Lucky Sergeant

Alive not to tell the tale but to hear it told about him, Sgt. Roger K. Wolbarst '43 must have read with interest an item in Yank, the Army weekly, describing the emergency appendectomy performed upon him aboard a cargo ship in sub-infested waters. One of the few instances of its kind to be officially reported, and in which, for a short while, a ship and crew became a hospital and nursing staff, the medical details read in part: "Having no sterile dressings and only one small emergency surgical kit, we used our own methods to sterilize our dressings and instruments. We wrapped them in hand towels and suspended them from a piece of wood we rigged up inside the ship's soup steam kettle. The patient was given pre-operative injections of morphine and atrophine and later a spinal anesthesia. Meanwhile, with the aid of the ship's electrician, we rigged up an operating table by placing two large planks on two packing cases in the hold of the ship, padded with two mattresses. The electrician rigged up two large lamps over the operating table and other members of the crew stood by with hand flashlights. Lt. Albert Fields performed the operation at midnight, assisted by Dr. Perry, a passenger. The patient was given plasma and was conscious ten minutes after the operation was concluded."