At the new nurse’s question, the head nurse spoke as if it were obvious.
“It’s a straight stretch, and there’s no traffic at night, so it’s perfect for speeding.
It’s the prime spot for speed freaks.
The first patient I met when I was your age was a traffic accident victim from there.
He was the son of a chaebol family, and it was raining heavily then, just like today.
Ah!
Come to think of it, it was around this time of year…”
“What happened to that patient?”
“He only received emergency surgery and was transferred to Seoul Taesan Hospital, but I heard he never recovered from brain death.
It was all over the newspapers back then as ‘Chaebol Heir, Dash of Death’.”
At the mention that he had ultimately died, the new nurse’s eyes drooped.
Judging by the wounds of the patient who had just been brought in, it felt like she, too, would have to witness death on her very first day.
* * *
Philip’s American adoptive father was a drunkard.
Whenever he came home drunk, he would often beat him.
Sometimes, he even pointed a gun at him.
If his adoptive mother hadn’t desperately protected him, he didn’t know what would have happened.
Eventually, when he was 13, a neighbor reported it, and his adoptive father went to prison, bringing peace.
Although they had no money, forcing him to take any part-time job he could find, like delivering newspapers, while attending school, and they filled their stomachs with leftover food his mother brought back from the restaurant where she worked, he was happy.
However, even that comfort was shattered to pieces by his adoptive father, who had served his five-year sentence and come out.
That day, his drunken adoptive father set the house on fire.
Returning from school, Philip tried to recklessly rush into the house engulfed in flames.
The police hastily grabbed him.
“It’s dangerous.”
“Mommy.
Mommy is inside.”
“The firefighters will put out the fire and rescue her.”
“There’s no time for that!
I have to save her.”
“You can’t.”
“Mommy.
Mommy!”
Struggling with a face covered in tears, Philip screamed at the top of his lungs at the sight of the collapsing house before going limp.
* * *
“Ma… Ma… Mi…”
“Oh my?
Patient, are you awake?”
“Wh… Where… is?”
An oxygen respirator made it difficult to speak.
“The VIP patient has woken up!”
Nurse Kim Seon-mi didn’t even listen to Philip’s words and quickly picked up the intercom to shout.
A short while later, a group of medical staff rushed in urgently.
Among them, a person with ‘head of neurosurgery’ written on his gown took out a penlight, checked his pupil movements, and asked.
“Are you conscious?”
“Wh…”
“Ah, you currently have an oxygen respirator attached, so it will be hard to speak.
Just blink your eyes if what I say is correct.
You were in a traffic accident, do you remember?”