The police officer was honestly just looking out for Claire. She was young, way too young to be jumping in and trying to save someone without being totally sure what she was doing. People online wouldn't care how good her intentions were. Even the family might not handle it well if things went wrong. If Claire insisted and actually managed to stop the bleeding, maybe people would let it slide. But if she failed, it would be a huge problem. The officer's warning was genuine.
"You all may not believe me, but that army doctor you just saw is the victim's uncle. He doesn't have kids of his own, so he treats him like a son," Claire said. "If you can't trust me, you can at least trust him, right?"
The officer had obviously thought about the patient's special situation and didn't want to risk wasting any more time by holding Claire back. When the paramedic saw how young Claire was, and realized she was about to work on a critical injury, he almost lost it.
“Are you all joking? She's way too young! What is she supposed to do here?"
“Doctor, the patient is in a really bad way. There's no way we can just wait until he gets to the hospital," the officer explained. "And this girl actually knows what she's doing, she's got experience and she knows the family—"
The paramedic couldn't technically stop Claire, so he held up his hands. "If anything happens, our hospital isn't responsible. This girl is on her own."
"We get it," the officer replied.
While the doctor and the officer were still arguing, Claire had already knelt down and started working. She knew the priority was stopping the bleeding. She opened the first aid kit and took out her set of gold acupuncture needles, her most treasured tool.
The paramedic turned around to see her calmly inserting needles at the pressure points on the patient's leg. He was stunned. He'd already cut open the pant leg and done a quick cleaning, which actually helped her work faster.
To the paramedic, it all seemed ridiculous. If a real doctor wanted to use acupuncture for something like this, maybe he could buy it. But coming from a teenager? Was she for real, or just playing a game?
Everyone around held their breath, watching her every move. To them, nothing about what Claire was doing made sense. No one expected it to work. And then, miraculously, it did.
"The bleeding it really stopped!" the nurse next to them gasped. She had thought Claire's method was hopeless, so she'd recorded th whole thing on her phone. She never expected to catch a miracle. This girl actually had real skills.
The paramedic quickly pushed the nurse aside so he could see for himself. Crouching down, he checked the wound and was shocked. The artery was no longer bleeding, and the patient's vital signs were stabilizing fast.
"What did you just do?" he blurted out. Even sitting just feet away in the cramped ambulance, he'd been watching Claire like a hawk, never fora second believing she could
actually pull it off. Now he wanted to know exactly what he'd missed.
Claire didn't brag. She just said, “Traditional medicine's been using gold needles to stop bleeding for centuries."
"The bleeding's under control," the paramedic realized out loud. “He's stable enough for the trip. He might just make it to the hospital."
Claire nodded. "He'll make it there, but his broken leg's tangled up with the artery. It's not going to be easy to deal with."
“His uncle is already on his way. I need to go with you to the hospital, just to make
sure nothing happens to him before his uncle can operate."
The paramedic hesitated for a
ver
moment. He'd heard that the victim's uncle was a veteran surgeon at Capital General, the kind of doctor who handled huge operations all the time. Waiting for him would definitely be ideal. Still, their hospital had a top notch orthopedie team,
and they get a
specialist to look at the patient as
soon as they arrived.