大象传媒

My late father was in the RAMC. Prior to boarding a ship in Liverpool his unit was stationed near Leeds awaiting their boarding orders that would take them to Egypt.

One morning on parade, the RSM explained that a young lad had been knocked over by a motor vehicle, a car I think, and that he was gravely ill. The only chance he had, the RSM went on to explain, was to give the boy a blodd transfusion. My dad explained to me that in those days a transfusion was done by gravity.

The RSM wanted a volunteer to give blood to the young lad and my dad readily volunteered. He went to the hospital, briefly met with the lad's parents, and then got connected with a transfusion pipe to give blood to the stricken lad.

That night, there was a dance at the barracks and my dad went along to strutt his stuff. He was wearing an immaculate white shirt, but halfway through his John Travolta routine, the sleeve of his shirt bacame crimson. The stitch that they had put in after the transfusion had come undone and he was leaking blood everywhere !

He never did find out if the young lad survived, and wonders about it in his memoirs.....

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