These are excerpts from an email to Gail A. Purves Jr. from January 2000. In later emails to Gail Jr. “Bud” tells him more stories and also mentions that this young boy was from the Washburn area. If you know anything about the following story we would appreciate any information.
Gail A. Purves was a doctor in Barry County for over 50 years. He delivered around 2,000 babies, and was instrumental in getting the vaccines started in the Barry County Schools, especially the Polio Virus Vaccine. He was a well-known doctor of Barry County, and was affectionately called “Doc”. If you have personal stories of “Doc Purves” we would love for you to share them with us.
Thank you, The Barry County Museum.
“I’ve thought about this tale for a good while to be sure I had the dates and names as correct as my memory will permit.
In the late 1950’s I worked in the office of the Cassville Hospital that your dad started and then it was purchased by two doctors from the Kansas City and St. Joe area. (This would have been Dr. Cridling and Dr. Blair) “Doc Purves” was able to practice at the hospital for a short while.
In the spring of 1958 (this date may or may not be correct) I arrived at the hospital about 7:30 AM and had just gotten a cup of coffee. I was talking with Nurse Perriman when a middle aged man burst thru the front doors of the hospital in a panic. He was carrying a boy of about eight or nine years of age in a plastic rain coat that had blood running out all over the place and the boy was unconscious and white as a sheet.
There was no doctor in the hospital, but we got the boy into the ER and Nurse Perriman started trying to get the bleeding stopped. The boy’s father told me his son was riding his pony that morning and a thunderclap had spooked the pony and he jumped and threw the boy out of the saddle, but his foot was caught in the stirrup. The pony drug the boy along a barb wire fence for almost ΒΌ mile before it came to rest in the yard by the boy’s house.
I immediately started trying to reach the Doctor Cridling and couldn’t locate him but was able to catch “Doc Purves” in his office. He was there in less than five minutes and made a quick exam of the boy. He had been ripped open from his navel all the way around his mid-section to his spine. His ribs were exposed, internal organs were ripped open and the liver was cut deeply in several places. “Doc” looked up and told Nurse Perriman to get the OR ready, and for her to get ready to do the anesthesia, and then he looked at me and said “Bud, old boy, you are going to scrub with me and work across the table until another doctor shows up”.
About 10 minutes later it had started and it was absolutely amazing to watch “Doc” clean all the detritus (debris) out of the abdomen, repair and replace and start stitching that boy back together. “Doc” said after we were through (about 2 hrs. of surgery later) that he had lost count after 200 stitches.
I was absolutely amazed when I went to the hospital the next morning about 7:00 to see the young boy slowly walking down the hall pushing his IV stand along beside him. He went home two days later.”
Bud |
