Chapter 1389: For Difficult Intubations, Find Liu Banxia

Chapter 1389: Chapter 1389: For Difficult Intubations, Find Liu Banxia

"How’s the overall situation?"

After Xu Yino and the others finished the physical exam, Liu Banxia asked.

"Teacher Liu, it’s hard to say. The breath sounds are a bit rapid, heart rate a bit fast, but blood pressure and oxygen saturation are normal," Xu Yino said.

"Muscle strength is also normal, but some of them still feel fatigued. We’ve ordered CBC, blood biochemistry, urinalysis, toxicology screen—do you think we should add anything else?"

"Okay, let’s start with these. Did they say they noticed anything unusual about the environment?" Liu Banxia asked.

"Actually yes. Some said they smelled a pungent odor, some said they didn’t. But there are lots of people working in their workshop—how could it be that only these few got poisoned?"

"And we checked their nasal cavity and throat, there’s no sign of chemical corrosion at all. Anyway I feel this is a bit complicated, not something we can easily sort out."

"It is a bit complicated. Let’s take it step by step and wait for the test results," Liu Banxia nodded.

There were nine patients in total, three with more severe presentations, the other six milder. It’s impossible that they all had simultaneous heart attacks with structural changes.

They’re all young women, and they all would have had routine physicals before joining the factory, so you have to consider external causes.

The pungent smell can be one line of thought; it fits people’s usual guess of injury from inhaling chemical gases.

"Any ideas?" Liu Banxia asked.

Chen Xuehai shook his head. "None yet. We’ll have to see what the tests show. There’s too little information right now, but I’m more inclined to think they came into contact with some toxic substance in daily life."

"Like Xu Yino said, if it really happened in the workshop, how could it just be these few? I’ve never been to an electronics factory, but they all do assembly-line work; there should be a lot of people on one production line."

Liu Banxia nodded and happened to see the person in charge coming back from paying the fees, so he quickly waved him over.

"Doctor, have you found anything?" the supervisor who ran over asked.

"Not yet. They just had their tests done; it’s not that fast," Liu Banxia said.

"I heard one of them say she smelled a pungent odor before. Does their work involve harmful gases? Or on your production line, is there any chance of harmful gas leakage?"

"There’s no such thing. They mainly do assembly; there’s absolutely no problem. And the raw materials we use are just alcohol, cleaning agents, board-wash and so on, and they don’t even handle those," the supervisor said.

"Besides, we’ve got so many people all working in the plant. If something like that really happened, there’s no way it would only affect this one group. I’ve been doing this for over ten years and never heard of such a thing."

"Doctor, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but could it be some kind of allergy? They were all just hired this year. There’s a labor shortage now; it’s hard to recruit people anywhere."

"They don’t look very old to me, right?" Liu Banxia went on.

"You can rest assured, no factory dares hire underage workers. They’re all at least sixteen; that’s the minimum age requirement," the supervisor said quickly.

"So I’m thinking, maybe it’s also because they’re young and not locals here. Could they be allergic to the climate, the environment, or something else around here?"

"What you’re saying is possible. It’s just that most of those cases happen more over at the slaughterhouses. It’s quite common for people who handle meat products regularly to have a certain degree of infection on their hands," Liu Banxia said.

"Anyway, don’t worry yet. Let’s wait for the test results together. The fact that you brought them in shows you’re at least taking responsibility."

"Doctor, I’m not trying to be unpleasant, but we have no choice but to be responsible. This isn’t one or two people, it’s a whole group, and now the whole factory is in a panic," the supervisor said with a wry smile.

"If we don’t get to the bottom of this, or if more people develop the same problem, we’ll have to suspend production next month. Who’d still dare to work there? The losses would be huge."

"Alright, go rest over there for a while. We’ll let you know as soon as there’s news," Liu Banxia nodded.

After getting some information from this supervisor, they ended up with nothing useful, and the problem only became more nebulous.

If it’s food-related? Electronics plants usually have canteens. Unless the group all ate together at some place outside.

But if that were the case, there’s no way the patients with these symptoms would only be this group.

If a snack shop only relied on their business, it would’ve gone under long ago; how could it still be operating?

"Director Liu, Director Chen, a traffic accident patient is arriving imminently. Unconscious at the scene, crush injuries, multiple deformities in the chest," Qi Wentai called out at that moment.

"Prepare blood and notify the OR," Chen Xuehai responded.

"Su Wenhao, come over and get ready to take the case," Liu Banxia also called.

Su Wenhao, who was not far away, hurried over.

"This guy took a pretty hard hit. If he needs to go up to the OR, will you scrub in?" Chen Xuehai asked as he pulled on a disposable surgical gown.

"Depends how bad the abdominal injuries are. Generally speaking, I don’t think they’ll need me. I’m more worried about that group we just saw—this could turn into a big problem," Liu Banxia said.

Chen Xuehai nodded and walked with him to the entrance.

