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Ear Problems
We shared the island with one of the true characters I have met over
the years. Ray was there with his girlfriend on a 155ft refrigeration
ship. The story of how he had acquired it is a saga in itself. Anyway,
one night, in Maui, he told me, he had been in the local pub, and late
in the evening, after a night of partying, had stood up and announced
he was going to the South Pacific. He needed crew. He promptly secured
2 couples and they sailed in the early hours - south. On sobering up
several days later, (I gather the party continued aboard till the
liquor ran out), they came to the awful realization that no-one aboard
knew how to navigate when out of sight of land. (Quite contrary to the
story in the pub before sailing.) Ray, always practical, knowing the
Line Islands were about 1000 miles south of the Hawaii, decided on
sailing a matrix that would have to bring the islands over the horizon,
sooner or later. After several back and forth runs, sure enough after
about a week, the palm trees of Palmyra showed themselves. They had
charts of all the Line Islands, and he successfully identified the
island and navigated his way into the lagoon. No mean feat at all,
actually. As soon as he tied up to the old sea wall, his crew jumped
ship. A couple of days later a big square-rigger showed up. They sailed
the following day with all of Rays' crew, except his girlfriend. Now
Ray was in a bit of a fix, as the old refrigeration ship was in serious
disrepair - to the extent that steering her was a two man job, the con
with a vhf yelling course changes to a crew member in the steering room
operating a potentiometer to steer the vessel. By the time we arrived,
Ray had built a beautiful little cottage ashore just behind his ship.
He had run power to it from the ship, and had a refrigerator in it and
was really quite comfortably adapting to life as a hermit. The problem
was, Patty, his girlfriend, some good few years younger than he was,
was not entirely convinced that it was time for her to retire too. She
put on a brave face and really did look after Ray well.
Ray had nailed this old ships bell to a palm tree near his cabin. I
often wondered what the purpose was. We would hear it ring late at
night occasionally. One day I asked him what the deal was. Turns out it
was his way of celebrating success of his nocturnal amorous activities.
It would always bring a chuckle from then on whenever it rang.
After a couple of months, a really beautiful, big, stainless steel,
yacht showed up at the island. It was on a delivery run from its'
builders in New Zealand to the States.
They had a huge freezer full of food - the likes of which none of us
had seen in ages. Being a bunch of Aussies - the inevitable festivities
got under way pretty smartly. After a few days, they sailed off on
their way. We were standing on the shore, waving, when we noticed Patty
on the afterdeck, with her arm around the navigator. She had found her
escape back to civilization. Poor Ray took it philosophically and
settled in to life alone. He was very active - up at dawn each day. He
set himself tasks and really did a lot each day in that tropical heat.
He was a wonderful storyteller and kept us well entertained on our
weekly visits. We kept to ourselves pretty much - both enjoying the
solitude that these uninhabited islands offer.
So we were alarmed one morning, before we had even climbed out of our
bunks, to hear him hollering for us from the shore adjacent to our
boat. I shot up into the cockpit, to find him holding his head - blood
pouring out of him, shouting that he needed help. We both leapt into
the dinghy and rowed ashore as fast as we could. Ray had got it into
his head after Patty had left, that he wanted to move his cabin over to
a motu on the other side of the atoll. To achieve this, he had jacked
the whole cabin up and was planning to attach dozens of 55gal drums to
the bottom to float it over. On this morning, as he was jacking it up
higher, it had slid off the supports and come crashing down, in the
process, trapping his dog under it. The poor animal was not killed but
pinned under and making one heck of a noise. Ray had looked under,
assessed that he needed help right away. As he turned to run towards
our boat, the other dogs (four of them) had become really agitated with
the noise the trapped animal was making, and almost as if to say,
"don't leave our buddy", 'gently' attacked him. One of them caught his
ear and ripped it right off his head.
When he saw his ear fall to the ground, he knew he really did need some
help, and soon. When we reached the shore, he told me to go and jack up
the cabin and free the dog, and told Sharon to go with him to retrieve
his ear, it needed to be stitched back on. He led a protesting Sharon
to the 'scene of the disaster' and there was the puppy, licking his
chops. It was the first red meat that mutt had ever eaten, and he
seemed to approve. Ray was sincerely tee'd off, Sharon somewhat
relieved.
As soon as I lifted the cabin, that poor dog mercifully died. His back
had been broken.
We had rather a sticky situation on our hands now, so to speak. The
majority of Rays' right ear was missing. He had staunched the blood
flow with filthy hands on this hot, humid, tropical atoll, with the
nearest hospital more than a week away. I had had boils for weeks
before this and had used up all my antibiotics and also all pain
medication. We didn't even have an aspirin for poor Ray. He felt very
poorly, and his condition worsened all day. We started to really worry
what the consequences might be. Sharon washed the wound profusely and
we searched his boat for medications. We found a bunch of sulfur in a
hold. Sharon packed the wound with this and bandaged him up like mad.
