Alma Russell Letters
Letters of British Columbia men on active service with Canadian and British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1918. Learn more.
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was slipping out of the car. When we arrived at the C.C.S., all I remember was seeing a nursing sister who came to me and offered to get me something to eat and drink, but I declined with thanks; then she said to the R.A.M.C. orderly, who was busy cutting off my uniform “not to destroy my two war ribbons”, the which I found afterwards with my little belongings. I know nothing which happened between then and waking up to find myself in a large ward comfortably tucked in in a nice bed, and the sun shining brightly through the window.
My leg had been fixed up and put in a splint. About ten minutes after waking up they took me out of bed and put me into a stretcher and carted me by motor-ambulance to the Hospital train which conveyed me to Bologne, at which place we arrived about 6.a.m. on the 12th. From the train again, in motor ambulance, to No. 7 Military Stationary Hospital.
I suppose you’d call my wound a bad one. The bone being smashed a little more than half way up my thigh from the knee and about 6 or 7 inches below the groin. The wound was not exactly a big one; the bullet entered on the inside of the thigh making a small hole and passed through the leg at a slight angle upwards, but it made a much bigger wound when it came out. I presume the first time I was put under chloroform was at the C.C.S. as they could not have placed my leg in the patent splint as they did without me knowing it. My second operation was at No.7. Stationary when they set my leg and put on about 20 lbs. of sand as an extension. About a week later I had another operation, as my leg got very sceptic and they cut open the two wounds, or rather, I should say, made them larger so as to put in draining tubes. After being in hospital about a month or so, they X-rayed my leg again, and were not
BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 6 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873 - 1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected letter from Lieutenant Gordon Patrick Heinekey, 1917.