Chapter 7 — Calls are not allowed to be hung up

The clock on the wall of the on-call room ticked past twelve thirty, the sound of keyboard tapping and scattered phone ringing still maintaining the familiar rhythm of a night shift not yet halfway through.

— What are you planning to do next?

Bao Ky asked when he saw Dan returning to the table, still holding the notebook open to the page that had just written the name of Lam Dien apartment building. He vaguely heard the exchange between Dan and Anh Tuyet, enough to understand that the situation was escalating in a direction that he was not very comfortable with.

— I will call Mr. Vinh from the Dong Lam area police and let him know that I have located a specific apartment building.

— Ms. Dan, I don't mean to doubt you, but I feel a bit worried. — Bao Ky lowered his voice and glanced quickly toward Long's office. — I've only had a few taps and inferences from a child's voice. I don't have a specific address or anyone's name yet. What if you report to the police and it turns out it's not true?

— I understand your concern. But if you don't report it, and something is really going on, the consequences will be much more severe than if a local police officer took half an hour to mistakenly check.

— But how can you be sure that your judgment is correct, not... — Bao Ky hesitated, then decided to continue speaking, his voice more careful. — Isn't it because your past is making you see danger in every vague call?

That question made Dan pause for a moment. She wasn't angry, because she knew Bao Ky didn't say it with malice, but because he truly cared for both of them, worried about his own young career if he accidentally made a wrong decision right from the first years of his career. He was only twenty-four years old, he still had a long way to go, and a black mark on his record from the first year could haunt his entire future career, something Dan understood better than anyone else because she herself had been in that position.

She remembered the evening a few months ago, when the two of them were on duty and Bao Ky talked about his reason for leaving the nursing profession: during a night shift, he witnessed a colleague being unfairly disciplined for a correct clinical decision but not following the paperwork, and from then on he always believed that following the correct procedure was the safest way to protect both patients and the profession. Dan doesn't blame him for that belief, he just regrets that the world is not always simple so that process and intuition go in the same direction.

— What you said is not wrong. She does not deny that the past affects the way she handles calls like this. But think about it, if a doctor once missed a case because the diagnosis was too late, next time he or she is more cautious with vague symptoms, is that a mistake, or a lesson?

Bao Ky was silent, did not answer immediately, his eyes were glued to the screen in front of him but his mind was clearly pondering the question he had just heard.

— You studied nursing before switching to a switchboard job, right?

— Yes, two years of general nursing, after that I felt I was more suitable for this job.

— So do you remember the first rule they taught in the emergency room? Prioritize handling the worst possible situation, not the most likely situation.

— I remember. But that was when the patient was already lying in front of me, sister, that I saw the real symptoms. And this is a vague call from miles away, she can't see anything.

— Yes, I can't see it. But you listen. And her ears, after eight years of sitting in this exact position, can hear things that a GPS cannot hear.

Bao Ky shrugged his shoulders, not really agreeing, nor really refuting, just a gesture showing that he accepted that this debate does not have an absolutely right side.

— I don't ask you to believe in me. I just ask that you don't stop me from doing the right thing professionally, no matter what the end result is.

— I won't stop you. — Bao Ky said, his voice calming down completely. — I just hope that if you're wrong, you don't let it weigh you down again. And if you're right, I'll be the first to apologize for doubting you.

Dan nodded and was about to say something more when her landline phone rang, not the girl's familiar number, but another number. She picked up the phone immediately, switching her voice to her familiar working state in an instant.

— Emergency hotline one year, please listen.

— Help, save my wife, she fell down the stairs and her head is bleeding a lot!

The man's voice was panicked and the noise around him showed that he was constantly moving, perhaps running around the victim. Dan immediately opened the navigation map, this time the signal was received clearly, a specific address appeared right on the screen.

— Please calm down and listen to me. Is your wife awake?

— Yes, yes, she's moaning but there's so much blood, honey!

— Take a clean towel and press gently but firmly on the bleeding spot on your wife's head. Don't lift your hand to check continuously, just keep it like that. The ambulance is on its way, should be there in about five minutes.

Dan spoke as he quickly typed dispatch information into the medical team's channel, his eyes never leaving the countdown timer screen. She maintained regular calls, instructing the man how to check his wife's state of consciousness with simple questions, keeping him from panicking further while waiting for the car to arrive.

— He called his wife's name to see if she would react.

— Lan, Lan... she opened her eyes, honey, she looked at me.

— Very good, sir. He asked her if she knew what day it was, just to check she was awake, he didn't need her to answer correctly.

— Sister, I asked, she didn't say anything clearly, but she responded.

— Okay, that's good. Just keep your hand pressing the towel on the wound, don't let her sit up on her own, the ambulance is only about three minutes away.

She heard him breathing heavily through the phone, the sound of his footsteps walking back and forth around his wife, occasionally mixed with the sound of calling his wife's name in panic. Dan kept a steady voice throughout the call, not letting any of the tension in her heart leak out, even though in her head, the countdown clock of another story was still running in parallel without stopping.

In her head, although the voice was still steadily instructing each step of first aid, another part of her mind kept thinking about the Lam Dien apartment building, about the fourth-floor apartment with the dark staircase and the smell of cigarette smoke, about the unusual silence before the third call was disconnected. This was something she had never been able to explain to anyone outside her profession: the ability to keep two streams of thought running in parallel, one for the person who needed her right now, the other for the person who may need her somewhere else.

Five minutes later, as expected, an ambulance siren rang through the phone. The man breathed a sigh of relief, his voice breaking into a profuse thank you before Dan gently ended the call, not forgetting to tell him to follow the medical team to the hospital. She took off her headphones, turned her neck around to relieve fatigue, then turned to Bao Ky, who was still looking at her with eyes mixed between admiration and worry.

— Can you do two things like that at the same time?

— Not at the same time, just knowing how to not let one thing obscure the other. The case just now is real, I need your full attention. Lam Dien apartment complex is still there waiting for her after this shift is over. If you let one thing encroach on another, both will be ruined, and the price will not just be yours.

— So are you going to call Vinh now?

— Yes, right now.

Dan opened the internal directory and found the number of Lu Quang Vinh, police officer of Dong Lam ward, who she had coordinated with in a small fire at the night market not long ago. That time, thanks to the quick coordination between the two, a small fire in the warehouse was discovered and extinguished before spreading to the entire street, and since then Vinh had often joked that Dan's ears were better than the fire alarm.

Her finger paused on the call button for a second, not because of hesitation, but because she wanted to make sure her voice was calm enough, convincing enough that a person on night duty would be willing to believe a chain of inferences based on the typing sound of a child. She glanced at the clock, twelve-thirty-five, the hour when any disturbing call needed a strong enough reason not to be considered impolite.

She took a breath, then dialed.