The Graybeards - KWVA - Korean War Veterans Association

BUNKER HILL from page 16
Working quickly now because the
patient’s entire muscular system was paralyzed
from the anectine, Sam attached the
double, black rubber, accordion-pleated
tubes to the endotracheal tube and pumped
pure oxygen into the lungs with a series of
forceful squeezes on the black bag. He took
the pulse and blood pressure, found them to
be O.K. He filled the balloon at the end of
the endotracheal tube with five cubic centimeters
of air from a small syringe to make
an airtight system.
“All set, Bill, you can scrub,” he said to
Ogle as he sat back on his stool. He took
both anesthesia bags again, adjusting the
valves regulating the rates of flow of the
different anesthetic gases. Sweat poured
unheeded down his face and neck and
arms.
Bill grunted as he and I went out to the
scrub tent. “Man, that’s a cool customer we
got in there. He’s been sitting right there
doing that since ten the night before last.
Mechanical man.” “Yeah, a robot. Did you
ever try doing two generals at once? One’s
enough for me.” “No, never tried it.
Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it
with my own eyes.”
The patient had been scrubbed from nipples
to mid-thighs, then painted with bright
red merthiolate. A gowned corpsman
draped heavy sheets over the patient as Bill
and I gowned and gloved ourselves. Bill
moved to the patient’s right and I to his left.
The corpsman slapped a scalpel into
Bill’s hand. The scalpel grooved a long red
fine from rib margin to groin, a few inches
to the right of the midline. Sponges daubed,
clamps clicked, catgut flashed into square
knots. Scalpel again and the shining white
fascia split to show the heavy rectus muscles
beneath. The handle of the knife and a
finger split the muscles from end to end.
Tissue forceps on the peritoneum,
scalpel to nick it open, Mayo scissors to
widen it. An ugly-looking and foulsmelling
mixture of old dark blood, fresh
red blood, and brown liquid feces poured
onto the drapes as the intestines bulged
through the incision onto the field. “Upper
abdomen first,” Bill said.
With my right hand wielding a cupped
Mayo retractor I lifted the patient’s left rib
cage upward. I slipped my left hand into the
He ran the entire small bowel carefully through his fingers.
“Two more holes. Two more. Eight so far. Ten. Saw a
guy once with twenty-three holes and never did find the
bullet or the other hole. Bullet must have been inside the
bowel. Twelve. Guess that’s it.
abdomen and pulled down gently on the
colon, exposing the anterior wall of the
stomach and the rest of the contents of the
upper abdomen. Gently, slowly, Bill
explored the entire abdomen while I moved
the retractors just ahead of his searching
eyes and exploring fingers.
Like most surgeons, he talked his way
through the exploration. “Missed the liver
somehow. Stomach’s all right. Colon looks
O.K., the bullet went behind it. Here’s the
hole where it went through the gastrocolic
ligament. Here’s two holes in the jejunum.
Two more in the ileum.”
He ran the entire small bowel carefully
through his fingers. “Two more holes. Two
more. Eight so far. Ten. Saw a guy once
with twenty-three holes and never did find
the bullet or the other hole. Bullet must
have been inside the bowel. Twelve. Guess
that’s it. Let’s have some plain catgut, Vern,
on an intestinal needle, three-oh.”
Vern Toy, the corpsman at the Mayo
table, was already poised with the proper
suture. He always was. Most of our OR
scrubs were every bit as good as their counterparts
in civilian hospitals in the States.
One by one Bill placed “purse-string”
sutures around each hole, asked me to tie
Death Notice of a Member of KWVA
them down snugly, then inverted them with
several sutures of fine black silk. He carefully
ran the bowel again to check for any
missed perforations. Then the circulating
corpsman poured several liters of warm
normal saline into the abdomen and we
sucked it all back out. I mumbled, “The
solution to pollution is dilution.” Everyone
was too tired to laugh.
“Pretty lucky guy at that,” Bill mused.
“Nothing vital hit. Not too much spillage.
The peritonitis will clear in a few days.
He’s gonna be O.K. Let’s close.” The operation
had taken just under an hour.
Another man was brought in from the
holding ward. He too had only one wound,
but a mean one. A large flying fragment
from a mortar or artillery shell had ripped
through his left leg, tearing off all the muscles
on the inner and anterior aspect of the
leg from mid-thigh to knee. The bone was
intact but laid bare for a distance of almost
six inches. All the muscles as well as the
main artery, nerve, and veins had been
blown away. The leg below the knee lay
useless on the stretcher, bluish-white in
impending gangrene.
Bill Ogle studied the wound, his head
moving slowly from side to side. I knew
The following notice is submitted for publication:
Name of deceased __________________________________________________
Date of death ______________________________________________________
Department/Chapter__________________________________________________
Home of record ____________________________________________________
Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force Coast Guard
Other ____________________________________________________________
Primary Unit of service during Korean War
Submitted by ______________________________________________________
Relationship to deceased ______________________________________________
Send to: Membership, P.O. Box 10806, Arlington, VA 22210
Page 60
The Graybeards