Precautions of a Snakepit - Chapter 76
Won immediately turned her head toward the direction of the shout.
It was coming from down the stairs. Second floor… No, it was farther than that. It was the first floor.
With the location identified, she quickly descended to the first floor. When she stepped into the hallway, she didn’t have to try to find her way around the halls to locate the disturbance. People were already gathered in a circle and chattering when she joined.
“Is he really dead?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything myself, but it seems like it.”
“Was it Mr. Tae who shouted? That’s who it sounded like to me.”
“I think so because he’s still there.”
“What happened to him?”
“I hope he’s okay.”
Won recognized Tae as a middle-aged man she had seen in the smoking room before, but with the layers of patients surrounding the scene, she couldn’t even see the tips of his hair.
Won wondered if she could force her way to the center, but she spotted a familiar face in the wall of people. One of the members of the Romance Corps, whose names she didn’t know, but were interested in her private affairs.
“What happened?”
“Oh, I just got here a little while ago. I don’t know much like you, but I think Old Man Gu stopped breathing.”
‘Old Man Gugu? Old Man Gugu is dead?’
Won pushed through the crowd and made her way to the center. Medical staff surrounded the old man on the ground, but there was no CPR nor signs of anyone trying to get him onto the stretcher to take him to the emergency room. No one did anything; they just watched, as if wanting a for-sure death.
She pushed past the medics and barged in, tapping the old man on the shoulder for a response.
“Old man? Old man?”
There was no groaning, moaning, or breathing. He was in cardiac arrest, so she began CPR. As she gritted her teeth and performed chest compressions, the medic spoke up.
“It’s not working. You have to stop.”
“If it was going to work, we would have done it, ma’am.”
“You can’t do this. I understand your frustration, but we’re professionals and we’re supposed to do this.”
Ignoring their scolding as if they were futile, Won continued to count on herself.
‘27, 28, 29.’
When she reached 30, she tilted the old man’s head back to clear his airway and tried to blow air into his mouth to perform artificial respiration. Old Man Gugu’s body reacted. As soon as she confirmed that he was breathing on his own, Won turned him to the side and put him in a recovery position.
“Old man, are you awake?”
As she spoke, Old Man Gugu struggled to lift his eyes and looked at Won. His eyes were different than usual. The cloudy eyes were nowhere to be seen; they were clear and crisp. Amid this powerful glow, the phrase “returning light” suddenly flashes through Won’s mind. Old Man Gugu opened his mouth.
“Gu, gu, gu, gu, gu…”
After muttering in a strained voice, as if it was the last thing he had to say, the old man looked around the crowd as if searching for someone. Then, he closed his eyes like a man who had exhausted all his strength, and they never opened again.
Won realized he had burned his last flame and left this world completely.
“See, I told you it’s no use.”
When it comes to CPR, time is of the essence. The time she performed CPR was long after she heard Mr. Tae’s cries that the man was dead.
If the medical staff performed CPR in time, if they hadn’t missed the opportunity window, maybe Old Man Gugu could have lived. But they didn’t take action and just stood idly by, aiding and abetting murder.
“You tried, Won.”
One of the nurses patted her on the back as they moved Old Man Gugu to collect his things. Whether it was consolation or mockery, only the nurse knew, but to Won, it felt like mockery.
She hesitated and felt so far out of place.
‘Did I do something useless?’
She couldn’t save the old man. Nothing would have changed as a result. She couldn’t even understand the last words of the old man’s will, and she was just standing there like a sore thumb. There was no benefit, only harm
She felt like trash calculating the pros and cons of others’ deaths, but she can’t help it when she is on a mission. She is in the middle of a war zone, and if she sat there and stared at the death of someone she knew, she would die.
While she was rationalizing her actions, a wail echoed down the corridor. It sounded as if someone’s lungs were being torn apart. All eyes turned toward the sound, including Won.
“Ah! No! Ahhhh!”
The cry came from Ms. Yang. Collapsing to the floor as her legs gave out, Ms. Yang clutched her head and screamed.
“Dr. Hudson! It’s not true! It’s a lie! Dr. Hudson, no!”
