The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-23
VOLUNTEER PATIENTS
How the Ambulance Companies Hold
Their Drills.
BYFLOYD WAMBEAM.

Enlisted men in Ambulance Com
pany 366 and mules assigned to that
organization are getting their share of
drill these days. Both are getting
practice in field service under condi-
tons as nearly possible like those they
will meet on the battlefield.
Litter bearers are taking daily
workouts in gulches, thickets, rayines
and stony hillsides, where they dress
imaginary gunshot and shell wounds
and splint broken limbs and in other
ways give first aid to the injured
using members of the company as
patients. They get plenty of strenu-
Gus exercise in the difficult art of
lifting patients to filters and carrying
them to a point selected as a site for a
dressing station. Needless to saw no
trouble is experienced in finding
volunteer patients, as the obstacles
overcome by bearers requires lots of
Drawn.
No materials are supplied to the
men aside from first aid packets, and
consequently the ingenuity of the lit
ter bearer is called into full play. Each
kind of injury must be treated differ
emily, and in practice work the men
are required to observe even the
most trivial of details in the care of
the wounded. broken leg REQUIRES
splints, padding. etc, and the man
dressing it must skirmish for suitabl
materials near by. Limbs of trees
serve as improvised splints, dead
leaves and grass as padding, the front
rap or the blouse as q sling for the
broken arm, the belt as gauze for
tying a splint, etc.
When bearers bring a patient to the
dressing station, they must explain
fully to officers in charge the nature
OF the injury, the treatment given, and
all of the minor details they have at
tended to for the comfort of their
patient, criticisms of each step being
made by officers. For example, if
their patient is suffering from a
broken leg, they must show they have
immobilized the joints above and be-
low the fracture If the bone is pro-
ruding thru the skin, a first aid dress
ing is applied to the broken surface
and no attempt made to reduce the
fracture (straighten the hmb) before
splints are put on. In carrying such
patient uphill. his feet must be
placed at the forward end of the lit
ter 50 that the weight of the body will
not bear down on the injured parts
and cause additional pain or injury
Again, if patient is supposed to be
suffering from shock, he must be COW
cred with the bearers overcoats in or
der to keep him warm. Most of the
mon have had some experience with
the tournament, or band, used to stop
bleeding of an artery. They also prac-
tice filling out diagnosis tags which
are attached to the breasts of patients
they treat.
Almost every morning for the last
week or two the mules have been har-
ness d to ambulances and driven out
to the hills west of the Sanitary train
where they are put thru divers COM
rnands from wheel right to ION
right into line" They take it all as
a matter of course and make no ex-
cuses that they didn't hear the COM
mand.''
Drivers and orderlies, however. do
not take the practice drives with so
much equanimity, and they are fast
developing a highly colored voeabu-
larry that in no way resembles vocabu-
laries of men in other lines of work.
The reason assigned for this departure
from English in current use elsewhere
is that drivers must talk to EN- in a
language they can understand" This
language is noted for its brevity and
forcefulncss rather than for its ele-
gance-