The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1915-05-20
STORY OF HER FIRST PATIENT.
Wound Looked GhaStly. But Didn't
Amount to Much.

IN American girl who recently
,.olrnteered for service with a Red
ross ambulance in Belgium sends
the following account OF her first
case:
The commandant doctor with
whom | was assigned to work had
taken me far up toward the front
where a Belgian battery was station
ed. While he attended to some trif-
ling injuries there came the sound OF
cannonading and news that the Ger
mans were attacking the very section
where We were working.
Sudden. at what seemed the last
minute of safety. two Belgian stretch
er bearers, without stretcher, rush
ed up to me. They said there was a
man badly wounded somewhere up
the road | found stretcher and
went off with them to look for him.
We went on and on. 1t probably
wasn't more than five hundred yards,
but it seemed like very long ways;
it seemed impossible to find the
house. Then some women came run
ming and pointed out the place. The
stretcher bearers hurried off with the
stretcher. | followed.
The man. horribly hurt. with a
wound like red pit below the shoul-
der blades. was brought and laid on
the stretcher. He lay there quietly
on his side, in a posture of utter res
ignation to anguish.
He was a Belgian peasant, clum-
silly built He had broad. rather
ugly face, narrowing suddenly as the
fringe of his whiskers became little
struggling beard. But to me he was
the most beautiful person ! had ever
seen. | loved him. He was my first
wounded man!
Il tried-I still try-to persuade
myself that if l hadn't bullied my
two bearers and repulsed an attempt
to get my stretcher away for some
other patients he would have been
left behind in that little house. We
got him out of the yard all right and
on to the paved road. Then, to my
horror, the bearers dumped him down
on the paving stones. They said he
was much too heavy. They couldn't
possibly carry him unless they rest
ed.
Il didn't think it was exactly the
time for resting, and told them so in
several languages. The Germans
were likely to come around the turn
in the road at any time. You never
know,
But the bearers stood stolidly in
the middle of the road and mopped
their faces and puffed. The situation
began to be as absurd and terrible as
a nightmare. So l grabbed on one
end of the stTetcher and said l would
carry it myself. | said | wasn't very
strong and perhaps couldn't do it, but
I would try
They picked it up at once then
and started off at a good swinging
trot over the rough paving stones
jolting my poor patient horribly.
suggested that they. walk on the
smooth path at the side. They hailed
the suggestion as most brilliant and
original idea.
LAS my patient was brought into
the village where the battery was
stationed the ambulance had got its
wounded and was ready to go. But
he had to have his wound dressed.
He lay there in the middle of the
street and l had to watch while the
surgeon stuffed his wound with an
tiseptic gauze. l had always suppos'
ed that the dressing of a wound was
a cautious and delicate process. But
it wasn't. There was careless au-
dacity about it. The surgeon worked
rapidly, unmoved, as if he were stuff
ing an old crate with straw. And it
was all over in a moment or two,
There seemed something indecent in
the haste with which my Belgian was
was disposed OF.
Then the surgeon remarked cas-
ually that my patients wound didn't
amount to much. 1t looks much
worse than it really is,' he said.
felt hurt. as if this beloved person
had been sighted. also as if there had
been some subtle disparagement OF
my find
Serious Business.