We didn't close the wounds

Heroes Remember

We didn't close the wounds

Transcript

I trained in Ottawa and Ottawa was a new medical school. And because it was a new medical school, it didn't have, have residence like you see on, on the various T.V. programs and all the senior medical people. And right from an early time I had to, to accept the responsibility for deciding what treatments were necessary and what treatments could be given and what treatments would be useless, because there was nothing to do. And I got fairly good surgical training actually, which was partly what stood me in good stead in Korea, you see, where a lot of the treatment was surgical. And when I got back further from the casualty collecting area, in fact where I started, with Field Dressing Station, we used to extract bullets and extract shrapnel, clean up the wounds and ultimately close them. Also at the field ambulance, we did some of that. So apart from the normal medical duties like examining people and vaccinating them and this sort of thing, treating any disease they picked up in the country, we attended the war wounds as well, up to a reasonable level. Penetrating wounds of all kinds, straight bullets wounds, where the bullet was still in or the bullet had passed through or shrapnel wounds, where pieces of metal from, from bombs, grenades or whatever had been blown in it. Of course, there was often pieces of uniform, pieces of dirt, pieces of wood whatever are blown in along with it, you see. We treated people there with injuries with a, what was called delayed primary suture or secondary delayed, secondary suture, if you wish, where we didn't close the wounds, initially. And that was, had, had been started actually in World War II, although it wasn't quite as common in World War II. The idea was that you removed anything that was reasonably accessible, without prodding too much for the last bit of metal, because that's not necessary. And probably undesirable, it'd cause more trauma than it would help. And we would clean up the wounds and if the edges were ragged, we'd cut those into a straight line, rather than in a ragged line and then we packed the wound. And we packed it in those days, with sulfadiazine, which wouldn't even be used today. But it was the only relative antibiotic that we had, other than the penicillin by injection. And we packed them with gauze and sulfadiazine. And we left them open for usually seven, sometimes ten days. After that time, we took the packing out, we might change it in the interim, but normally we left it in. And we would take it out, at which time it had absorbed most of the debris and most of the possible infection. We cleaned up the wound again and roughened up the edges and made it bleed a little, because that was desirable to cement it together. And we put the stitches in at that point. And the soldiers were in relatively good condition, they'd all been immunized, they had tetanus and anti-tetanus treatments were not necessary. And then, the way we treated them, cut down the likelihood of infection... we very seldom saw wound infections. It's something that should be used in today but isn't, you know, because of hospital constraints, you see. Now, they want to get people in and clean them up and suture them up and send them home. But, of course, that often results in wound infections, which then causes a problem. They come back in.

Description

Dr. Vanner discusses in detail the treatment of penetrating wounds.

Dr. George Vanner

Dr. Vanner was born in Toronto, June 14, 1927. After completing his public schooling in Belleville and Trenton, he entered the University of Ottawa Medical school. He had been a member of his local militia, and when war broke out in Korea, he joined the regular force as an army Lieutenant. Upon graduation in the summer of 1942, Dr. Vanner was sent to South Korea. He was a field surgeon until a truce was declared. After that, Dr. Vanner spent some time in the hospitals around Hiroshima. Once in Canada, Dr. Vanner established a solo medical practice which allowed him to utilise the diverse skills he had acquired in Korea. He is now retired and has recently joined the Korean Veterans Association.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 04:07
Person Interviewed:: Dr. George Vanner
War, Conflict or Mission:: Korean War
Location/Theatre:: Asia
Battle/Campaign:: Korea
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: British Commonwealth Division
Rank:: Captain
Occupation:: Surgeon

Language selection

We didn't close the wounds

Heroes Remember