Dozens of people were frozen in place, overwhelmed by the emotions. She let out a desperate howl as if her whole world had been lost. It was the sound of a human letting go of everything they spent a lifetime building and completely crumbling before their eyes.
Won shuddered to think that such a sound could come from a mere human. No, was it actually a human voice? Could such a bloody wail come from a living person? The first wail that came from Ms. Yang sounded like the scream of a terminal animal, but by then, Old Man Gugu was already dead.
While Won was stuck in her thoughts, Ms. Yang’s head snapped. Won, as well as the other patients, stood still. Ms. Yang’s eyes did not look like they belonged to the living. They looked like the eyes of a demonic spirit yet to be redeemed and could harm others just by looking at them.
Ms. Yang struggled to her feet and ran toward the medics. The medics, stunned by her yells, abandoned the old man’s body and stepped back.
Ms. Yang struggled over to Old Man Gugu’s body and placed her head on his chest as if checking for a heartbeat. But the heart that had stopped beating after CPR could not be restarted. Unable to accept the news, Ms. Yang, who had been stubbornly listening for a long time, finally stood up while sobbing, and then fell to the ground.
“Alas… Dr. Hudson, you shouldn’t leave me alone in this Hell. You should have taken me with you… why…. Why….”
Just then, one of the nurses came to her senses and stepped forward to stop her.
“Madam, you can’t do this. We have to let him go in comfort.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Comfort? What’s comfortable about a gaping mouth? It’s all because of you…!”
Ms. Yang, who had been in a frenzy, stopped talking like a broken machine. Blinking once, twice, three times, Ms. Yang innocently tilted her head in confusion.
“Huh?”
Ms. Yang seemed to have forgotten what she was doing. Her face, which just a moment ago had been engulfed in an overwhelming amount of pain, was now calm and serene, without a trace of suffering.
Won realized that forgetfulness can sometimes be a blessing.
Ms. Yang left the old man’s body behind and left the corridor. Looking back, Won thought that maybe Ms. Yang would never come to her senses again. She doesn’t know if a patient’s emotions can play a role in the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s common for humans to want to run away from misery.
‘What am I going to do now?’
As Won, bewildered by the sudden turn of events, flounders like a navigator retracing her steps, someone gently grabs her shoulder.
“Won, thank you for trying.”
She looked up to see it was Mr. Tae. He was still somewhat shocked that a man had died in front of him, and his hands were shaking as if he had aged years. Judging by his condition, he seemed to need more comfort than Won did.
He was the first to spot the old man. Maybe Won could get some information from him that would lead to something.
“Was his heart not beating when you first found him?”
“Correct. He was lying on the ground, so I went over and called out to him, but he didn’t answer. I put my hand under his nose, and he wasn’t breathing. I freaked out and put my ear to his chest and realized his heart wasn’t beating, so my head went white…”
In a semi-stunned state, Mr. Tae explained what happened.
“Did you notice anything unusual? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Something unusual? I don’t know, I’m not sure…”
Mr. Tae trailed off, unsure of himself. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything, but he was so dismayed that he couldn’t remember even the smallest details.
‘Everyone else seems able to move on without thinking about it.’
Have the patients and staff in the ward gotten so used to things like this in their daily lives that they don’t pay it any mind? Even with all the cameras and CCTVs everywhere?
An old man left lying on the floor in the hallway is not a common occurrence. Unless those CCTVs are for decoration, there is no way the medical staff could have been unaware of his condition. The fact that they didn’t come until Mr. Tae yelled for them is intentional neglect.
Whether it was intentional or a passive murder by failing to fulfill their duties, Old Man Gugu was removed by the hospital.
‘I wonder why…’
Because he walked into Dr. Madison’s office the night she heard the snake?
‘No way, just for that reason…’
Won remembered the old man sitting in the chair in the office, fiddling with the plaque. Inwardly, Won wished he would cover up any traces they might have left in their search for the safe, but she remembered the last thing she saw on the old man’s face as she left the clinic.
If they had brought the old man with them, would he have died?
Won’s self-loathing continued to sink in. An arm slipped between her armpits and pulled her to her feet.
poor baby won u tried ur bestest
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