moment, everyone’s heart sank!
A major medical accident!
This heavy as Mount Tai term surfaced in everyone’s mind.
None dared to imagine the severe aftermath of a patient dying during a routine surgery.
Five minutes passed, and Ning Yunhao was sweating profusely, yet he couldn’t stop, with sweat pouring like streams from his forehead.
Time dripped by, and Gao Jun and Zhao Heng used all available rescue medications, but to no avail.
Soon, twenty minutes had flown by, nearing the thirty-minute mark of prime time for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. If this continued, the patient’s chance of survival would diminish significantly beyond thirty minutes.
What to do?!
In that tense operating room, everyone had only one thought: save this patient.
Realizing the golden rescue time was about to elapse, primary surgeon Ning Yunhao’s eyes were filled with despair.
At the peak of his career, he could not bear the blow of a severe medical incident regardless of the circumstances!
Everyone had fallen into despair as a suffocating atmosphere engulfed the operating room.
"Could it be an arterial embolism?"
As the atmosphere in the operating room turned oppressively silent, Zhao Heng suddenly spoke.
At that moment, he recalled that the sudden cardiac arrest might be due to an arterial embolism.
And this insight came from Professor Huang Guangyu, whose experiences Zhao Heng had recently acquired.
The seasoned professor had encountered almost every rare condition throughout his career, gaining such expertise.
"It’s possible! Quickly, contact cardiology for angiography, hurry!"
Upon hearing Zhao Heng, the despairing Ning Yunhao shouted.
"Alright, hurry, contact cardiology!"
"I’ll go!"
Just like a pebble cast into still water, the operating room was instantly a flurry of activity.
At a time when everyone was utterly lost in despair, any suggestion, no matter how slight, became a lifeline, a glimmer of hope!