On September 24, 1954 while riding my bicycle I was struck by an automobile. I don’t remember the accident, only that I woke up the next day in Lawrence & Memorial Hospital.
I had sustained enough damage to spend three weeks in the Children’s Ward (today it’s Pediatrics). Because of my age, 12, I received special attention by the nurses because I was the oldest child in the ward, I believe each room had 4 occupants.
The walls were a pale green, even today I get flashbacks when I see that color. There were nurses, candy stripers (young volunteer high school girls) and student nurses, who lived at the Pond House next to the hospital. L&M had one of the finest nursing schools in the country.
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Due to a broken thigh bone incurred in the accident I had a cast covering half of my chest all the way down my right leg to my ankle. I also had a cast on my left arm due to a fractured wrist. When not in bed, I was in a wheel chair which had oak framing, caned seat and back, and very large wheels to propel the chair. I learned how to maneuver the chair by using my right hand on the right wheel and my left foot pushing the left wheel. I became friends with another boy from Mystic, at night he and I would race our chairs up and down the hallway until the nurse caught us and sent us to our room.
Smoking (adults) was allowed in the hospital just about everywhere, except where oxygen was in use. Oxygen (from a tank) was pumped into a plastic covering over the bed. The covering had four sides and the oxygen filled the plastic allowing the person to breath.
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The hospital beds were about 3 feet from the floor, not height adjustable. I had to be lifted out of bed and lowered into the wheel chair. One time, the head nurse grabbed my shoulders and a candy stripper grabbed my legs and started to lower me into the chair, and the nurse slipped and dropped me into the chair (about a 20” drop), fortunately my cast struck the seat and I was spared another injury.
When all of their duties were done and the ward was quiet, the candy strippers and sometimes the nurses would come into my room and sit and talk, the other children went to sleep at 8 PM, I was allowed to stay up longer.
On my second trip to L&M, I was in the adult ward, now age 13. I got special attention again because now I was the youngest person in the ward. I fell in love with one of the student nurses, her name was Sandra, she was 17 or 18. She lived in the Pond House, I could see her window from mine. At night she would wave to me. As a 13 year old, and finding hormones, I just didn’t want to leave. Alas, I went home and never saw her again.