Graz Hospital provided six surgeons to the Austrian Imperial Army this time. It was one of the hospitals with the highest manpower consumption besides the Municipal General Hospital. A number of young doctors, including the chief physician Corigo, who was good at plastic surgery, were sent there. to the front line.
Lockard and Hills, both over thirty years old, were the backbone.
The latter is now replacing Ignatz and Kavi, maintaining the normal operation of the general hospital. The former was assigned to the Third Army and was the medical director of the entire forward force.
Lockard and Hills participated in the rescue of Orji. His ability was slightly inferior to Hills, and he failed Kavi's assessment. In the end, he was recommended by Corigo to join the Third Army.
In terms of ability, he is a good surgeon and can perform many simple operations independently. Even with some difficulties, he can skillfully complete the work of one assistant and two assistants. As long as he has the opportunity, he can learn a lot.
However, there is no way for management to cope with all the medical activities of this force at the outset. Especially in the two hours after the battle started, he still performed the duties of an ordinary military doctor, doing on-site treatment and transporting wounded soldiers.
It was not until the Austrian army broke through the Prussian forward artillery position that he took a look at the army's casualties from the perspective of a person in charge.
According to the judgment of the commander of the Third Army, there should be an entire artillery regiment in the opponent's position, plus the protection of the infantry regiment. As long as the encirclement can be completed, it will be a big fish to swallow. It is normal for more people to die for this reason. After all, the cost is high and the return is high.
But when they really took over the position, the number of artillery pieces left behind by the opponent told the commander that he had made a mistake in his judgment.
If just misjudging the number of enemy troops was not enough to make him feel regretful, but once the number of casualties in his own army was counted, his forehead couldn't help but swell: "Have they all been cleared?"
The adjutant said the inventory report, "Prussian casualties are about two hundred, and ours..."
"How are we doing?"
The real battle loss ratio exceeded 5:1, and the Austrian army suffered nearly a thousand casualties in this round of assault and encirclement.
Half of them were handed over to the opponent's artillery, and the rest was given to Prussia's new breech-loading percussion guns. Under such a situation, the adjutant was unable to give an exact number and could only explain: "The situation is not optimistic, and the data is still being compiled."
"How many artillery pieces do they have in total?"
"Only 12 gates were found, and about 400 soldiers surrendered."
"Why is it so small? There should be an entire artillery regiment listening to the frequency of artillery. Their artillery organization should be 6 guns per battery, why are there only 12?" The commander even began to doubt his previous hearing, " Have you really cleaned everything up?”
"Except for those carriages that escaped early, which may have carried some barrel parts, there are no other artillery here." The adjutant said with certainty, "As for the firing frequency of the artillery, it should be that they used unconventional artillery combat methods. .”
The commander-in-chief of the Third Army on the Northern Front is Count Cram Glass, who has rich experience in mountain warfare.
When he heard the battle briefing, he had the same understanding as his adjutant, believing that it was the opponent's artillery's incorrect use of the artillery that forced the artillery to increase its rate of fire in a short period of time. After all, a shell with that kind of power should be 12 pounds, which is considered a heavy artillery among field artillery.
Theoretically, the rate of fire of field heavy artillery is only 2 rounds per minute. With the dense density of artillery fire just now, there should be at least 40 artillery pieces, but now.
"If we had to forcefully increase the speed, after one hour of bombing, the gun barrels would have been scrapped long ago, but they are in good condition now." Count Cram said, "I have seen those cannons, and only one is damaged. Look at it this way The reason is that there is only one choice: either the quality of the Prussian artillery barrels is very good, or the Prussian artillery itself can withstand this rate of fire."
"And these guns are only 6 pounds, but they are as powerful as 12 pounds. There are quite a lot of explosive shells mixed in them."
"Using half an artillery battalion to fight off the power of an artillery regiment?" Cram looked at the corpses thrown into the pit by the soldiers, with a deathly silence on his face, "By the way, where is our military doctor!? Dr. Lockard. It seems to be called by this name, where are the others?"
"He is already carrying out treatment work." The adjutant knew that his boss had a bad temper and quickly explained, "He should be the busiest person in the entire army now."
