The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-31
FIRST AID WORK
AIabana0
By ETHEL ARMIES, Author sf asThe Story of Coal n

1 corps Pratt No. 2 Division has always been the winning team for they would, | as the saving runs ''go through hell and l breakfast" for Dr. Rountree and, before ever fiunking they would sooner take a dose of CH4
 History of First Aid Corps Pratt No. 2
 How did all this come about?
 The story is an interesting one. For the first aid movement in the Birmingham district started among the coal miners themselves and antedates the government work and the work of Dr. Shields by two or three years.
 The way that men were dying-men in- jured in the coal mines of the Birming- ham district-simply from shock, while being carried up from below to the top, or in being hauled into the city hospitals over miles of rough roads, was what set Walter Scott Rountree, M. D., to think ing.
 Then, too, a simple fracture frequently would develop into compound fracture just from careless handling on the way from the room to the entry and before | they'd even reach the main slope or the 1 hoisting cage, and a man would be laid 1 up for weeks, sometimes months. longer 1 than need be. And if only somebody near l had set the broken bones temporarily by l the simple surgical rules for setting broken bones, neither the miner, nor his I or suffered to quite the same degree. Be- sides this, men who were overcome by the mine gases or who were struck by live wires underground, died every now and then simply because nobody knew how ] to make them breathe again. And ire auently, with an artery severed, a miner, fainting beside his chain cutter or his puncher, would bleed to death. his '.buddy' standing by. powerless, and the doctor may be 10 miles off.
 Alabama Not the Only Place
 This was happening all the time-all over the state. And not alone here in Alabama, but in mines everywhere else in the United States. So, it had hap pened since the mining business started in America. and so it seemed would keep on happening forever in America-unless somebody did something.
 Well, what could be done about it7 The quiet, earnest young surgeon came to the conclusion that something was cer- tainly up to mine physicians in the mat l ter At any rate, in so far as his own 1 territory, Pratt No. Division of the l Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad oom- pany was concerned he felt it was per sonally up to W. S. Rountree. He had seen long enough service with the coal miners of this district to know precisely what good stuff was in them. Fifteen years he has been among them and they are friends of his just as he is friend of theirs.
 He talked with some of them about it, with Scotch, Welsh and English miners who make up the best element of the la bor in the coal fields of Alabama today and who themselves are the sons and grandsons and reat-grandsons of miners of Great Britain. Said they: 'In tho old country we have bone settlers in all of the mines When anything happens a man is taken care of just where he lays The bone settlers know just what to do until he can be gotten to the surgeon or the hospital And most every good old miner is a bone setter"
 Bone Setters Not a Bad Idea
 pr. Rountree thought it wouldn't do Z any harm to have few ''bone settlers" in and around the coal mines of the Bir- mingham district, so he asked a few of the miners he knew best-mostly Scotch to drop in one evening at his office. which was little shack across the B. s. track in WXlam. Again they talked things over, all about the accidents most pre- valent in the mines, not so much the dread explosions, but the common ordi- nary every day accidents that main and cripple and lay off a man oftener than they kill him. Dr. Rountree had his
 chart out and he sketched over lightly a number of things, showed them the diff
 ference between simple and compound fractures-how to adjust fractures, to ap- ply bandages, to treat open wounds never touching them with the hands, but applying a sterile dressing.
 He mentioned large number of things they could learn if they had a mind to, how, for instance, a man might be taken from a charged electric wire and resus- itated right on the spot when every sec ond's delay might mean death how splints could be made from shovel and pick handles or pieces of timber, and
 broken bones set with them and most : anything else at hand; how the trip to the top could be eased up for an injured man by their simply taking their coats
 off and filling the sleeves with straw and
 packing them around the hurt limb. Al together they talked until pretty late.
 Then they organized the first aid corps, Pratt No 2 Division.
 That was back in March of 1907. The men present with pr Rountree that first evening were eighteen among them James
 McHugh, superintendent of Pratt Division No. ?; Angus R. Brown, present foreman
 of the new government mine rescue sta tion of Birmingham; Francis Brawley f James Brown, Milt Grain, Dan Glaze, John Russell Sandy Reid, Mike Shevlin John Brown, A. H. Verchot, Hugh Guth- , rife, Hugh Lynch, J. C. Dalrymple, Thos Husband, Thos Gibson.
 Wylam Center of the Movement
 They met once a week in Dr. Rountree'
 office for the next eight or nine months T realized what dry subject it was, " said the young physician, whose whole heart and soul are in such things-med-
 icine, surgery-beyond which there is nothing else under the shining sun. "i realized how dry it was, so I always limited my talks on anatomy surgery 3 and all the instructions generally to just 7 90 minutes. And we had entertainments smokers, dances. and of course demon strations and exhibitions. And we decided l to organize a band"
 The band was a happy thought, the 7 Vivian First Aid band they called II g and the men bought their own instru-
 ments and their own uniforms. The class grew larger week by week. Many oi g the miners brought their sons-boys who : also work in the mines out of schoo 5 terms-and pr, Rountree and Dr. Mo l Donald organized the boys.
 s 'The way they took to it. Night aftei ] night" said Angus Brown, "the docto1 t would work with them. He would droI : everything just for the boys. There's nc t one like him-he is a wonderful man. n Attention was given the negro miners ant T they. too, were organized.
 ' Walter Rountree is a physicians son Y the one boy in the family picked out no h to study medicine. He was born on l farm near Decatur, Morgan county, Ala.
 a little over 30 years ago. His father, S
 l.. Rountree, was health officer of tha = county for 24 years and practiced in th e one place 54 years, and during the Civi :. war eerNed as surgeon in Hood's rom