Finding Themselves / The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in France

by Julia C. Stimson

Capt. Rainey, who is Acting Chief of the Surgical Service in the absence of Major Murphy, and Major Clopton, spoke to me in the tents and said we have a big night’s work ahead of us, for many of these men will have to be operated on at once. They have had nothing done to them but their first-aid dressings and they are in pretty bad shape. He then asked me to go with a special case that was in very bad condition and see that he got a saline stimulation at once. This boy, a head case, was scheduled for Line B, tent 2, and as I went into the tent with the stretcher bearers, another patient was being brought in by two more bearers. The nurse spoke up and said that she had only one empty bed. It was apparent then that the assigner had made a mistake. I told the bearers to put their patients down on the floor, and giving a hurried glance at the other patient and a hasty feel of his pulse, I decided that my patient was in the poorer condition, so I got the bearers to put him into the empty bed and sent one of the other carriers back to the receiving tent for instructions about the other man. Meanwhile I got things started for the saline subcutaneous infusion. In a couple of minutes, the bearer came back and said he had been told to put his patient in the nearest vacant bed and report later where he had put him. We had a vacant bed in B 2, so we carried him in there and got him into bed. We asked the man if he could help himself at all as he was huge, and there is always great difficulty lifting patients off of the stretchers because there is so little space between the beds and the two carriers can’t do much more than hold the stretcher at the bed level. Mrs. Hausmann, the Supervisor, came along just that moment, and an up-patient; when the patient said it was his back that was hurt and he could not help himself, we knew then how to proceed and between us we lifted him on his blanket and got him on the bed until the bearers could put down their stretcher and then help us get the blanket out and make him comfortable. While doing this I noticed that one of his legs was crossed over the other and I straightened it out and saw big purple spots where they had been in contact. Realizing from this that they had been crossed a long time, we discovered that he was totally paralyzed from his waist down. On his card it said “Penetrating wound of spine, not operated on.”

The poor fellow immediately went off into heavy sleep, as they almost always do, they are so glad to stop being jiggled, and I went to report to Capt. Rainey and to get extra operating-room nurses ready. We had taken in 130 patients from that convoy, but every one is immediately examined by the staff men who make their report to Capt. Rainey, who in no time had a list of 15 needing immediate operation.

A steady stream of patients is carried into the X-ray room and from there either directly to the operating room or back to their tents. The plates are developed almost immediately and are examined while wet and stuck up in improvised holders on the windows of the operating room. They all showed foreign bodies and often bubbles, indicating the dreaded infection by the “gas bacillus,” which causes such dreadful gas gangrene. All these cases have to be opened up and the necrotic tissue cleaned out. Then we began in the operating room. Miss Taylor was on duty in the office, so I was free to help in the operating room. The supervisors were each on their side of the hospital, and the nurses were all getting the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. One patient who was too far gone from bloodlessness to stand operation was made as comfortable as possible and the minister sent for; they were all given tea and partially bathed. This was about 4:30 P.M. Then we began in the operating room, taking out foreign bodies and incising and draining. I scrubbed up and helped, not so much because they needed me but because I wanted to be in it. We kept three tables going all the time. The medical students gave ether and even some of the medical men were helping. Out in the little hall there were always three or four patients on stretchers on the floor. My friend, Dr. (Sgt.) Voorsanger, the Rabbi, was in charge of the records and stretcher bearers and worked like a Trojan. We took pieces of shell out of necks, hips, knees, skulls, ankles, shoulders, and out of the spine of my poor paralyzed man. Some of the men took the ether badly and screamed and fought and cursed; some thought they were in the battle and called out to their comrades “There go the 61st, after them, after them.” But most of them took it pretty quietly and just went off to sleep.

About 7 o’clock a message came in from the connecting “Theatre Hut,” a ward at the other end of the hut, where the operating room is, that a man who had had a fearful hemorrhage from the wound in his shoulder that morning was very much worse. It was decided to transfuse him, a complicated job under the very best of circumstances. An up-patient was sought to volunteer to be the donor of the blood, and promised as a reward that he would be sent to England and not back to the Base (how good a promise I do not know, but at least he might get a glimpse of Blighty for a few days if our men send him there, but of course if found fit there, he would be sent back to the front). He was brought, wide-eyed and wondering, into the brilliant, messy operating room filled with strangely garbed and bustling people and put on a table and his arm prepared. Some doctors got busy with him and I went with another doctor to get ready the vein in the patient’s arm. In a few minutes we were ready and the other doctors came to insert the tiny point of their glass tube into the hole in the vein we had ready. A nurse was holding a droplight over the bed, another nurse was holding the arm, a doctor was adjusting the tourniquet so that the vein would show up well, then the two men who were working were bending over the arm, I was handing them instruments, for I was scrubbed up, since everything must be sterile. The patient was just gasping, rapidly growing worse, but the point went in successfully and the blood began to flow into his vein, when all the lights went out and the patient stopped breathing!

