Avoiding Amputation

Heroes Remember

Avoiding Amputation

Transcript

See, my circulation went so bad in Japan that all of a sudden my feet just was ice cold and then they started to turn gangrene because of the circulation. And the doctor, Dr. Riley, told me to come down and get my toes amputated because they were turning quite blue. And I came down here to camp and came down to the city and guys had to carry me in their weakened condition. There was six of them and they carried me down to the workplace and the doctor looked at me and I went like this to cut it off and he felt here and he felt there and then he just went like this. But we found out afterwards, they don’t take off, they don’t do much amputations as far as that goes. And he put some red stuff and white stuff on a piece of gauze and put it on my toe and wrapped it up. And just as he was wrapping it up, this Japanese workman who was in the foundry too, came in and he had his, they were carrying a dirty old sack, stretcher and his foot had a big black spot in the middle of it and he had stepped on one of these hot coals where they dropped from and it was in his foot and the doctor went over to him and took his scalpel and flicked it out, put some powder on it and wrapped it up and that was it, and the guy didn’t make a move. I thought it was fantastic. Then he came and wrapped up my toe again, wrapped it up, finished it off and the guys carried me back to camp, you know, to the train and then off the train and I went up and saw Dr. Riley and he said, “Well how was it? Was it bad George?” I said, “He didn’t take it off.” And boy he hit the ceiling and bounced back and forth and said, “What the heck, I’m going down to see the camp commandant.” I said, “Well he put some white stuff and red stuff on a gauze and put it on my toe.” And the pain was something terrible. Tears came in my eyes while I was telling him, the pain was worse than electric feet. So the next morning, I hobbled up to the medical, you had to go up a few flights of stairs, one flight of stairs, to the medical office and soon as the sergeant saw me, he yelled, “Britho, britho!” and that was one of the medical guys, British medical guy said, Britho, Harrisonio here, Harrisonio!” And he’d run like hell out of the place. I didn’t have a Japanese guard come near me for months. And I went up there and they took off the bandage and all the flesh and everything was off down to the bone and this stuff was just oozing out, oozing out. And Dr. Riley said, “Well, you’re very lucky George,” he said, “we’ll have to keep a close watch on it and see that it doesn’t, get it back again but it didn’t.”

Description

Mr. Harrison describes his ordeal with gangrene, which almost results in the amputation of his toes.

George Harrison

George Harrison was born on April 4, 1920 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and was youngest of three children. His father died shortly after his birth, forcing his mother to place him and his siblings in an orphanage, where he was at times badly beaten. Learning this, his mother took her children back home. After completing grade 9, Mr. Harrison went to work to help support his family. Eventually, he gained employment with CPR Telegraph. On September 13, 1939, Mr. Harrison enlisted with Winnipeg Grenadiers, becoming a specialist on the Vickers machine gun. During the battle of Hong Kong, Mr. Harrison was made a sergeant, and was involved in deadly fighting. Along with the general misery and persecution suffered by all of the POWs, Mr. Harrison faced down both blindness and potential amputation of his toes.

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