Just then the ambulance came to a stop.

"Male patient, approximately forty years old. Blood pressure 100 over 70, multiple chest deformities. On the ambulance we’ve given fluids and oxygen."

The paramedic pushing the stretcher reported.

"Resuscitation Room 1," Chen Xuehai said.

They hurriedly pushed the patient toward Resus 1.

"One, two, three, transfer to bed."

"Hook up the cardiac monitor, establish IV access, blood replacement, bedside X-ray, cross-matching, book CT, do it if there’s time."

Chen Xuehai fired off a stream of orders.

The nurses also rushed into action.

"ECG connected."

"IV access established."

The nurses reported one after another.

"Okay, do an X‑ray first, then we’ll keep checking."

Chen Xuehai said.

Everyone stepped back to the side, ready to take an X‑ray for the patient.

"Beep beep beep, beep beep beep..."

"Blood pressure and oxygen saturation dropping, hematemesis."

Right at that moment, the cardiac monitor started beeping, and a nurse hurriedly spoke.

"Director Liu, intubate." Chen Xuehai said.

"Etomidate 20 units, succinylcholine 100 units." Liu Banxia said.

"Bleeding’s a bit heavy, the view isn’t very clear. What’s the blood pressure?" Liu Banxia asked while operating.

"70/50, O₂ sat 90 and still falling." Su Wenhao said.

"Damn, that’s quite a lot of bleeding. Rub a blood bag." After saying that, Liu Banxia focused fully on the intubation.

Because of the patient’s hematemesis, the visual field was compromised. At this point you couldn’t rely on what you saw to operate accurately; it was more about the feel in the hands.

"OK, how is it?"

Finally, the intubation succeeded, and Liu Banxia asked.

"Blood pressure and oxygen saturation are climbing. Hurry and shoot the X‑ray, just get a rough idea. CT is definitely out. Then do an abdominal ultrasound and send straight to the OR." Chen Xuehai said.

Liu Banxia and the others quickly moved aside.

Once the X‑ray was done, Su Wenhao immediately started an abdominal ultrasound on the patient.

"The patient’s abdomen is soft, ultrasound shows no free fluid."

After the exam, Su Wenhao said.

"Take him straight up to the table. Fractured ribs have punctured the lung." Looking at the X‑ray, Chen Xuehai said.

"So nothing for us in general surgery, right?" Liu Banxia asked.

"Not for now. If we need you, I’ll call. Push to the OR. Also get in touch with the family again—the situation’s pretty serious. Several ribs are fractured, and we may have to remove the left lung, we’ll see." Chen Xuehai said.

Liu Banxia nodded, and everyone hurried to wheel the patient toward the operating room.

"The left lung is badly damaged; we need to get him on the table right away. Have you reached the family?" Coming out, Liu Banxia asked.

"We already did, used your trick—phone wouldn’t turn on, so we swapped the SIM into their WeChat phone. Should we keep a spare phone here in the department?" Qi Wentai asked.

"Sounds good, otherwise swapping cards back and forth is a pain. Are the test results for those few people out yet?" Liu Banxia said.

"We were waiting for you because of that. CBC, blood biochemistry, urinalysis—all normal. Standard toxicology screen is negative too. What do we do?" Qi Wentai said.

"Tsk tsk, that’s a headache." Liu Banxia frowned.

He’d thought there should at least be some signal in the blood work—that would point everyone in a direction and they could keep digging.

But now, they were back to square one.

"I’ve already talked to Doctor Xu. If we keep testing, we’ll have to go into rheumatology/immunology, right? But for this many people, is that even realistic?" Qi Wentai went on.

"Let’s talk to them first." Liu Banxia said.

He had no other move; he could only see whether they could get more information out of the patients.

When they got over there, the person in charge was also standing by, helping Xu Hui with the questioning.

"Doctor Xu, how’s it looking?" Liu Banxia asked.

"So far nothing useful. Their diet has been perfectly normal." Xu Hui said.

That pretty much ruled out food‑borne causes.

"Is your hometown far from here? Do you usually drink untreated water?" Liu Banxia asked.

"It is a bit far, but we don’t drink raw water either—we’re scared of getting diarrhea." One of the patients said.

"Looks like you’re pretty experienced. Exactly—different water and climate can easily upset the gut." Liu Banxia nodded.

"So, now that you’re in the hospital, are you feeling a bit more settled? Symptoms not as bad as before? Try to think—any other odd situations at all?"

The few of them thought it over and then all shook their heads; they really couldn’t think of anything.

"Ah, I’m really stressed out over this." The person in charge sighed.

"Director Hao, we’re stressed too. The probation exam is right around the corner—how are we supposed to sit for it like this?" one of the patients said.

"If we can’t figure out the cause, the whole factory can’t run properly." The person in charge added gloomily.

Liu Banxia froze for a second, then a smile appeared on his face.