Chapter 8
1833words
Daylight was shrouded in gray dust, while night was torn apart by searchlights and sporadic flames.
The rescue site at the Hadramaut Refinery was like a massive, continuously operating wound, and each of us was merely an insignificant thread attempting to stitch it closed.
The rescue operation proceeded in a tense yet orderly chaos. The SEAL team, like precise surgical instruments, cut into the most dangerous collapsed structures, searching for signs of life.
Leo's voice continuously came through the intercom, calm and clear, coordinating the actions of each search and rescue team like a stabilizing force. Not long ago, they had just rescued a worker who had been trapped for over ten hours from beneath twisted steel bars. The worker's leg was crushed, but when he was lifted onto the stretcher, he still used all his strength to shout "thank you" to Leo.
And at the temporary medical station on the perimeter, my colleagues and I were like workers on an assembly line. The injured were brought in one after another, giving us almost no time to catch our breath.
Cleaning wounds, suturing, applying splints, administering IVs... movements so quick they'd become muscle memory. The smell of blood, disinfectant, and the burnt odor permeating the air combined to form a nauseating scent unique to disaster sites. Occasionally, I could glimpse through gaps in the tent Leo leading his team rushing toward another collapsed area. Though we were separated by only a hundred meters, it felt like we existed in two different worlds. He pulled lives back from the edge of death, while I raced against death at the edge of life. We were comrades, sharing the same battlefield in a silent way.
The captain's voice called me back from my momentary distraction.
I immediately ran over and saw a blood-covered man lying on a stretcher. His abdomen had been torn open by an exposed steel bar, creating a massive wound.
While the captain applied emergency pressure to stop the bleeding, I quickly established intravenous access, pushing bag after bag of saline solution and plasma into his body.
We worked together seamlessly, just like countless times before on the operating table. This is our profession, the first and also the last line of defense against death.
At that moment, Leo's team's exciting news came through the intercom: "Life signs detected again below point C! Repeat, life signs detected below point C!"
"Copy that," I heard Leo answer. "Prepare for breaking through, medical team stand by!"
My heart skipped a beat. Point C was one of the areas closest to the explosion core, with extremely unstable structure. I immediately had a colleague take over my work, grabbed the first aid kit and ran toward point C.
When I arrived, the SEAL team members had already cleared a narrow passage. Leo was kneeling on the ground, shouting into a gap compressed by precast panels and pipes: "Can you hear me? Hold on! We'll get you out soon!"
A faint cough came from the gap, along with a hoarse response: "Save... save me..."
Hope, like a beam of golden light, instantly pierced through the dark clouds hanging over everyone's heads. But this hope was quickly shattered by a discordant voice.
A white man dressed in an elegant suit, yet covered in dust, rushed over and shouted at Leo: "What are you doing? Who gave you permission to mess around here?"
"We are the United States Navy SEALs," Leo replied coldly without looking back, "carrying out humanitarian aid. Who are you?"
"I am Mr. Smith! The person in charge of this refinery!" He pointed at the huge prefabricated panel, saying emotionally.
"You cannot touch that! That panel is connected to the main load-bearing structure. Once the balance is destroyed, the entire area will collapse again! All the equipment will be ruined!"
Leo finally stood up and turned to face him. The intimidation from his height made Mr. Smith instinctively step back. "Are you suggesting that to protect your equipment, we should abandon the living person inside?" Leo's voice was laced with ice.
"That's not what I meant!" Mr. Smith's eyes darted around evasively. "I'm saying... we can wait for more professional heavy equipment to arrive, to conduct a more... more prudent assessment.
My insurance company needs a complete damage report, and any... any rash actions might affect the claim!"
"Get out." Leo forced the words through gritted teeth, his gaze as if looking at a pile of revolting garbage. "Disappear from my sight before I clear you away as trash obstructing the rescue."
Just as tensions between them were reaching a breaking point, the ground suddenly shook! A strong aftershock hit, causing debris to rain down from above. The passage they had just cleared became half-blocked again by falling rocks.
Mr. Smith screamed and scrambled to safety. Leo immediately lunged toward the gap, using his body to shield the opening and prevent debris from falling in.
"What's the situation?" Leo shouted into the radio.
"He's still alive!" I had been lying by the crevice observing the situation inside, and responded loudly. "But the situation is deteriorating! We need to get him out immediately!" The aftershock had caused the prefabricated panels to shift, and the survivor's breathing had become more rapid.
