Chapter 62
Police?
Just by looking at this one bone X-ray?
I thought this crazy ghost had finally lost it and was spouting nonsense about reporting a kid with a broken bone to the police.
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1 : If the kid's leg is broken, call orthopedics, not the police.
ㄴ Pediatrics Ghost 77 : Look at that X-ray again. That part you said looked crushed earlier. You know what that is? That's called CML. Classic Metaphyseal Lesion.
ㄴ Pediatrics Ghost 77 : It's a fracture that occurs when the metaphysis near the growth plate is microscopically torn away. It can never happen from a fall. It's the strongest, most classic medical evidence of child abuse, something that only appears when a child's arm or leg is grabbed and twisted or shaken with tremendous force.
...CML?
...Ah!
A gray forensic medicine lecture hall.
The expressionless professor's face.
And the black-and-white image on the screen that looked exactly like that X-ray.
An injury found only in cases of child abuse.
The memory I'd memorized so thoroughly finally came back to me.
Hell Joseon Slave 1 : Could there be another cause? A genetic disease like osteogenesis imperfecta, maybe.
ㄴ Pediatrics Ghost 77 : Idiot. What did the guardian say?
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1 : They said the kid was in a walker, got caught on a threshold, and fell.
ㄴ Pediatrics Ghost 77 : Did you think CML could happen from low-energy trauma? For a walker fall to break that bone like that, it'd have to be the freakiest freak accident ever. No matter how fragile a baby is, a fall doesn't cause damage like that. Just how much suffering must that tiny kid have been through?
ㄴ Pediatrics Ghost 77 : And a walker? Bullshit, lol. If they had nothing to hide, why would they lie?
...Ah.
I got up from my seat and crossed the station.
Lee Minjae.
Lee Minjae was looking over another patient's chart while giving an intern instructions.
I walked up behind Lee Minjae, doing my best not to let my voice tremble as I called out to him.
"Doc."
"What?"
He turned his head casually.
"About the C-7 pediatric patient's X-ray...."
"Oh, the kid we thought had a fracture? What is it? Weren't we going to put on a half cast and discharge them? It wasn't a fracture after all."
"No, um, could you take a quick look at this?"
I led Lee Minjae to a terminal in the corner where no one else was.
Then I pulled up the X-ray in question with the mouse.
"Ah, what now.... We already looked at it. It was clean."
Lee Minjae stared at the screen with clear annoyance.
Without saying a word, I used the mouse cursor to enlarge the faint shadow I'd noticed earlier as much as possible.
"Why are you zooming in here...."
The annoyance slowly faded from Lee Minjae's face.
His eyes narrowed.
A deep furrow formed between his brows.
The hint of a smile vanished from the corners of his mouth.
His face hardened like stone.
"Hey, this..."
"...Yes, that's it, right?"
We stared silently at that tiny black-and-white image for a long time.
A single faint line in the photo was telling us a huge and horrifying truth.
"I'm... going to the security guards at the entrance right now and ask them to keep an eye on whether those parents try to leave. You call it in right away. Tell the other nurses too, quietly. Don't let the parents notice anything."
"Yes, sir."
He gave my shoulder one firm squeeze, then walked toward the ER entrance with casual steps, as if nothing had happened.
I picked up the phone with trembling hands.
My fingers wouldn't work properly.
112.
Beep-beep-beep-beep-
[Yes, this is 112 emergency dispatch.]
"Hello... this is the pediatric ER at Cheongjin University Medical Center. I'm calling because we have a patient suspected of child abuse."
***
I set the phone down and looked toward the C-7 bed.
And so the hellish surveillance began.
On the surface, time in the ER flowed as usual.
The cries of other patients, the nurses' hurried footsteps, the monotonous beeping of machines.
But in reality, things were a little different.
Lee Minjae pretended to be talking with the security guards near the ER entrance while blocking their route so they couldn't leave the hospital.
Veteran Nurse Jung would casually slip behind the curtain once every ten minutes, saying, "I'll go check the IV rate," and watch the child's condition and the parents' movements.
I sat at the station's most out-of-the-way seat, in front of the computer with the clearest view of the C-7 bed, and watched the situation with a meaningless chart open.
Now that I thought about it, the parents' expressions did seem a little odd.
At first, I thought they were just ordinary parents, too upset and frightened because their child was sick.
But when I looked again through the horrifying lens of abuse, everything they did seemed suspicious.
