RED CROSS DRIVER’S RESOURCE

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7917, 11 August 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

RED CROSS DRIVER’S RESOURCE

-* _ | One of the voluntary drivers of the British Red Cross unit in Italy (says a writer in the “Oornhill Magazine”) j was bringing down, over an especially difficult piece of ground, an ambulance full of wounded from a lofty sector of . the Alpine front, when lie' encountered a soldier in a desperate condition from a gaping bullet wound in the throat. Realising that the man was in immin- j ent danger of bleeding to death, the , driver lifted the inert body to hi* seat, j propping it up the best he could next to where he sat behind the steering-wheel, j Driving with his right hand, while with i a finger of his left hand he maintained J a firm pressure on the severed carotid j artery, he steered his ambulance down i the slippery, winding mountain road i to the clearing station at the foot of the ~. , . I

The laconic comment of the aston- j ished but highly pleased Itaflian doctor on the incident was direct but com- , prehensive :—“Well, young man,” he said, as he took hasty measures further to staunch the gushes of .blood, “you’ve saved his life, but in five minute* more you would have throttled him.” J