SURGICAL MARVEL

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20718, 31 January 1939, Page 2

SURGICAL MARVEL

GIRL WITHOUT LEGS BBOOMEB A NORMAL WOMAN SKILL AND COURAGE TRIUMPHANT (Times Air Mail Servioe) LONDON, Dec. 24 Edna was born without legs. When sne was a. year old they took her to Dr. Barnardo's Home in Harrogate, lorks, and there she has grown into a charming young woman, now eighteen years old. says the Daily Mirror. Loss of her legs didn’t trouble Edna. She learned to walk on her hands, and could travel so quickly across the floor that she became almost sorry for children who had to walk on mere legs. Of all the children In the home, Edna was the gayest. Her laugh, as she showed her hand-walking trick, rang through the rooms. She was the .favourite friend of all the girls. They looked to her, handicapped as she was, to organise the games and the fun. But as Edna Remfrey grew older she began to realise how cruel fate had been. Momentous Decision What did life hold for her? She W'as a freak, destined only for a circus sideshow. Suddenly new hope came to the girl with no legs. She was told that the surgeons could make her normal, give her legs to walk and dance with. “Two years ago,” Dr. Broomhead, honorary surgeon of Leeds Inllrmary, says in the British Medkal Journal, “the girl came to my consulting room. “Her speed as she walked on her hands was amazing. She could cross the floor as fast as a normal adult. "She was approaching womanhood. Was It possible to give her the height of others?” There were many consultations with doctors and surgeons. The fear was that if the operation for fitting surgical legs failed, then Edna might not be able to walk on her hands. Then the decision was taken. Edna was sent to the late Dr. H. R. Moxon at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, where expert military surgeons advise and help civilians. They told Edna the risks. She didn’t hesitate. “Please give me legs,” she begged the doctors. "I want to be like other girls.” Courage Won Through An operation was performed in June, 1937. Then, for the first time in her life, Edna Remfrey stood on two legs. At first she became giddy, unaccustomed to being so tall. She practised first standing, then walking. She became used to herself as a girl of sft. lin. high. She learned to walk upstairs, to stand on one leg; to dance. Her courage won. Now she moves with the assured step of a normal person. Fully-dressed, she looks like any other girl. "It was her own bravery that did it,” Dr. Broomhead said last night. "Her confidence in me was such that I could scarcely fail to make the operation a success. "She deserves all that life can give her.” And Edna, now a clever, self-assured young woman, has learned to be a typist and soon she will have a job in an., office. For the surgeon’s skill has bestowed on Edna the greatest gift of all—it has made her a normal woman.