THIRTY-ONE BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22786, 10 January 1944, Page 4

THIRTY-ONE BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS

Wounded American Soldier Broadcasts SPECIAL FLIGHT TO NEW CALEDONIA (N.Z.P.A.) AUCKLAND, Jan. 7. A badly wounded American soldier Private (First-Class) Charles E. Oats, was flown from New Zealand to New Caledonia to be featured in a Christmas Day broadcast from Noumea to the United States. Private Oats has had 31 blood plasma transfusions in the last year the number being a record for the Thirty-ninth General Hospital in New Zealand, where he is a patient, and perhaps a record for one person anywhere. Private Oats was wounded at Guadalcanal on January 16, 1"43, when a Japanese shelf killed his friends. It was necessary to amputate an ar.a and a leg and for some months he was in an unfavourable condition and did not want to live. However, he found that others were in the same plight, and he slowly changed his attitude. To-day he has the reputation among his fellows of not thinking about himself, but of always trying to help somebody else.

The broadcast in {lew Caledonia, which was held on Christmas eve. was from a ward in the Army Hospital. After the broadcast he was flown back to New Zealand.