We decided to change the dressing twice a day and wash it carefully
each time. That evening, I fired up the radio rig I had prepared for
our earlier contact with the Coast Guard in Hawaii, and once again
successfully established contact. This time I asked to speak to a
doctor for advice on how to treat the wound. They came back after a
while and asked if Ray was a US citizen. Once we established that he
was, they said, they would be down in the morning to fetch him. They
also asked me to tramp on all the birds eggs on the runway for as far
as I could. The terns nest there by the million, and landing a big C130
was a nightmare amongst them. Once I realized they were really going to
fly down, I mentioned I had run out of coffee. The glib way in which
the guy on the other end said "No problem, I'll pop round to the corner
store and pick some up for you" seemed almost like a miracle to me. By
this stage I had run out of so much, I was even running experiments
mixing various chemicals I had aboard to create a useable fuel for the
kerosene stove, as our kero supply was long gone.
After a long night on the runway, dawn came and with it, a big, white
C130 with a red stripe. We ran excitedly back to the runway to see it
land. The trades were blowing strongly that morning. The runway is
bounded on both sides by tall palm trees. There was not a great deal of
width on that strip for the wingspan of that big aeroplane to fit in.
The wind direction was at an angle to the direction of the runway. We
watched in awe, as this great big bird approached, slipping sideways to
counteract the wind. Almost at deck level, he got into the wind shadow
of the palms and that huge aeroplane was suddenly at completely the
wrong angle. I remember yelling to Sharon to run for her life. Time
slows in these types of situations, and I can remember assessing our
chances of survival in the ensuing crash.
I was waiting for the huge concussion of the impact as I was running.
Suddenly there was an almighty roar and I felt heat sear my back. I
faltered and looked back to see that giant, white aeroplane pointing
almost vertically up, fire pouring from pods on the wings. What it
turned out had happened is that at the last minute the pilot had
aborted the landing and hit the button that fired the Jato units that
were mounted to assist with short takeoffs in these remote locations,
to get the plane back in the air and flying. He seemed to go vertically
out of trouble. Then a strange thing - it smelled just like Christmas
dinner. All I needed was a silver tray and tongs. The birds were
feathered and roasted. I guess we really were hungry!
I sprinted back to the boat and put on the little handheld VHF radio.
There on channel 16 I reached them. A very shaky voice answered and
informed me that they had decided it was too risky to land. They would
drop a care package by parachute for Ray. They circled up there for a
while and then did a low pass over the runway. Out came this pretty,
white, parachute with a 5 gal drum hanging from it. We retrieved it,
and found the newspaper, coffee, some cookies, and there, right in the
bottom, and anti tetanus shot for Ray. Nothing to fix it though. They
flew off back to Hawaii, and we went over to Rays' cabin, only to find
him missing. He emerged from the bush later. He mumbled something about
not going back to Hawaii - seems he had no intention of going in the
first place anyway. He also had the dog with him that had bitten his
ear off, as he knew the dog would be disposed of and taken back for
rabies tests. These were his pets and he was not about to let that
happen.
His condition continued to deteriorate over the next week despite the
constant dressing changes and sulfur packs. The ear remained
uninfected, but Ray became quite despondent and listless. On close
inspection it became clear that even though the wound was not infected,
the cartilage was sticking out too far for the skin to close. An
operation was obviously called for. We sat together in his cabin one
night and decided on the procedure. Believe it or not, the only
scissors we could come up with was a pair of Chinese fold up nail
scissors. I water papered the rust off them and sharpened them. We
decided that 7am the following morning we would do it.
We went over somewhat before that and got a pot boiling. We boiled the
scissors for half an hour. Ray lay on his back on his cot. Sharon sat
on his chest and securely pushed down on his head to try to minimize
the jumping about he was likely to do. We had absolutely nothing to
help him with the pain. I had stopped brewing liquor months before,
after figuring out that Ray had had a drinking problem in times gone
by, so even that was not available. By now, of course, he was severely
sore from his neck right to the top of his head. He was also extremely
grumpy and would bark at Sharon when she came to dress the wound each
time.
We had everything under control now, even down to the white cloths
neatly positioned for me to staunch the blood after the
amputation. I was simply going to snip off two areas where the
cartilage that makes up the ear was sticking out too far for the skin
to grow over. Ray folded up a pillowcase and put it between his teeth.
At that signal I attempted to cut away the offending protrusions. In an
instant, all hell broke loose. Ray arched his back and nearly leapt
clear off the bed, throwing Sharon to the floor. The scissors slipped
off that rubbery cartilage, the dogs' snouts were suddenly there,
intent on a second meal - all in a matter of a second or two. I decided
we had the ball rolling, better get the job done. I grabbed his head
and 'hacked' away at that poor mans ear stump. Got the job done - thank
goodness he passed clean out and I was able to have a good couple of
minutes at it. Unfortunately I was not thinking in cosmetic terms at
the time, and it is rather a ruler straight amputation. A week later
Ray was up and about once again. He took to wearing his cap at a jaunty
angle. I noticed too that he was growing his hair somewhat longer on
that side.
Sections of that parachute served me for years (up to the present, in
fact) as a wind scoop aboard my boats.
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