“One Good Thing in My Life.”

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 23, 7 December 1910, Page 70

“One Good Thing in My Life.”

HERO OF SKIN-GRAFTING OPERA- ' TION. EXPERIENCES UNDER ’THE KNIFE. It is pleasant to call attention to a very human document in the. “Daily ■Mail,” and more especially to its very modest strain. It gives, in that most difficult medium, the first person singular, the experiences of a young Englishman who has just emerged from an Indiana hospital after allowing a large portion of the skin of his limbs to be pared away and grafted on the body of a colleague, the victim of an explosion. As he says himself, the injured man was the father of seven little children, his life was at stake, and the sympathy of the other men who knew him better, simply ended at the lips. [Copy of Letter.] P.S.—Don’t get Marion Hospital, frightened at the Marion, Indiana, change of address, U.S.A., as it is only tern- July 31, 1910. porary. Dear Mother,—Don’t get nervous because of the address. Do you remember me telling you that the first day 1 arrived at the Western Motor Company a fellow got terribly burned by a gasolene explosion? Well, when it happened all the fellows were awfully sorry for him, because he was such a good fellow and would do anything for anybody. After being in the hospital six weeks the doctor said he could not make any more progress until he could get someone to volunteer - to have some skin taken off and grafted on to the injured man. They had taken all the skin off the man hinrself that they dare, as he was so weak, but there still remained one shoulder and the whole of one arm to be covered. You would hardly believe that not a soul would have it done; all their sympathy ended in talking. He is a married man with seven little children. Well, Cramp and I said we didn’t mind having a bit of skin taken off, so we went up to the doctor’s and told him so. He said one patient was all he required, so we tossed up, and I lost. When I said I would have it done -L didn’t know-what, I was letting myself in for. I thought they would just take tire skin off and bandage me up and let me go out, but no. 4’ Hours’ Operation. Anyway, after I had once promised I didn’t like to draw out again, or they would have thought I was in a funk, so I stuck to it, and here I am. I came into the hospital on Saturday afternoon and had a bath, and then a nurse dressed both my thighs and bandaged them up. This morning (Sunday) they came into my room (I have a room to myself when there are no nurses in it), and said they were waiting for me in the operatingroom. So in I went. They put me on one operating table and the other chap (Mr Good, the injured man) on another by the side of me, and then the fun started. 1 was on that operating table for four-and-a-half hours, ■with a doctor cutting strips bf skin off me with a razor. The way they graft skin is like this. Mr Good’s arm and shoulder were just as red and raw as a piece of beef, and you would never have thought it possible that the arm would ever be any good any more. Well, one doctor cut strips off my thigh with a razor and passed it on to the other, and he stuck it on Good’s arm while it was still warm. They don’t cover the arm, but just place it on in strips a certain distance from each other, and the pieces spread and grow together. They took the skin off my legs in the same way. They cut it off with a razor, and then put some stuff on to stop the ■bleeding. I can tell you I was jolly glad when it was over, for four and a-half hours lying down with a doctor cutting little hits off the top goes a long way. One doctor said, “What sized piece do you want this time?” and the other replied, “Oh, a bit about six inches long.” Then he cuts off the desired amount just like two ounces of beef and a halfpenny batch. But, -all joking on one side, it hurt most horribly, but I would not let them think I was funked, and never murmured or flinched. Pet of the HoapitalWhen nt last it was all over the two doctors (awfully nice chaps) came over

and shook hands with me and said I wm the pluckiest fellow they had ever met, and kept up my reputation of being an Englishman. One studied at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, and at Vienna •nd Berlin. Then when I got back to my room 1 think every nurse in the hospital came and shook hands with me and eongratulated me on my pluck. I felt quite a bit of a hero. The only part I couldn’t stick was when Good’s wife came in to thank me and started to cry, and then I nearly did the same thing. lam comfortably in bed now, and quite the pet of the hospital. Mr. Stevenson, the managing director of the Western Motor Company, told the doctor to tell me he would be up to see me to-night, but could not get up before. Don’t write back here, a s I shall only be here about a week, and shall be out by when you get this letter. Well, I’ve done one good thing in my life, if I never do another, for Good has seven children, as I said before, the oldest of whom is twelve, and I don’t suppose he earns any more than 1 do. lam writing this in bed and feel tired, so must close. BERT. What crowns the story is the double fact that the operation ended successfully and that the people around—espeei. ally the hospital staff and the young man's colleagues—have been very cordial in their recognition of his quiet and unostentatious heroism, says the ‘’ Pall Mall Gazette.” His record ought to be entered up, we think over his bed in that Indiana hospital, as an example and incentive for other men in future. For as industry goes ahead, with all its complex risks of machinery and chemicals, it looks as if there will be more and more demand for self-sacrifice like this.