“Huarghhhh.” A male nurse stretched out.

“You can’t be a little more louder, Hyo?” Another nurse shook her head.

“Ahh why? There’s no patient to hear my loud yawn also.”

The male nurse quickly covers his mouth as he received an intense glare from everyone inside the emergency department and Jimin too is among of them.

“Ha ha I’m just joki—“ And suddenly he was interrupted by a phone call.

“There’s trauma patients on their way here. Will arrive in 5 minutes. 2 adults and 1 kid. Car accident.”

All of them sighed heavily. The male nurse could only reply with a forced smile. Another medical curse is, do not ever say things like “there’s few patient today.”, or “why does ED feels empty tonight?”, or “thank god, I’m ending my shift in 5 minutes and there’s no more patient.”, or being extremely happy over the calm ED because those things will come at you fast. A young man is brought in. He looks out of breathe and keep shaking his head. Another man limps on his right leg, while in his arms is a kid crying loudly.

“Put the man on stroller at orange zone and both of them at green zone.” Jimin instructed to the ED team.

System in ED is not the same as other departments where patients are treated based on their ticket number. The ED consists of five zones where each of them represents which patients who need to be treated first and this procedure is known as triage. Five colours that represents each zone are red (immediate), orange (critical), yellow (urgent), green (standard) and white (non-emergency). After registration of seeking emergency service, triage is the first encounter between healthcare providers and patients. The function of the triage in a hospital is to identify and prioritise those who wait the most urgent needs to use the emergency service first.

Red zone, 0 minutes of waiting time where patients are with life-threatening condition and in need of immediate attention. Orange zone, 10 minutes of waiting time where patients can develop into life-threatening situations if they keep waiting or are having extreme pain. In need of attention in a relatively short period of time. Yellow zone, 60 minutes of waiting time where patients who have a medical condition but can wait some time before treatment without medical risk. Green zone, 120 minutes of waiting time where patients who are able to wait while others with more critical needs to go before them in priority. No medical risk in waiting. Blue zone, 240 minutes of waiting time where patients that have symptoms of illness but I’m not in immediate medical need of attention.This is definition per book and of course, it differs in real life situation.

Jimin attends the patient in the orange zone. There’s one diagnosis popped out in her mind but she hope she’s wrong. With no resident and specialist around, a mere intern like her can’t afford to do the procedure without supervision.

“Hwanjabun*, can you hear me?”

*Hwanjabun refers to patient in Korean

The patient can only moans in pain. Jimin sees the patient breathe rapidly and asymmetric expansion of his chest. In normal person, their chest on left and right side moves at the same time as they inhale and exhale. For this patient, his right chest expands less and lags behind the left side. She places her middle finger between the ribs and slowly moves it to the middle while tapping over it with the opposite hand. This procedure is called lung percussion. There’s an area of hyper resonance on the right chest, means that the right chest sounds louder than the left chest which is not found in a normal person. Normal person should have the same sound of percussion at the both side of chest. There’s also few bruises on the right chest and with the patient’s current symptoms, she afraid that the diagnosis that first popped out of her mind is true.

“Jimin seonsaeng-nim?*”

*Seonsaeng-nim is a polite term to address someone. People usually address doctor (while in conversation) just as seonsaeng-nim instead of uisa seonsaeng-nim. Uisa means doctor.

“Seonsaeng-nim, his oxygen level drops!” The male nurse called her again.

Damn.

“Give oxygen 15 litres and send him to chest x-ray.”

She goes back to the doctor station, nervously staring on the computer screen. 15 minutes later the patient’s x-ray appears on the screen. She gasps.

“Pneu— Pneumothorax!”

Pneumothorax is an injury to the lung where air is trapped in the space around lung. There’s a space between our chest wall and lung which is called as pleural cavity. In normal lung, this cavity consists of fluid, which acts as a lubricant and allows the lung to expand effortlessly during inhalation and exhalation. Most pneumothorax cases occur due to injury or trauma to the chest. There are many type of pneumothorax, so the severity is vary depends on the type. But in this case, in her knowledge, she needs to take out the air before it turns into a life-threatening situation. She reaches out her phone, trying to contact the specialist and resident on-call today but gets no answer.

“Seonsaeng-nim, BP* dropped!”

*Blood pressure

“Prepare for needle decompression.” She left her phone and rushes to