Panchali’s POV

We were sitting inside the ambulance with our medical bags.

Everyone looked tense. There have been multiple traumas and none of us knew what to expect.

“Okay all of you. I’m giving you tags.” Komal said, passing us multiple strips of red, blue and yellow tags, “The red ones are for immediate care. If you can’t treat patients at that time then put these on their right arm. If that isn’t available then the forehead got it?”

We nodded.

“The blue one is for the ones who you have tended to and are safe for the time being. The yellow ones can wait. They are for minor injuries okay? Finally, the black ones are for the dead. And I will not be able to look after you. Do what you have to out there. Don’t get in the way of search and rescue. Don’t get in the way of the bomb squad. There could be a second one.”

Everyone nodded nervously.

“We’ve arrived!” the driver said and got out hurriedly as Chanyeol opened the doors and helped us out.

I took in a sharp breath as the smell of fire mingled with blood wafted into my nostrils.

I looked all around me.

Everywhere, for as far as I could see, there were bodies. Mangled, damaged, injured bodies. I could hear the police sirens and there was unending screaming and yelling. Someone was barking orders while someone else was dying. Someone was trying to help while a mother forgot her injuries looking for her child.

 My mouth opened and my heartbeat quickened. I couldn’t think of anything. All around me were pools of blood.

“Panchali! TBI!” Chanyeol yelled running towards a patient.

“W-what?” I stammered.

He looked at me with a mixed expression.

“Traumatic brain injury. Intracranial injury.” he said running to another patient.

I ran over to that one and felt around his brain.

“Please… my wife… she was there… please…” he was crying.

“Sir, I need you to calm down.” I said checking his vitals and feeling his head again.

“Whats the news?” Dr. Komal said coming up behind me.

“Heartbeat is shallow and I’m guessing theres cerebral contusions, hemorrhage within the hemispheres, subdural hematoma, and skull fractures.” I said hurriedly.

“Tend to him.” She said, not even listening and running off.

“My wife… Find her…” he sobbed.

“Sir please stay calm. You are severely injured. We need to get you into surgery.” I said examining his pupils.

One was significantly bigger than the other.

[Author’s note: Unequal pupil size is potentially a sign of a serious brain injury]

“My wife… Please. She will be so scared. Her name’s Jaeah… Please” he said and fainted.

“HELP HERE! AIS 5!” I yelled, putting a red tag on him and picking up one end of his stretcher.

[Authors note: AIS is Abbreviated Injury Scale
1 is minor, 2 is moderate, 3 is serious, 4 is severe, 5 is critical, 6 is maximum, 9 is not further specified (NFS)]

An unknown man ran over and grabbed the other hand. We carried him over to the ambulance and the man said “I’ll handle him. You tend to the rest of them.”

I nodded and ran off into the field.

Before I could reach the main site of damage a heard a scream to my right. A man was clutching his leg and rolling on the ground.

“Sir!” I called and ran towards him.

He kept writhing in pain.

“I need to see your knee sir.” I said and removed his hand to see severe bleeding. I tried to blot it with gauze but the blood seeped through it in mere seconds. Not good.

“Shattered patella, distal femur and proximal tibia…” I muttered to no one in particular grabbing a forcep.

“Okay sir you’ve got a piece of sharp metal embedded in your knee and I need to pull it out. This is going to hurt.”

His expression was one of pure pain.

“Okay 1” I said holding the forcep firmly.

“2…” I positioned it on the metal.

“3!” I pulled as hard as possible and the man let out a shrill scream.

“Okay its over its over!” I said throwing the metal to the side and grabbing a needle.

I sewed him up as cleanly as I could as he screamed loudly, begging me to stop.

As much as I wanted to help him, I had no morphine to waste and there could be patients with injuries more severe.

“Please sir. One minute.” I said putting in a final stitch and bandaging him.

I put a blue tag on his arm, have him some painkillers and entered the real area of destruction.

My face was covered instantly with dust and smoke and I coughed, looking around.

There were mangled and torn bodies lying everywhere with black tags on them.

I saw Suho out of the corner of me eye, doing a running whip stitch on a woman’s mangled arm.

Luhan was tending to a young boy who had a huge gash in his leg.

“They say there might be more in the building.” I heard a voice behind me and turned around to see Kai.

“Search and rescue are busy. I’m going in there.”  He said and I nodded.

“I’m coming too.” I started to follow him but he stopped me.

 “No there are too many people here. Stay.”

I had a bad feeling about this but I could say nothing as he ran through the dust and the smoke inside the building, disappearing from my sight.

Wasting more time was something I couldn’t afford and I ran to an unmanned corner.

There was a single woman lying there who wasn’t moving. I tried to check her vitals to discover her spine was severely injured. I quickly put a red tag on her as Chanyeol came running behind me, brining a stretcher with him.

“Chanyeol!” I yelled as he sat beside me, “This woman is too severe! You need to load and go. Treat her on the way.”

Both of us loaded her onto the stretcher gently, to prevent any more damage to her spine.

We laid her in a supine position as Chanyeol said “I can handle her. You go ahead an-“

Before he could complete we heard a loud blast from inside the building and instantly turned our heads that way

My eyes widened  to see a window blast from fire and my heart skipped a beat.

I only whispered one thing, before blindly dragging my bag and running towards the building.

“Kai…”