After this episode, no one could stop the rescue effort. The team members cleared the passage as quickly as possible, but when we finally could see clearly what was inside, everyone gasped.
It wasn't one survivor, but two. They were both pinned down from the waist by the same enormous concrete boulder, like the two wings of a butterfly specimen, cruelly pinned in place by a single nail.
One of them was slightly older, wearing a foreman's uniform, who was the one who had just responded to us. The other was very young, looking like an engineer, his eyes still open, filled with terror.
"My God..." I murmured. Medical assessment equipment quickly extended inside, and cold data soon displayed on the screen, each number like a hammer, pounding on my nerves.
The situation was a hundred times more cruel than we had imagined. This boulder's angle and position were extremely tricky; it was like a cruel scale, maintaining a fragile balance.
According to the on-site assessment by rescue experts and my medical judgment, any attempt to lift or move the boulder would cause the pressure to instantly shift entirely to the other side. Saving one would mean sacrificing the other.
The scene fell into a deathly silence, with only the faint moans of the trapped victims and our heavy breathing. Everyone's eyes focused on me, waiting for my judgment.
At this moment, I was no longer just a doctor responsible for saving lives, but was pushed into the position of a "judge," needing to use my professional knowledge to decide between the lives of two people.
"Chloe," Leo's voice sounded in my ear. He knelt on one knee beside me, not looking at the two poor souls, but staring directly into my eyes.
"Look at me. Forget who they are, forget where we are. You are just a doctor now, and in front of you is only a set of data. Tell me, from a purely medical perspective, who has a higher chance of survival?"
His voice was like a strong sedative, forcibly separating me from the whirlpool of emotions. I took a deep breath, compelling myself to look at the two sets of cold vital signs data on the screen.
The foreman: excessive blood loss, multiple internal organ ruptures, extremely unstable vital signs. The young engineer: comminuted fractures in the legs, but no damage to vital organs, with relatively stable vital signs.
My hands were trembling, my lips were trembling too. I felt like my soul was being torn in two. That foreman, he was just calling for help, his voice still echoed in my ears. But my rationality, all of my medical training, was telling me there was only one answer.
"...the engineer." I heard my own voice coming from a distant place, dry and hollow. "The younger one... has a better chance of survival."
Leo closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, there was only steel-like resolution in them. "Everyone get ready," he gave the order. "Rescue target, the engineer. Prepare hydraulic cutters, complete the operation within three minutes."
The older foreman seemed to understand our conversation. His cloudy eyes looked at me without anger, without resentment, only with a heartbreaking calmness unique to someone facing death.
His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end it only turned into a long sigh, and then he slowly closed his eyes.
My world collapsed in that instant. I announced his death with my own hands. I didn't even have the right to "give up," but was forced to make a "choice."
The rescue operation turned into a muffled buzz in my ears. I watched as team members began to work carefully, watched as the young engineer was slowly and painfully dragged out.
And the foreman, on the other side of the boulder, as the pressure changed, his vital signs on the monitor quickly became a flat line.
I don't know how I walked back to the medical point. When night fell, rescue work was suspended due to continued aftershocks and the dangers of nighttime operations.
The ruins, which had been clamorous all day, finally had a moment of quiet respite, but this quiet was more suffocating than any noise.
I hid in a deserted corner, curled up on the cold ground, unable to hold back my tears any longer. The foreman's calm eyes, Mr. Smith's selfish face, the flatlined monitor... scene after scene replayed in my mind, like a dull knife, repeatedly slicing through my nerves.
I'm not God, so why am I the one who has to make this kind of decision?
Just as I was about to be swallowed by sadness and helplessness, a military coat carrying warmth and the smell of dust gently fell onto my shoulders.
I raised my tear-stained face and saw Leo standing before me.
He said nothing, just silently sat down beside me. There was no hollow comfort like "you've done your best," nor clichés like "this is war." He just sat there, reached out, and drew me into his solid, warm embrace, letting me rest my head against his chest. The sound of his strong heartbeat traveled through his thick combat uniform to my eardrums, steady and rhythmic, as if defying the chaos and collapse of the entire world.
I clutched the fabric of his uniform, buried my face deeply into it, and finally broke down in tears. All that pain, self-blame, fear, and despair transformed into hot tears that soaked his military uniform.
And he just held me, with his rough hands, over and over again, clumsily yet tenderly stroking my hair. Above this desolate ruins, his embrace was my only sanctuary.
