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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into Charing Cross Station, just at midnight. I was first off the train, and put into an ambulance, along with one other patient, and the driver proceeded on his way to the 3rd L.G.H. at 12.20. He drove very slowly and kept on the tram lines, but Oh, the car did bump and shake and I was in agony all the way. At last we got to the hospital (2.10 a.m.) When the Sister came to my stretcher I said to her “I’m afraid, sister, that when removing me from my stretcher, I will wake the whole ward up, as my leg is very painful and I cannot stand any movement”. Well, Lord bless my soul, the orderlies got hold of me and started to handle me as if I were a bundle of wood. I simply yelled, and this scared them and they nearly dropped me. Nearly every patient was sitting up in his bed by this time, and I guess they all wondered what had floated into the ward at that time of night. However, they got me into my bed, and I sighed a sigh of relief. The sister (the dearest and sweetest of all “sisters” as she turned out to be) offered to make me some tea, but I was not feeling like eating or drinking anything. I believe I went off to sleep very soon after the orderly officer of the night visited me, I think he gave me something to take away the pain; I cannot quite remember what happened after I once got into my bed.
Next morning I underwent great agony while they dressed my leg. In the afternoon (Saturday) I was taken up to the X-Ray room. I had to undergo the awful torture of being shifted from bed to stretcher again and from stretcher to bed after being X-rayed. On Monday morning I was again taken from my bed to the operating theatre. This time I was put under chloroform and know nothing more, but was told afterwards I was on the table for over two hours and the surgeon was rather nervous because I was beginning to turn cold before he finished, and when he was through he said to the sister, “I am afraid you will have to place some flowers in the mortuary”. Well they carried me back and
BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 6 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873 - 1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected letter from Lieutenant Gordon Patrick Heinekey, 1917.