For 32 hours they held a life suspended in their hands. Then they collapsed on the floor of the operating room.
In a hospital in the Chinese province of Fujian, a medical team faced one of the most complex operations ever performed in the structure.
The patient was a 63-year-old woman with a brain aneurysm and several tumors in the area of the brain stem.
An extremely delicate situation: doctors had to complete six different procedures during a single intervention, because every complication could immediately jeopardize his life.
The operation began at 8:30 a Saturday morning.
It did not end until the afternoon of the next Sunday.
For 32 hours, work in the operating room never stopped.
Three surgeons, six anestheists and eight nurses alternated to recover short moments of rest, while the rest of the team continued to operate and constantly monitor patient conditions.
Outside the hall, the family was waiting.
Their concern was not only about the woman they were trying to save, but also those doctors who were carrying their body beyond any limit.
After so many hours, would they still find the strength to continue?
The answer came when the surgery ended.
The patient was alive.
The surgeons had managed to treat aneurysm and remove the most dangerous injuries.
But for them the physical price was huge.
Completely exhausted, some members of the team lay directly on the floor of the operating room.
A photograph that became a symbol of that day showed two doctors without more energy, while one of them still managed to raise a hand to make a sign of victory.
It was not a laying prepared to impress someone.
It was the image of people coming to the limit of their resistance.
According to reports, that was the longest operation ever performed until then at Fujian Medical University Union Hospital.
One of the surgeons, Dr. Chen Jianping, did not even have time to recover completely: after that surgery he had to move to another city to participate in a new operation.
Most people will never know what it means to spend 32 hours trying to save a life.
They lived it.
And when everything is over, they didn't ask for awards.
They simply dropped to the ground, because they gave everything they had.
Sometimes true professionalism is not seen in a perfect uniform.
You see in a person exhausted on the floor, knowing that your patient survived.