The child's parents stood beside the bed, constantly fiddling with their phones.
They didn't look down at the child, speak to the child, or comfort the child with a touch.
I watched the situation anxiously, praying that my judgment was right, and at the same time wrong.
How much time had passed?
Beyond the ER's glass wall, red and blue siren lights flashed alternately as they approached.
My heart sank.
A moment later, a police car pulled up and stopped in the hospital entrance roundabout.
The car doors opened, and two police officers got out and walked toward the ER automatic doors.
Ziiing-
The automatic doors opened, and the police officers entered the pediatric emergency room.
They headed straight for the station.
"We just received a report of suspected child abuse here, right? Where are the reporter and the child?"
I immediately stood up.
"I made the report. The patient is at the C-7 bed behind that curtain."
The officer nodded. Then he said to the young officer beside him.
"Junsu. I'll check the baby's condition and the scene first, so separate the guardians over there. Keep them apart."
"Yes, understood."
After confirming the young officer was heading toward the bed, the senior officer turned to me.
"Doctor, could you come with me for a moment?"
"Yes."
"On the way, could you explain in a way I can understand exactly what that medical finding you reported earlier means?"
"First, the parents stated that the child was riding a walker, got caught on the edge of a piece of furniture, and fell."
"Yes, I heard."
The officer took out a notebook.
I turned on the monitor and enlarged the image.
"But the finding we just saw on the X-ray is an injury that could never be caused by the kind of impact from simply falling out of a walker. In medicine, we call this CML..."
Damn. CML. How am I supposed to explain this in a way a regular person can understand?
My brain buffered for a moment. I pretended to think, staring into space as I called forth the experts in my head.
Hell Joseon Slave 1 : How do you explain CML to the police??? hurry up
ㄴ Pediatrics Ghost 77 : Explain that the bone near the growth plate is structurally weak because it's attached to cartilage. And that it's a completely different type of injury from the blunt impact of a fall. God, this makes me fucking furious. Why would you hit a child, damn it?
Bone Nerd 88 : Forensic evidence. Make sure you say that. It's one of the most specific findings of child abuse, even in forensic medicine textbooks. It's a completely different level from bruises or fractures that can happen with other diseases—basically conclusive proof, yeah.
"The ends of the bones in children who haven't finished growing yet—in other words, the area near the growth plate—are structurally very weak. But the injury we just found on the X-ray is almost never caused by something as simple as falling or bumping into something. It's a very specific finding that appears only when force is applied by grabbing a child's leg and twisting or pulling hard. In forensic medicine, it's one of the findings used as strong evidence suggesting child abuse."
At my explanation, the officer's expression turned icy.
The officer quickly jotted something down in his notebook, as if trying not to miss a single word I said.
"Yes, for now I understa..."
Before he could even finish.
From far away, from the counseling room where the young officer had taken the parents, shouting erupted.
"Who the hell are you! Why are you trying to separate me from my child right now! Do you have a warrant? I'm calling a lawyer! Can the police even do this?"
It was the child's father's voice.
"No, we came to the hospital because the kid is sick—why the hell are the police here causing a scene! What did we do wrong!"
The mother's shrill scream followed.
I reflexively looked that way.
Through the gap in the counseling room door, I could hear the young officer's voice trying to calm them down.
"Medical staff raised a suspicion of child abuse, so we're just confirming the facts as a procedural matter..."
"What abuse, what the hell! That's just that weird doctor bastard from earlier saying some nonsense!"
"We're taking our kid and leaving, so hand the kid over now!"
In an instant, the situation turned into total chaos.
The senior officer standing beside me could only let out a deep sigh.
"...Sigh..."
He turned to me and said,
"Doctor. With that reaction and the medical finding you told me about, I can roughly see what the picture looks like."
He closed his notebook.
"For now, we'll check a little more to see whether there are any additional signs of abuse. We need to see if there are any other injuries on the child's body. Would you cooperate?"
"Yes. Of course."
We headed back to the C-7 bed.
Inside the curtain, the child was left all alone.
The child had stopped crying and was looking around with round eyes, as if frightened by the unfamiliar surroundings.
"All right, buddy. The police officer here isn't a scary guy. The police officer here and the doctor you saw earlier are just going to take a quick look to see if our friend hurts anywhere else, okay? Is that okay?"
I don't know whether it understood, but the child gave a very small nod.