I knew where a whole batch of candles had been put for use at the next air raid alarm, so I dashed for them, knowing I could get them more quickly than by sending any one. They were not far away. In about two minutes we had candles stuck on every available spot, and the operating teams who had to stop dead and wait, began to go on. The orderly who was working over a miserable acetylene lamp which is supposed to be all right for emergencies, finally got it going. It is quite all right for emergencies if you have about ten minutes in which to start it. A couple of oil lanterns were brought and given to the patients who were on the floor in the hall to hold, so that they would not be stepped on. The ether bottles were moved as far away from the candles as possible so that we would not have an explosion to add to our difficulties, the doctors came in from working over the dead man, and we all “carried on.” It was now near eight, and Capt. Rainey said when these cases are finished that are on the tables, we will stop for dinner. A couple of nurses who had had their dinner reported just about then and we set them to cleaning instruments and boiling and fixing up. The others of us went up to a belated supper by candle light. The night nurse and orderly for the theatre hut came on duty just in time to help with the gruesome duty to be done there, and supper was kept for the day nurses from there when they should be able to get off.

By 8:30 we were back again refreshed by scrambled eggs and coffee. The operations continued till 3 A.M. I sent one day nurse off about 10, because I knew she would have to have a full day to-day and would need to be at her preparations early. Another nurse and I left at 1:30 after getting some of the night nurses’ supper which I had ordered heavily reënforced. Another nurse left at 3 and one stayed all night. In these last 24 hours there must have been 34 operations. I haven’t the exact list here. I was on duty here in the office at 9:15 A.M. Two nurses did not come on until noon, and the one who was up all night (as well as being up all day yesterday too, though not working, as she was just coming off night duty and had expected to sleep that night) has been sleeping all day. I have just been notified that 160 more are to be brought to us at 6 A.M. to-morrow. That 6 A.M. will mean some time during the morning, for the convoys are almost always several hours after they are scheduled.

One of the night Supervisors has just been telling me that last night, after that patient died, before he had been taken out, he was of course behind the screens, the patient in the next bed said to her, “Sister, is my pal all right? I haven’t heard him speak for some time,” and she had to tell him what had happened. But only this one and that very bad one have died so far.

It is now Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30. We are having a little respite from our busyness and no convoys have been received since yesterday morning when we received 140. The doctors are getting a little well-earned rest, and the nurses, who have not lost so much sleep as the doctors, are catching up with their work on the wards. Operations were going on in the operating room till 1:30 again last night, but to-day there have been none, but there has been much sterilizing, glove mending, and preparing of supplies.

It is a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we would hardly believe that this morning, up to almost noon, it was so cold that everybody was complaining of the cold.

I have just had orders to have my next nurse ready to go up to the front with a surgical team. They will probably go in a couple of days, three men and one woman. It was my turn to go with this team, but a few days ago Col. Fife told me he would not let me go. I am tremendously disappointed because I wanted above all things to go. I want the great interest and excitement of the work, which is hard but thrilling; operating 16 hours on end, then off for 8 hours. These are the hours while the rush is on. Then I wanted to find out how I would react to real danger. I can’t ever remember being frightened, and everybody who goes to a C. C. S. admits that he or she is frightened most of the time, and especially when there are raids, and bombs and shells are dropping about. Of course these are just selfish reasons, but there were others too. I think Miss Taylor could run my affairs perfectly satisfactorily in my absence for a month. But now I must wait. We learn to do that with considerable success in the army. I hate to let the nurse I have appointed for this team go. When the first one went up, we did not know much about what it meant, but since she has come back to us, we know more. Also Phil’s accounts have been enlightening. But it is her turn to go. She is ready, has had all the preparations, and she is most eager to go, so I must not make any change in the schedule, but we shall all miss her and be worried about her until she gets back to us. All the teams have a two days’ ambulance ride to begin with, then when they get there, they have to pretty much rough it. They take their cots and blankets and sleep in bell tents. When they have air-raid signals, they all have to lie down flat on their stomachs wherever they may be. One of our teams had a special hole in a cemetery they had to hop into all the time. Phil’s fellow officers had a little drainage ditch full of mud that was their hiding-place.