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[Page 5]
R.N., shock and injury to left knee.
After visiting the ward room I returned to No. 1 theatre and found that the stretcher party had returned from the upper bridge with the abovementioned wounded man. It had been a very difficult place to get at. However, with the aid of a Neil-Robertson folding stretcher it had been achieved with no great loss of time. This stretcher, by the way, was found to be most useful and well adapted to a ship of this class, with steep stairways and narrow hatchways & passages. The wounded man was "O", A.B., R.N., his left leg had been shot away at its junction with the body, and was a horrible sight. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood, and was almost dead on arrival below. I sent for Surgeon Todd, and got the patient's clothes cut away rapidly, and had him placed on the operating table.
We then administered one pint of normal saline subcutaneously, and started to trim up the stump, which consisted of a ragged end of skin, fascia, muscles, nerves, and vessels, longer anteriorly than posteriorly. In fact, there was scarcely enough flap left to cover the stump. After having made a few cuts in clearing away the ragged ends, the patient died. He had been wounded some time and the haemorrhage had stopped when he arrived below, but it was hopeless from the outset, and he must have lost a fatal amount of blood in a few seconds during a hot period of the engagement, when nothing could be done for him.
This was the last of our wounded, excepting two slight cases – "P" Ord. Sea., R.A.N., small