appendix op

[Michael Lewis]

Hi I can remember seeing the skipper with a mask on and I believe his wife was helping, but it was only a fleeting glimpse. I know we did not have a doctor on board for some reason,but he definately operated on eric and eric survived ! I remember captain Kings wife had lost some fingers off one of her hands. The names for the deckies Were, , A.Bs,"Yogi " and his mate "boo Boo " also Lawrence (ex trawlerman ) who was on liners with Bunny and dolly (Stewards ) We deckies had just picked up guitars in New york and we gave a concert to the 12 passengers, and a guy called Ivor Bowen sang I understand, while I sang the chrus, old langs syne. I remember the other singer was Bob Kipling. There was also a strange chap called michael Dowling (cherry ) who went ashore in N.Z. wearing his "Vindi " uniform ! Happy days. I have not heard from any of the lads or officers from thatyear. We had built a bar in the crew room called the blue lagoon. We often entertained other crews and a submarine crew as well. I just remembered the lampie, Tommy Mudd. He had lost the middle two fingers from one of his hands, and also a guy from the engine room who had had his face smashed in by a falling beam, and Old Jackson who cut my hair and made a right mess of it ! That was a cracking trip !

[R551286]

Hi Rodney just joined this site today and found your post on the appendix op on the Port Jackson.I was SasC(BUTCHER) on that trip and remember

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------

Hi RODNEY I was butcher on that trip and remember passing the stretcher through the drop down windows in the Engineers saloon and i think we had a Doctor on board at the time as Port boats usually had.I recall the C/E had a canary which he used to hang the cage outside his cabin and i used to give it a treat every day as the store rooms were down a long ladder just beside his accomadation.I think we went to Footscray in Melbourne,long time ago im afraid.

[John Arton]

Taking the Ships Captain Medical exam you were taught basic stiching techniques etc. and diagnosis amongst other things. For really serious stuff you were expected to get medical advice from shore by what ever means were available. I don't doubt that there have been cases of appendixs being removed by non medical staff, i.e the captain or who ever was designated as medical man on board, especially if the shore advisory service felt the appendix was about to, or had, burst leading to peritonitas. My Norwegian pals got a lot more medical training than we do in the U.K. They are almost up to paramedic standard.
The only time I had to call on any of my training, beyond dispensing pills and sticky plasters, was one one ship when I was Mate. One of the Indian A.B.'s got his leg trapped in new rope that was being transferred from aft to fwd using winches (this was on a Panamax bulker). I got the call just after lunch that the accident had happened and dashed out to view the scene. It was pretty obvious that he had suffered a badly broken leg so I instructed the crew to go and get the stretcher in order that we could get him into the hospital whilst I went to see the Captain to report what had happened and to tell him I would have to give the guy morphine as he was in great pain. Also, as we were just off the Spanish coast he should arrange for a medical evacuation by helicopter if possible.
I got the morphine from the medical locker and returned to the scene of the accident only to find no one there!! Had a miracle occured and he had self healed or what. Hurrying to the hospital I found the deck crew man handling the poor guy into the hospital without the use of the stretcher (cud not get him in it sahib!). We eventually got him onto the hospital where I was joined by the captains wife whom he had sent down to assist. "Great" I thought, "she must be a nurse". So I asked her to carry on. It was then she told me she had no medical training at all and was just there as a pretty face and to hold the patients hand.
So I was on my own trying to reember what we had been taught in college. The first thing to do was to get some morphine into the poor sod so I drew up the injection picked my spot on his buttocks and drove the needle in. Only problem was this guy had just joined after waiting 12 months for a ship and was as skinny as a rake. I was terrified of pushing the needle in to far for fear of hitting bone or snapping the needle, so I crossed my finger and gave him the injection. Imagine my horror when a balloon like swelling appeared under his skin where the needle had gone in. I pulled the needle out only to see the morhine solution leaking out so like the little dutch boy I quickly jammed my finger over the hole to stop it leaking out. Eventually the swelling went down and somehow the morphine got into his body and he started feeling no pain. The next job was to splint and bandage his leg up to immobilise it. This I remembered well how to do it. So I prepared the splints and bandages and carefully straightened out his leg. Imagine my horror when I saw that even though both his feet were pointing in the right direction, all the skin on his calves looked like the leg had been rotated through 360 deg. Bloody hell!!. Scrathed me head, thought a bit and then after looking at his good leg realised that the poor guy must have had rickets as a youngster and this distortion of his skin was nothing to do with my poor medical knowledge. We splinted and bandaged him up as per the Ships Captain Medical Guide and though I say it myself I did a pretty neat job of it.
After that it was just a matter of getting him into the stretcher in order that he could be evacuated by the medical helio that the Captain had organised.
This arrived shortly after and we loaded him into it on the Niel Roberston stretcher. I gave the paramedic on the helio all the info. regarding what had happened and what we had given him to ease the pain etc. In broken English (he was a Spaniard obviously) he told me we had done everything correctly and had made a good job of it. Little did he know. The guy was helicoptered to a hospital in La Coruna where after further treatment and a spell in hospital he was repatriated to India where he eventually made a full recovery despite my lack of skill and the crews attempts to make a leg break even worse by just carrying him down three decks, twisting around a couple of alleyway turns and heaving him through the hospital door from inside the accommodation instead of using the entrance straight off the main deck.
brgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)