Borrowed Boats and Broken Bones

by Ben Robicheau ~ brobicheau@cogeco.ca

Last month I wrote about my fortuitous acquaintance early in life with Dr. O’Riley. He was only one of the many doctors that served the Islands over the years. Early on there were the two Dr. Weirs, the son, who took over the practice from the father, used to transport his bicycle across the passage in a dory and would then ride around town doing house calls. A punt with an outboard motor was used by a couple of the later doctors to visit patients on the other side of the harbour. I think the same boat might have been passed along from doctor to doctor; it was probably considered a necessary piece of equipment for anyone practicing medicine on the Islands. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for someone responding to an emergency; no need to wait for the ferry, just zip across the harbour and land on the beach right in front of your patient’s house.

One fine summer’s day this very punt was hauled up on the beach in front of my parents’ house. The doctor had been called because my mother had gone into labour. Being only ten years old, I wasn’t all that interested in what was going on in the upstairs bedroom so instead headed down to the beach to have a look at the doctor’s boat. When he had arrived, the tide was receding and the boat was left high and dry, but things had progressed slowly at home and by now the tide was on its way up again. As the boat started to float, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to take a spin around the harbour; I was sure the doctor wouldn’t mind, he was going to be occupied for the next little while anyway.

After pushing off from shore, I ran into a slight problem; the motor had been tilted up and it took me a while to figure out how to release it, then it occurred to me that I didn’t actually know how to operate an outboard motor. After yanking on the starter cord several times with no positive results, I started thinking that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all; by now the tide was starting to carry me along the waterfront and farther out into the harbour. While I was trying to figure out what to do next, my grandmother happened to look out the front window and saw my predicament. My mother was having enough trouble with this baby that didn’t seem to want to come out, I’m sure it didn’t help matters any when my grandmother ran into the room screaming that I was being swept out to sea in the doctor’s boat.

For a few minutes there, I would have had to agree with my grandmother’s assessment of the situation. The tide was about to carry me out past the end of my father’s wharf and all I could see beyond that were the big green rollers going through the passage by Peter’s island: it looked to me like that was where I was headed. At the last minute I realized that there were a pair of oars in the boat and I started frantically rowing towards shore. With a lot of struggling and splashing, I managed to get back in far enough to just catch hold of the last post on my father’s wharf. When I finally managed to work my way back in to safety, there was my father standing waiting for me. My memory about what happened next is a bit fuzzy, but I do remember that I had difficulty sitting down for a while.

My next experience with an Island doctor took place about a year later. It was a Sunday morning and I and my sisters were on our way to Sunday School. For some reason, Rikki didn’t want to go so I saw it as my Christian duty to make sure she did. I did this by chasing her along the Front Road towards the Church. As we passed by Malcolm McDormand’s fish plant she tried to get away from me by running off onto the wharf, so I ran after her. This wharf had a very narrow walk-way along the side of the shed with only a single high rail on the open side. Just as I entered this walk-way, the smooth leather soles of my Sunday shoes slipped on the weathered planks and I went under the rail and over the edge of the wharf.

Fortunately, there was a boat tied up at the wharf and I hit the bow line on the way down, breaking my fall somewhat. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to hang on to the rope. Since I couldn’t swim, it was fortunate that the tide was out. Unfortunately, that meant I hit the rocky beach pretty hard. By the time I managed to struggle back up the beach to the road, Edgar McDormand was waiting for me in his big shiny DeSoto. He had been on his way to church when he caught a glimpse of someone falling off the wharf. I was expecting a lecture about playing on his father’s wharf, but he just told me to get in the back seat. When we started up the road, I told him I needed to go the other way; I was on my way to Sunday School. He said he was taking me home. I insisted that I was supposed to go on to Sunday School. Edgar said, “You’re not going to Sunday School, look at your arm.”

I had laid my arm on the door armrest and when I looked at it I noticed that the section between my wrist and elbow didn’t lay flat, it kind of humped up in the middle. Up until that point, I had felt shaken up, but in no pain. The moment I realized my arm was broken, the pain came flooding in. After Edgar delivered me to my parents, they gave me a couple of Aspirin, put my arm in a sling and headed for the doctor’s office in Freeport. An X-ray confirmed that I had broken both bones in my left arm. Dr. McDonald told me that to re-set them he would have to pull on my broken arm. I wasn’t too thrilled at this prospect, but he told me not to worry, he had something that would fix me right up; I wouldn’t feel a thing.

What he had was ether. Ether is a liquid that will knock you out if you breathe the fumes. It is administered by placing a rubber mask over your mouth and nose, the liquid is then dripped on a piece of gauze placed in a hole in the mask, and you inhale the fumes. Administering ether can be a fine art; too little ether and you’re not completely asleep, too much and you might never wake up again. With the mask over my face, I felt like I was suffocating, and the strong ether smell made me choke. I fought the mask and pulled it away while Dr. McDonald and my father struggled to hold me down. Finally everything faded to black and the next thing I knew I was waking up with a headache, my arm in a cast and my father asking how I felt. I told him I was OK but I had had a very vivid dream about yelling at the doctor. Dad said, “That was no dream”. Apparently I didn’t get quite enough ether, because when Dr. McDonald pulled on my arm, I sat straight up and screamed.

About a month later I was sitting in our kitchen on a chair across from Dr. McDonald, who had come to take off my cast. As he prepared his implements, he explained that some people get nauseous when having casts removed and asked my mother to hold a basin ready just in case. I felt this was a bit unnecessary, I had been living with this thing on my arm for a month, it was heavy, itchy, smelly and awkward; I was thrilled to be finally getting rid of it, I couldn’t see me having any problem with its removal. All was fine when he cut away the part that looped around my thumb and over my hand, but as he started working his way up the cast, the sensation of the cold metal shears sliding against the skin of my damaged arm and the sound of the crunching as it cut through the plaster made my stomach turn somersaults. As it turned out, Dr. McDonald was right, the basin did come in handy, and I learned something that I would like to pass along to anyone who might have a broken bone or two: It’s not a good idea to eat red liquorice just before having your cast removed.