Chapter 31
In the dim hallway, a woman drenched in blood dragged herself out of an open door, struggling to move forward, leaving a long trail of blood behind her.
She mustered all her strength to reach a neighbor's door, but her weak knocks went unanswered.
Desperate, she crawled to several other doors, but no one responded.
Just then, faint footsteps echoed from downstairs, growing louder, accompanied by a man's eerie voice. "Honey, I'm home. I'll visit you again next time I'm off."
Her previously lifeless eyes suddenly sparked with hope. She used her last bit of energy to crawl towards the staircase, trying to call for help, but only strange sounds escaped her lips, and blood continued to pour out.
The man finally reached the last step, and the motion-sensor light flicked on, lighting up the once-dark hallway.
He saw a blood-soaked woman staring at him, her blood-red hand reaching out, writhing and making strange noises, blood dripping from her mouth.
The man screamed and stumbled backward, barely catching the railing in time.
In the dead of night, the hospital's emergency center got a call.
A doctor turned to Sophia, "There's a woman at Greenwood Apartments, bleeding from her mouth, possibly in shock. Come with me to see if we need to perform emergency measures on-site."
The ambulance raced to the apartment complex. The building only had stairs, and the incident was on the sixth floor, so they hustled up to the scene.
As soon as they reached the floor, the strong smell of blood hit them.
From the staircase to the patient's door, bloody handprints and trails of blood painted a horrifying picture.
The man who called the emergency center was in a panic. "I just came up and saw her covered in blood. It scared me so much I almost fell down the stairs. Then I recognized her."
He continued, "She's my next-door neighbor, Jane Smith. I knocked, but nobody was home. Then I posted a message in our building's resident group, but no one responded."
He added, "I couldn't reach her family, so I had to call 911 to get an ambulance."
Sophia quickly positioned Jane in a head-down, feet-up prone position and cleared her airway.
After confirming there were no blood clots in the airway, while another doctor was performing emergency measures on Jane, Sophia quickly went into Jane's house to carefully examine each pool of blood.
There were no food particles in the blood, so they ruled out vomiting blood.
Before they even got to the hospital, Jane had another coughing fit, and bright red blood gushed from her mouth and nose.
As soon as they got off the ambulance, the medical staff rushed the stretcher towards the hospital, where the respiratory doctors were already waiting.
They did a lung CT scan and found out the bleeding was coming from her lungs.
The priority now was to stop the bleeding. If they could achieve that, the probability of her death could be reduced by at least eighty percent.
But first, they needed to figure out what was causing it.
Attending physician Alton Bridges asked, "Sophia, what do you think is causing the patient's hemoptysis?"
Many causes in patients were hidden. So, doctors needed to conduct detailed inquiries about the patient's initial symptoms and medical history.But understanding this woman's situation was tough. She had no family members to provide her medical history, and she wasn't conscious enough for them to ask about her symptoms, so they could only rely on the process of elimination.
"There are no space-occupying lesions, ruling out lung cancer. We can do a tuberculin test to rule out tuberculosis and perform parasite and fungal cultures," Sophia replied.
But all these tests took time. Even a few minutes could mean the difference between life and death.
Currently, the CT scan showed no signs of tuberculosis, and the blood test results showed no significant abnormalities. The cause remained unknown.
At 4:10 AM, despite all the hemostatic drugs administered, Jane had another episode of hemoptysis, and the oxygen mask was filled with a thick mist of blood.
But Jane regained consciousness from her coma, showing extreme fear and anxiety, with a strong will to survive.
She looked at the doctors with urgency and desperation, saying, "Save me!"
"Don't be afraid. We are doing everything we can to treat you," Alton comforted her.
Jane shook her head weakly and said again, "Save me."
Alton nodded and said, "Okay."
But Jane turned her gaze to Sophia. "Save me!"
As she spoke, she had another bout of hemoptysis, her face turning even paler.
Sophia knelt down, tightly holding her hand, and said, "We can't reach your husband."
Sophia felt Jane grip her hand tightly and struggle to speak, "Kill... kill my husband."
Her voice was too faint and intermittent, so Sophia leaned closer to listen. She said, "Husband... kill."
She added, "Kill me."