"Ask Lockard to write me a casualty report as soon as he's free."
Cram knew that the result of this round of battle was unacceptable, but he could not vent his anger on others and could only sulk alone: "Let the troops rest here for a while, I need to find a place to calm down. Oh, by the way. , count the number of cavalry, and continue to send the remaining cavalry out to conduct reconnaissance."
"Okay, got it."
"Explain the current situation to those brainless captains of the reconnaissance team. Any blind charge will lead to irreparable results. The Austro-Prussian War has already begun, and random behavior like the one just met may turn the investigation into a A brutal encounter.”
"Um"
Behind the army on the other side, Lockard has started his work.
Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with the timing, and the overall pace was an hour late. It can be said that Lockard's medical debut in the Third Army was a complete "failure".
Although his performance is not surprising, after all, most soldiers and generals do not know how military doctors should do their work. If you only look at it from a doctor's perspective, Lockard actually did a pretty good job, and even the old military doctors couldn't find too many faults.
But if Kawei were standing here, or Ignatz, who has extensive experience in frontline rescue, would conclude that there was something wrong with his medical command.
In fact, in the four months before the war began, Kawei had basically explained the basic procedures for medical treatment during combat.
Except for the army doctors at battalion level and below, other medical leaders need to organize rescue immediately, rather than rush to the front line to do the work of stretcher bearers. After judging the duration and intensity of the battle, it is also necessary to deploy frontline wartime rescue centers and do a good job in grading the wounded.
Taking Lockard's Third Army as an example, before the troops leave the fortress, the sub-groups of the rescue station should be set up in advance: stretcher maneuver group, classification group, minor injury group, serious injury group, and disinfection pharmacy group.
Lockard should play more of a medical logistics organizer, classification supervisor, or chief surgical officer of the serious injury team.
Unfortunately, the sudden artillery battle clouded his judgment. One hour before the war started, he did not give any instructions on medical organization, but simply provided medical services. Such work would only make Lockard a good doctor, not an excellent frontline ambulance leader.
However, the corpses and wounded soldiers all over the ground made him suddenly realize that while he was a doctor, he was also a manager who organized doctors to complete their work.
So after the Austrian army attacked the artillery position, he finally opened the medical rescue center affiliated to the Third Army, and the hierarchical medical evacuation system was implemented. The wounded soldiers finally no longer need to be simply bandaged and then packed into carriages to be transported to the fortress. Instead, they first pass through Lockard's judgment.
The size of the military ambulance is comparable to the surgical department of a large hospital in Vienna, and the number of staff is several times that of the surgical department of the Municipal General Hospital.
According to Kawei's requirements at the time, all lightly injured soldiers needed to be treated at the rescue center and returned to their original units as soon as possible. Critically injured patients also need to be treated immediately at the ambulance to stop bleeding, bandage, and fight shock and infection, rather than just giving them away.
After taking the most basic first aid measures, Lockard can decide whether the soldier needs to be evacuated and whether his life is in danger if evacuated.
After the rescue center was opened, the medical personnel and resources of the entire Third Army began to get on track. A large number of wounded were being carried by stretchers and pouring into the temporary ward behind Lockard.
"Doctor Lockard!" A stretcher bearer, his face covered with blood, was carrying a seriously injured person in his hand. "Save him quickly, he may not be able to survive!"
Lockard was very calm. While he was working on stopping the bleeding of the severed thigh limb at hand, he looked at the stretcher bed he had sent: "Where is the injury?"
"Chest and left arm," the stretcher-bearer said.
"Prepare to receive blood and saline. Immediate surgery is required." Lockard took a rough look at the bleeding situation of the wounded soldier and asked the nurse on the side who was judging the pulse and blood pressure, "By the way, how are the vital signs?"
This is the first and most critical step in the treatment process.
"Pulse 112 beats/min, blood pressure."
The nurse looked at the mercury level that was slowly falling without much change, and cold sweat broke out on her head: "The blood pressure is a little difficult to measure, please wait a moment."
Lockard had already heard the problem, and quickly delegated the work of amputation and hemostasis to his assistant, and then accompanied the stretcher soldiers to carry the old wounded soldier lying on the stretcher bed to the operating table.
