Making rounds and talking to a soldier

Heroes Remember

Making rounds and talking to a soldier

Transcript

I'm just thinking of you know, going throughout the different wards or different, seeing these young men. I'll tell you one story that, this young man he was a, he was a Canadian kid and as I was going through making my rounds at night and, you know, there weren't all lights all over, you know we just had a little flashlight going along and they called us sisters and so he'd say, "Sister," he'd said, "There's something in my throat," he said, "I can't swallow. No," he said, "I can feel something right in my throat." And so I said, "Well," and so I got the flashlight and tongue depressor and looked down, I couldn't see anything. He kept saying, " Well there's something there." But he had a gastric tube down because he had shrapnel wounds all in his stomach. And so he, I said, "I think it's the tube bothering you." And he said, "Oh, I don't know." But anyway I went around another half hour and checked him again, and he said, "That's still there." Well, anyway, but the third time I'm around every time I'd look and check and couldn't see much and anyway about the third time I looked and here was a great big worm that had, like I don't know if it was a tape worm or what, a big worm that had been in his stomach and, of course, there was no food there now and because it has this gastric washing, taking everything out of his stomach. It climbed up the edge of the tube, into his throat and of course imagine having that in the back of your throat. And so, then he started gagging and I pulled on it, and got this thing out and it was a huge thing in a kidney basin and that was with the kidney basin and the flashlight look and but, he was so relieved and so was I for him. I mean it was dreadful but those kind of things are kind of a bit unnerving. You know, so anyway that's, but it was just that as you went around at night, a lot of them weren't sleeping that much. Cause I think a lot of them were homesick too and a, you know missed home and missed and were in pain. And we'd give them painkillers of course and but it was hard. It was hard very hard for them and you know, we found it hard too, to see them in this state.

Description

Ms. Stirling talks about helping a soldier who had worms coming up his throat.

Jan Stirling

Jan Sterling was born in England, in June of 1927. She moved to Canada where she grew up in New Brunswick living between Saint John and Fredericton. She graduated from Saint John General Hospital in 1949 where she joined the army medial corp in 1949 to help out in the Korean War. She tells us what it was like to be a nursing sister in the hospital in Korea during the war.

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