Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 397 Unresolved Wounds
Kraft silently thanked his past self from two weeks ago for habitually equipping the clinic with a full set of equipment that would rarely be used. If ether weren't so difficult to preserve, some simple minor surgeries could even be performed here.

Even with all the necessary tools, it still takes quite a while to gradually remove the bandages.

After sending the bewildered monks back up the mountain to retrieve ether and specifically instructing them to avoid any bumps or jolting, Kraft began the operation.

It is evident that the emergency treatment in the wild was very rushed, even excessively rushed, and the entire bandaging process revealed a sense of frantic activity.

Like a rope carelessly tossed onto a mast during a storm, it coils diagonally around the limbs and torso, uneven in density and tightness. Some loops dig into the skin, leaving deep and shallow purplish-red marks, while others lie loosely on the surface of wounds, shifting and displacing significantly.

The overlap at the joints is the thickest, but also the worst. It's clear the person treating the patient was aware of the need for increased bending mobility, but couldn't recall how to do figure-eight bandages, so they resorted to wrapping it multiple times in an attempt to compensate.

Incorrect operation can cause the bandage to slip downwards in a loop-like manner with slight bending or stretching, piling up in layers of cloth padding. The tighter the areas become, the tighter they become, and the looser the areas become, resulting in the distal end becoming pale and cold due to insufficient blood supply, while the proximal end becomes swollen and red.

The skin was inevitably exposed at the concave and convex joints, and the wound showed signs of being pulled open multiple times, with old and new bloodstains covering it in mottled reddish-brown patches.

As the scissors probed along the edge of the first layer of bandage, a soft, cracking sound could be heard as the fabric and scab separated, like crumpled paper being rubbed. The texture of the peeled-off material was similar to that of semi-dried, decaying leaves, somewhere between soft and hard, with a metallic, rusty smell emanating from beneath, dulled by time, not particularly sharp or strong.

With the snip of scissors, the bandage unfolded like an onion being peeled, some parts stubbornly clinging to the wound, causing sharp, painful spasms at the extremities with the slightest pressure, requiring slow moistening with diluted saline solution before being carefully peeled off.

The skin, freed from its restraints, resembled damp lime, tinged with a slightly warm, grayish-white hue. When pressed with a fingertip, it rebounded slowly and stiffly, the almost invisible color taking two or three breaths to return.

Linear scars spiral around the torso and the outer sides of the limbs, with the arms being particularly severely affected. Some of these scars have reached the deep dermis, revealing small, oval, milky-yellow granules that have an oily sheen when reflected in the light.

What's puzzling is that while the outer edge of the wound has clotted and scabbed over, the deeper inside it becomes increasingly moist. This is not due to liquefactive necrosis caused by putrefaction or infection, but rather a strange kind of "freshness," with small, bright red spots still oozing out and converging into lines.

What's even more incomprehensible is that the patient managed to endure several days of bumpy mountain roads and arrive alive before him.

Given the depth and extent of this wound, although it is limited to superficial small veins and capillaries, the large number of incisions and the large area mean that the total amount of bleeding on site will be very large, and conventional pressure to stop the bleeding will not be effective.

It is probably only by using large pieces of gauze to apply even pressure and compress the surface that a relatively good degree of control can be achieved.

Given the level of Kup and Yvonne, it is clearly impossible.

Of course, this is not meant to criticize Kup. He did the best he could within his capabilities, and even remembered to clean and disinfect the wound, which shows that medical education is very effective.

After all, this situation was never considered during teaching. On the battlefield, most wounds are large and deep, either one or a few; it's not common to encounter unusual cases where someone is wounded all over their body but not in vital areas.

"God help us." Since surviving cannot be entirely explained by emergency treatment, there are only two possibilities.

Either the injury is strange, or God's blessing of clotting factors and platelets has kicked in.

Despite some awe of the latter, Kraft still leaned more towards the former. "So that's how it is?"

"No, the injury seems to be getting worse."

"Are you sure it wasn't a tear caused by the bumps?"

“No, I checked every time I changed the bandage. The initial deepening was more obvious, and it's only stabilized now. It has nothing to do with the bumps.” Kup’s answer confirmed his guess and seemed to explain why the deep wound was still fresh. He suddenly thought of something, took out two lead boxes from his pack, untied the straps, and showed them the spoils of his trip: a bone arrowhead and a smooth piece of human sphenoid bone.

"You really should see that thing, a huge winged snake, or rather, a dragon?"

Through his description, which included both words and gestures, Kraft learned roughly about the entire process of their attack by tangible and intangible entities, as well as the origin of their current strange illness.

The lacerations caused by the scales of those flying creatures also have similar properties to the creature itself, existing in an ambiguous state, but with more significant real-world effects appearing over time.

It's not just a distortion of cognition, but a genuine blurring of the boundary between cognition and matter, resulting in a reversed time scale, with the injury initially mild and then becoming severe.

The good news is that the injury itself is still within the realm of physical injury.

Benny looked on expectantly, perhaps hoping that Kraft would perform some miracle and heal all his wounds on the spot.

But the reality is far from what we imagined.

Kraft didn't rush to treat the wound; he merely touched a few spots of skin with his fingertips and uttered an unfamiliar word:

"shock."

Before anyone could ask, he quickly took out a jingling cotton bag and spread it out on the table that had been hastily wiped with strong liquor, while explaining.

"He has lost too much blood, and his organs are almost suffocating. We need to replenish his blood."

Sharp, hollow needles, cylinders with push handles, glass bottles and jars of various sizes, and a whole bunch of short, thin silver tubes and leather rings of unknown purpose.

"Kup, you try it." Kraft picked out the needle and left the rest to his assistant, who had already started washing his hands.

After groping around the patient's mottled, pale arms and legs, he hesitated briefly before turning his attention to below the collarbone, and then to the neck.

The needle tip was tested at several angles, but in the end it lifted up as the forehead wrinkles deepened.

"What's wrong?" Despite his injured arm, Kup's fingers remained nimble. He assembled sections of silver tubes using rings, creating a flexible long tube that connected to the mouth of the glass bottle.

"The veins are too collapsed." It's not just that they're hard to find; the real problem is that there's a risk of puncturing the vein no matter where you insert the needle.

There are other ways, just a more brutal one.

Kraft discarded the fine needle, opened a thoracentesis instrument kit under Cooper's incomprehensible gaze, and pressed the strongest needle he could find against the knee joint and the front of the tibia, like a carpenter hammering in a wedge.

With a teeth-grinding "click" and a faint cry of pain, the needle sank vertically a short distance.

"Quickly, connect the IV line and get two bottles of diluted saline solution first."

Blood vessels may dry up, but the bone marrow cavity will not. Life-saving fluid flows along the hardest part of the body and replenishes the most active and delicate system.