Chapter 8 - The Blind Cut
The sudden, massive hemorrhage instantly painted the sterile blue surgical drapes bright crimson.
Claire's blood pressure plummeted dramatically, the portable monitor blaring a terrifying, continuous warning siren.
David shouted from the head of the table that they were rapidly losing her.
Ethan could not see the source of the bleeding due to the massive volume of blood filling her chest cavity.
His suction equipment was completely inadequate to clear the pooling liquid fast enough.
For the first time in his legendary career, Ethan Cole's famously steady hands began to violently shake.
He was watching the woman he loved bleed to death by his own blade in a filthy basement.
Sarah panicked, freezing completely as the sheer horror of the situation overwhelmed her training.
Ethan screamed at her to snap out of it, demanding she manually pump the rapid infuser to replace the lost blood.
He realized he had only one desperate option left to stop the catastrophic bleeding.
He plunged his bare, gloved fingers directly into the pool of warm blood, searching for the tear by touch alone.
He closed his eyes, visualizing the intricate anatomy of the human heart that he had memorized decades ago.
He felt the smooth, pulsating wall of the aorta and traced it until his fingertip found the microscopic hole.
He pressed his thumb down hard, trapping the bleeding vessel against his own index finger.
The geyser of blood instantly stopped, but he was completely trapped holding the torn artery.
He blindly guided a curved needle into the bloody cavity, using only his left hand to sew the delicate repair.
It was a surgical miracle, a blind stitch that defied all conventional medical logic.
He carefully removed his fingers, and the repair held perfectly under the immense pressure of her beating heart.
He spent the next three agonizing hours meticulously peeling the massive benign tumor away from her surrounding organs.
He finally lifted the ugly, grapefruit-sized mass out of her chest and dropped it into a metal basin.
He stitched her chest closed, his muscles screaming with exhaustion and his scrubs soaked in her blood.
The surgery was a complete success, and her vitals stabilized into a beautiful, steady rhythm.
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Ethan collapsed into a nearby chair, burying his face in his bloody hands as he wept tears of absolute relief.
Suddenly, the basement doors burst open, and a heavily armed SWAT team flooded the room, aiming laser sights at everyone.
