MISSIONS IN AC T IO N
Spear-Wound Medic
W e want to thank you again for your kind interest in sending the emergency oper ating-room lamp to us. Our station power plant goes on at 6 p.m. — and shuts off at 9:30 each night. If there is any emergency, we must go down to the power plant and start up the motor. With your lamp, we shall have light immedi ately available. If you had been here recently we could have given you some firsthand experience at removing multiple-barbed arrows from the human body. W e had two such cases just a month apart. The first was that of a thief who got more than he bargained for when he tried to come out of the store he was robbing. A bystander hit him in the left side of the abdomen with an arrow which had a barbed head at least six inches long, hav ing 14 barbs, seven on each side at least a quarter inch long. The operation proved to be quite different; one of the instru ments we had to sterilize was a pair of pliers which we used to cut the steel shaft at the skin level, only the steel proved so hard it broke the pliers. On getting inside
lung. All 18 of the barbs and the inch-long cutting head were im planted in the neck. This hap pened at seven in the morning and she arrived here at 6 p.m. that night having been carried to a neighboring mission station and brought in 60 miles by car. This time among our instru ments we sterilized a hack saw be sides pliers. In operating we were able to cut the steel shaft of the arrow where it emerged below the jaw and entered the neck. The upper part was easily removed up through the entrance point at the l i p l e v e l . W e p u l l e d a d r a i n through following the arrow path. The removal of the rest of the barbs was more difficult. After making a fairly large incision, we had to unhook every one of the 18 different barbs and do surgical gymnastics around the large neck vessels. When it was removed, a drain was put in place. This pa tient, too, recovered without any trouble at all. She returned home most appreciative of the help re ceived and thanking the Lord. (From a letter by Belgian Congo Medical Missionary Arthur M . Barnett.) END.
the abdomen we found that the arrowhead had skewer ed four loops of small intestine and the descending colon. Each loop of in testine had to be carefully worked off backwards from the barbs to prevent tearing any further. Then we had to repair the 10 holes. The patient made a complete recovery without a single complication. But he complicated matters for us. Ten days after the operation, while his African police guard was sleeping, he stole the keys from the guard’s pocket, unlocked his ankle cuffs and made off, wrapped in one of our hospital blankets! Such grati tude! He was recaptured two weeks later, eating a stolen goat and dressed in clothes he stole from a local chief. The other arrow case was that of an elderly lady whose son is mentally deranged and who shot her with another barbed arrow — this one having 18 wicked prongs. The arrow hit her in the right side of the lower lip, passed along the jawbone, emerged just below the parotid gland and then went on into the neck just missing all the large blood vessels and extend ing at least to the apex of the right
P RAC T I CA L MI SS IONARY T R A I N I N G , ine.
A Missionary Internship on the Island of Cuba
For a reasonably low cost a young person with a mis sionary vision can benefit by this training experience. The summer term begins the middle o f June and concludes the middle o f August. A year-’round program is open to a lim ited number. Preparedness saves time, money and missionaries.
For information write to home office:
Oran H. Smith, Director Practical Missionary Training, Inc. P.O. Box 628 Fullerton, California
Offering actual, on-the-field experience to missionary trainees in Majagua, Cuba. 40
THE KING'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker