YOUNG NURSE'S BRAVERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19608, 9 April 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

YOUNG NURSE'S BRAVERY.

STRUGGLE WITH A TRAMP. SACRIFICE FOR PATIENTS. Two instances of bravery by young nurses, who. endured great suffering rather than cry out and disturb their patients, were reported recently. Nurse Mildred Mercer, aged 20, was in charge of a children's ward at Canterbury Sanatorium—an isolated building i three miles from the city—when in the early hours of the morning a tramp burst into the room and attacked her. Fearful of frightening her charges, she fought with the. intruder in'silence. He hit. her with a billiard cue, tried to choke her and bit her thumb. After. 15 minutes Miss Mercer felt, herself becoming exhausted .and cried for help. : The' mail" at. 1 oriCfl' "ran away. The matron, roused by the cry, found' Nurse JVtercer exhausted and speechless and telephoned for the police. ~ A sirriilar stoty of quiet bravery was told at an inquest on Miss Mabel Griffin, aged 28, a pupil midwife at a nursing home at Bath. Miss Griffin, whose home was at Pontypridd, was sitting rip late studying, when her apron came in contact with a portable gas fire. She tried to remove it, but her clothing caught fire. Fearing that if she screamed she would frigljten. the patients, she-, r.an to a bathfriom'.ahd attempted, .in .vain, to extiniguiish- the fla!nfe». : She. wap funning downstairs whert: the night Sister heard her and put out the flJimes with an oxtingms'.ier. ..Miss Griffin was severely burned and died after'threa'weeks in hospital.