During a typhoon, the emergency corridor was packed with seventy extra beds. Wen Chuan treated Wang Tieshan, a driver with a tension pneumothorax. The chief of thoracic surgery, Luo Jianming, refused him an operating room and told him to wait until tomorrow. The patient's blood oxygen level kept plummeting. In front of everyone, Wen Chuan made the call to intubate him in the corridor using an expired chest drainage kit, signing a statement that read, "I take full responsibility." Once the tube was connected to a water-seal bottle, bubbles churned and the patient's blood oxygen level rose. But Luo Jianming came over with the surgical schedule and said coldly, "That tube doesn't count as an operating room."
