golden time
Suhyuk stepped toward him instantly. At that moment he stumbled, but put his hand on a telephone pole. Another memory was passing through his head.
A dry sound from a radio was flowing out of a taxi driving on a highway. (Today’s weather: a cold wave has returned after 10 years …) Bang! A van on the highway skidded off the road, crossing over the centerline and crashed into the taxi. There was no time for the taxi driver to react. It was an accident that happened so quickly, and crashed with such a bang that the taxi floated up into the air before it flipped over. Suhyuk could see it clearly. Like a slow video, fragmens of broken glass poured out on himself. His pupils could catch the sight of each grain of the broken glass, just like watching slow motion video scenes. But it lasted a very short time. Suddenly, the broken pieces of the taxi spread all over the place.
His memory ended there. When similar scenes and conditions such as these are matched, the fragments of his sleeping memories start to wake up. However, that was not the focus right now. Suhyuk, who shook his head to rouse himself, approached the victim of the accident who was a male apparently in his early 20s with yellow hair.
“Are you okay?” asked Suhyuk.
“Please get this off me…” said the victim.
Despite his asking for help, Suhyuk first dialed 119. He then quickly hung up the phone and quickly looked around. Starting from the fire hydrant driven into the ground, beads of blood spread out across towards the victim. It seemed obvious that the accident was caused by the motorcycle hitting the fire hydrant.
“Hey, student, please do me a favor,” said the victim.
“Do not move.”
His blood, apparently bleeding out of his lower body was unseen, covered by the motorcycle. A pool of blood. An indication that his wound was deep.
‘Did his arteries get ripped?’
Looking at the amount of his bleeding, it was not coming from a vein. Fortunately, the motorcycle pressed down his wounds. What if his arteries were ripped, as speculated? If the motorcycle had been cleared, blood could have gushed from the wounds because the heart had pumped it out.
“Oh my god, Are you okay?”
Two men who witnessed the accident came up. They immediately began to pick up the motorcycle pressing down the victim.
“Wait a minute!” shouted Suhyuk, but the motorcycle was already thrown out to one side.
The groaning man’s thigh was seen clearly. His wound was very deep.
To be precise, it was so severe that his thigh had burst. Blood came out like a water fountain. Even the white bone of his thigh was submerged by blood and then came out into the open.
“Call the ambulance!”
Recognizing the emergency situation, the two men pulled out their cell phones and clogged the bleeding of the victim’s thigh with their hands.
Suhyuk then took off his jumper and T-shirt, and then he pressed it against the wound. If there was a disinfectant, it would have been even better. However, he had to be content with this first-aid in such a situation.
The victim’s body shook and shivered. The air was very cold as the sun was just rising. The victim was bleeding a lot. He was experiencing what they call adventitious hypothemy.
When the muscles are stiff, the body reacts first to maintain its temperature. A human’s core temperature is 35 C degrees. If any further loss of body temperature occurs, he might develop a complication. Breathing, blood circulation, and later the nervous system slow down, making his condition worse. Suhyuk did not hesitate to cover his jumper around him.
“Please bear with me a little more. I called the ambulance. Do you see this?”
Soohyuk moved one finger to the left and then to the right.
“What are you doing?”
His pupils, now trembling along with his teeth, chased after his fingers. It was a good sign. His response was good and his lips did not turn blue.
But Suhyuk could not be relieved. He applied first-aid as much as he could, but there was no way he could stop the blood. Professional treatment was urgent. Then a loud siren sound was heard. The ambulance arrived, and the crew carried him on a stretcher quickly.
“Are you okay, boy?”
A female crew member stared at him with surprise because Suhyuk was wearing a short sleeve top. At that moment Suhyuk opened his mouth, rubbing his goose-bumped forearm with his hands,
“He has hypothemy between mild and severe, I think. Bleeding is severe … ”
“You must be a guardian. Get in the car anyway!”
At a loss of what to do, Suhyuk got in the ambulance, pushed by the crew member.
The ambulance drove very fast. Suhyuk, who got his jumper back, was in an awkward position and could not say anything. The ambulance crew members were hands full taking care of the victim.
‘I have to go to school…’ When Suhyuk was thinking about it, the ambulance arrived at a hospital.
When Suhyuk was standing helplessly after he got off the ambulance, one of the crew who rushed the victim to the hospital said,
“Student, come over and quickly sign the paper.”
“I am not a guardian…” he replied.
The crew were already fading far away. Suhyuk, scratching his head, checked the time with his cell phone. It was 6:20am. There was still time for him to go to school. It was not that important, but he had no bus fare. He left his bike behind at the accident scene. Suhyuk was forced to head toward the emergency room along with the crew.
Zeeeeing…. The door of the emergency room opened, and Suhyuk went in.
A familiar smell there tickled the tip of his nose.