HEART PIERCED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23827, 30 November 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

HEART PIERCED

"JJ"OT many of us will get out ol this," said Ernest Warren, as he cowered in his trench on April 30, 1915. The heavy stuff was coining over in lumps. Suddenly a shell crashed in the trench—shrapnel exploding very late. That section was utterly wrecked and everv man killed —except Ernest Warren. "Why lie was not wiped out, too, is a miracle. When they picked him up and sent him back to the base hospital the doctors picked thirty-two bits ot shrapnel out of his body. One piece, however, they would not touch. Dare not. It had entered his back and pierced the wall of his heart, states a London paper. Gradually he recovered, but still nothing could he done about the bit of shrapnel inside The surgeons hoped that it would work loose and then they could nip it out. For fifteen years he was a very sick man, losing weight steadily until the light could almost he seen through his ribs. Then the most a max/rug tiling happened. The almost constant pain in his

Amazing Recovery from Wound

heart vanished, and lie began to put 011 weight. Nature, in her wonderful fashion, had grown pieces of fat round the bit of shrapnel, protecting his heart from jagged edges, and his health returned. Now he is "'mine host" at an inn down in Southwnrk. joking. laughing and playing darts as if such things as shrapnel simply did not exist.