Chapter 252 - Exploding right in the hand! (1/2)

Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa really couldn’t help but inhale cold breaths when they saw the young boy’s injured fingers. The skin on his right hand’s thumb and index finger’s fingertips seemed just like a black blooming chrysanthemum, with the fingers being completely open. To describe more directly, all of the skin on the fingertips had been shattered by the explosion, exposing injured red muscles beneath. After clearing away the cotton covering the fingers, the fingers began to bleed again!

As Zhang Fan checked the injury, the boy cried extremely loudly in pain. The boy’s father tightly hugged his son while holding the boy’s other hand. Tears streamed down the boy’s mom’s cheeks as she helped to hold the boy’s injured hand and prevent him from moving too much.

“Did your son set off a firecracker or a blasting cap?! Why is this injury so severe?” Zhang Fan asked.

“We were busy making dinner. We weren’t paying attention, and our son grabbed a firecracker and lit it.” The boy’s mother wasn’t capable of coherent speech at the moment, so the father explained as his eyes reddened. Although Zhang Fan was as gentle as he possibly could, the fingers would always have one of the densest concentrations of pain nerve sensors in the body. Mothers would always feel connected to their children. With the young boy crying in such extreme pain, of course she would also feel extremely terrible.

If this had been an adult in the same situation, the injury wouldn’t have been as severe. Young children would have thinner skin than adults. The boy had caused the firecracker to explode as he was holding it in his hand. This had actually been a relatively weak firecracker. A more powerful firecracker would have been capable of completely destroying his fingers!

In microsurgery, this type of injury had its own categorization, known as destructive injuries! Slice injuries with clean slices weren’t that difficult to perform limb replantation on. For instance, one was the surgery that Li Liang and Song Bing were working on. Although it seemed really scary that the middle-aged woman had accidentally cut off three of her own fingers, as long as she received treatment fast enough, the chance of successfully reattaching her fingers and regaining functionality would be very high. Normally, approximately 80% functionality could be restored to the cut off fingers.

However, this boy’s injury was far more severe than the middle-aged woman’s. Even though only his fingertips had been injured, his skin had already been destroyed, and his muscles had also been injured deeply and severely. Even white bone was already visible. Not only that, this was his right hand’s thumb and index finger. Without any skin, it would be impossible to preserve these two fingertips.

It was easily imaginable just how hard life would be without a fully functional thumb and index finger. Not having a thumb would even allow this boy to directly obtain a disability card in the future. Yet, this boy was still only six years old. The rest of his life would be much darker if his fingertips couldn’t be preserved!

Although the child was crying in extreme pain as Zhang Fan checked his fingers, the child’s parents and the grandparents waiting outside didn’t try to stop Zhang Fan at all. Crying and pain were nothing to them as long as the child’s fingers could be preserved!

Zhang Fan examined the child’s fingers. He was already drawing a plan to preserve these fingers in his mind. Although the child’s injury was very severe, it was still treatable due to the assistance Zhang Fan received from his System.

“Doctor, I’m begging you! The Chinese medicine hospital that I went to told me that only this hospital is capable of saving my son’s fingers. I’m begging you! You must save his fingers!” When the mother saw that Zhang Fan was remaining silent for quite a while, she mentally broke down. The tears that she had been suppressing were suddenly all unleashed as if a dam had broken, pouring out like a flood.

“Awoo! Awoo!” Her crying sounded like that of a mother shewolf in despair. Her trembling hands were covered in lots of blood from her son! Although the child’s father didn’t cry out loud, tears were also trickling down his reddened eyes, falling onto his son in his embrace.

Chen Qifa wanted to say something, but he had no guarantee of being able to successfully perform this surgery at all. He opened his mouth, but was unable to say anything in the end, so he looked at Zhang Fan.

“It’s possible to save his fingers!” Zhang Fan declared. He then told Chen Qifa, “Prepare for surgery.”

When Zhang Fan said that it was possible to save his fingers, the boy’s mother felt as if she was hearing an angel’s voice. All of the tension left her body as she sat down on the ground, her body going soft all over. When she had visited the Chinese medicine hospital, the doctors there had told her that they would have to amputate the boy’s fingers if they were to treat him. She felt as if her entire world had turned gray then, feeling only despair and helplessness!

Luckily, Zhang Fan’s hospital had done plenty of advertising with other hospitals ever since Ma Wentao started the practice. Sales managers from the hospital had gone countless times to every possible city hospital, Chinese medicine hospital, and other hospitals in the area. If the Chinese medicine hospital hadn’t given this family a referral to Zhang Fan’s hospital, then not only would this family’s current Spring Festival have been ruined, it was likely that they would never celebrate the Spring Festival again, as it would be nothing more than a terrible memory!

The boy’s injury no longer counted as a normal injury, as it would be classified as multiple trauma. The powerful explosion from the firecracker hadn’t only shattered the skin and injured the muscle. The explosion had also caused burn injury and necrosis to the nearby skin. That was how horrible and severe this injury was.

Chen Qifa suddenly became reinvigorated when Zhang Fan said “It’s possible to save his fingers!” and to “Prepare for surgery.” Chen Qifa immediately began giving orders quite swiftly. “Why cry? Now’s not the time to cry! Hurry and come sign the surgery agreement and pay the surgery fee so that we can prepare the surgery. Someone, push the C-arm X-ray to operating room #2! Hurry!” He acted as if he was the head nurse, busying himself.

The parents now felt as if a dark cloud had been removed from over them. They looked at Zhang Fan with expressions filled with gratitude. Zhang Fan exited the examination room and prepared to go into the operating room. The grandparents waiting outside didn’t dare to bother Zhang Fan, but their teary eyes were filled with expectations, their frozen lips were trembling, and they had pitiful expressions. They seemed so old with their white hair!

Zhang Fan turned around after he passed the grandparents, and suddenly said, “Please rest assured, it will be alright!”

Everyone would have empathy. It was just that as time went on and people grew older, some people’s empathy would fade as the heart hardened!

Inside the operating room, the head nurse was gently consoling the young boy! This was an advantage that women had. If Zhang Fan tried to console this child instead, it was likely that the boy would just cry even more. Why was this? Maybe it was because Zhang Fan had dark skin!

The child didn’t dare to cry too loudly, maybe because he was now separated from his parents and was afraid. Still, he curled himself up into a ball, and his limbs were trembling in fear. He seemed just like an injured fawn facing a horde of hungry lions!

“So pitiful!” Chen Qifa glanced at the boy. Perhaps Chen Qifa was thinking of his own son when he said this.

Zhang Fan glanced at the child, but didn’t say anything. The anesthesia then began. If the skin hadn’t been damaged, then the surgery could have began with just local anesthesia followed by cleaning the injury. It would have been an incredibly simple surgery. However, since the skin was damaged, this alone would elevate the surgery’s difficulty by several levels.

After anesthesia was finished, Zhang Fan began to clean the injury. The child’s injury was basically the equivalent of a firearm injury as far as cleaning was concerned.

Zhang Fan used a large amount of isotonic saline solution to rinse the wound. He had to first wash away the broken tiny fragments of flesh in the injury. He then used his scalpel to gently remove the remaining gunpowder particles all around the injury.

“Tourniquet!” Zhang Fan didn’t apply a tourniquet until he was done cleaning the injury. This was because he needed to know which places were still bleeding and which places already had dead tissue.