YOUNG NURSE’S BRAVERY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 14 (Supplement)

YOUNG NURSE’S BRAVERY

STRUGGLE WITH A TRAMP. 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 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 man at once ran away. The matron, roused by the cry, found Nurse Mercer exhausted and speechless and telephoned for the police. A similar story 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 up 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 frighten the patients, she ran to a bathroom anti attempted, in vain, to extinguish the flames. She was running downstairs when the night sister heard her and put out the flames with an extinguisher. Miss Griffin was severely burned and died after three weeks in hospital. •