"Go back to the serious injury team and ask for an assistant." Kawei looked at the veteran's forearm near the shoulder, cut open the sleeve of the military uniform with scissors, and shouted, "I need an assistant here, how can I operate without an assistant?" ?”
The shouts resounded throughout the injury triage department and the temporary surgical operating room. Unfortunately, no one could spare the time or energy to take care of other people.
The position below the shoulders is still considered the range of the limbs, but there are many blood vessels passing through it. The gushing blood kept telling Lockard that the condition of the wounded soldier was not good: "Blood pressure? Where is the number I want???"
"86/48, maybe 40." The nurse looked at the scale on the mercury meter and didn't dare to say anything. "I'm not sure."
Lockard's face became more and more gloomy, because in addition to the gunshot wound on his arm, the wound on his right chest was also very dangerous. The bullet entered the body from the right chest, passed through the shoulder blade, and then exited from the back.
The makeshift bandages and copious amounts of gauze covering the wound seemed to be squeezing into him as he inhaled hard. And when he exhales, the blood will quickly seep through the gauze and bandages and leak out.
Lockard didn't dare to remove the bandage at all, for fear that he wouldn't be able to handle the bleeding. The only thing that can be done now is to add bandages and gauze to try to block it.
His mind was in a mess, he had no assistant, and no experience in chest surgery. The soldier in front of him seemed to have lost the need to continue rescuing. Because there are still many stretchers waiting for grading processing at the back, if there is more time here, a group of soldiers who should have survived will die later.
Just when Lockard was about to give up on him, the stretcher-bearer suddenly said: "I, maybe I can be an assistant."
"you?"
Only then did Lockard notice his attire. Although there was no white feather hat representing a military doctor on his head, the military uniform was marked with military rank, and a first-aid treatment kit that only military doctors had hung on his waist: "Are you a military doctor?"
"Reporting to Dr. Lockard, I am Litokva, the army doctor of the Klavow Infantry Battalion."
He stood at attention and gave a simple military salute, and then explained: "The Klavow Battalion suffered heavy casualties. We just finished cleaning up the battlefield, and many people no longer need stretcher bearers. He is our sentry, and he slept in my camp last night Bedside, now”
Lockard sighed: "Do you have any experience in surgery?"
"Yes, I worked as a surgeon at Graz Hospital for one year." Litokwa had already taken off his dirty coat and walked to the sink nearby to wash his hands briefly. "Last month I He also received pre-war training as a military surgeon and knew the rules of surgery in Vienna.”
"Okay, let's go on stage."
Lockard completely cut off the wounded soldier's coat and asked the nurse beside him: "Give me an adrenaline needle, and then give me saline and gauze. Open his intravenous access first, and hang up the hanging bottle as soon as possible. Infusion. It’s too late to transfuse autologous blood, and the wound cannot be completely blocked. I hope the drainage gauze strip used for packing can stop his bleeding.”
"What about his arm?"
"It's too late. We'll prepare for amputation after the wound on the right chest is treated." Lockard didn't even have time to take care of the other person's sadness. "This is the only option at this stage. If the situation permits, he may be able to take an hour." The evacuation carriage after that. There should be a surgeon who can treat his wounds at the Fortress Army General Hospital in the rear."
The carriage required an hour of galloping to transport the wounded from the fighting area to the fortress hospital in the rear.
In the second and third batch of wounded lists that Hills took over, there was no such seriously injured sentry from the Klavow Infantry Battalion.
No one in the fortress hospital cares about how many people died on the front line or on Lockard's operating table, because they only have enough energy to care about the wounded in front of them. The entire hospital was already operating at full capacity, and even the third shift of the trauma emergency team, which was supposed to take a break, also entered the operating room.
At this time, Billroth and Bottini's operations also entered a feverish stage.
The surgical requirements of the two of them were much higher than those of the front line, but there was no time limit to the double-line operation of operating two traumatic injuries at the same time. It also allowed everyone to see the first-class level of European surgical technology.
As for the young man who represents the first class, he is still wandering on the train, unable to deal with the sudden battle.
