KAREN:  What did you do when there was an accident or an emergency situation?
 
CLARA:  It seemed like we never had to -- well, we never had the accidents we were having today.

KAREN:  Uh-hum. 

CLARA:  You know, people -- people used dogs, dog sleds to get around.  At that time, there was no snow machines.  No motorcycles.  A few people had -- mainly the businesses had trucks. 

If somebody get hurt, then you get more response by people running around and getting the help and now calling on the phone. 

So it -- they had a Health Council before we got started of two people on Health Council, and we used to do fund-raising, donating money to get the supplies and stuff that were needed before the health aide training started.  Did that. 

KAREN:  Was there ever like a plane crash, a boating accident or anything that you had to deal with? 

CLARA:  No.  Not -- not during that time.  There was years later after the District Clinic was open, there was a DC-3 or something that was taking off from Aniak, and I don't know what happened, and flew it off the runway into the brush, but there was just a pilot in there, you know, just like hauling freight or something.  No passengers in there.  And nobody got hurt in that.

KAREN:  Uh-hum.  But in your later years as a health aide, did you have some --

CLARA:  Oh, yeah, after, like after the -- the doctors were there and left and the paramedic, and then have pretty much more accidents, gunshot wounds, knife cuts, broken -- broken bones, legs or whatever.  Yeah.
 
KAREN:  Did you have one in particular that stands out in your mind that maybe was the scariest, your first one or something? 

CLARA:  Yeah.  There was a -- a guy where, what we call across the slough that shot himself in the head.  But it -- it didn't kill him.  So I just had help from whoever was around to help me. 

Got him over to the -- the clinic we were using.  Did what I could there to dress his head and do his vitals and get him across.  It was -- and it was in the fall time. 

Got him to the clinic and called down to Bethel and then had to medevac him down.  He came back okay.  He was kind of paralyzed on the left side from that.  But he was okay. 

KAREN:  It's amazing that --

CLARA:  Uh-hum (affirmative).  That is.  A lot of others.  Delivering babies. 

KAREN:  Talk about delivering babies. 

CLARA:  Before I got the training, or well, it was in sixty -- yeah, before I got the training, in 1967, the midwife was Marie Nikolai, and so that was when I was working as a medical aide.
 
So I went with her just to be there and observe and help with whatever she needed.  She had all this stuff that, you know, they didn't have the clamps for the umbilical cord and all that, so boil up some string and the scissors and whatever. 

And then we never used to go to Bethel for checkups, you know, we got pregnant and carried them nine months and deliver in the village. 

So this lady, she went into labor, and then I was there with the midwife, and then one -- one baby was born and -- and the midwife herself had had twins before.  And the baby came out and the lady still looked big, and then the midwife said, there's another one in there. 

And you could just watch as it turned, you know.  The baby came out head first, number one.  The second one you could just see the baby turning, you know, to come out.  It's two twin girls, March 17th.  They were born two days before my birthday. 

So I helped with that.  And delivered I don't know how many between, maybe six. 

One time, one or two times I didn't have any help.  I had -- I had a clinic and I delivered them there.  That one right after the baby was born, the midwife and nurse came in from Bethel, landed just after the baby was born.  Checked him and brought the mom and baby to Bethel. 

The last delivery I helped with at the clinic were twin boys.  So I started off with twin girls, and end up with doing twin boys. 

And the mother was a month early.  She was just getting ready to, the next day, to go to Bethel, and then she went into labor.  And the doctor made it up to Aniak but he just was there, you know, just watching us, myself and a couple other health aides delivering there. 

I was there holding this little baby coming out and the health aide went to get the bulb, you know, to suction out his mouth, and while she was doing that, something started coming out, I thought it was the placenta, and then I said, there's legs, there's two of them.  Here this little guy came out head first, and his little brother couldn't wait and he started coming out same time, so there I was with these two little babies.  They were tiny.  They survived. 

They -- the mother went to Bethel with them.  And they are about 10 years old now, I think.  10 or 11. 

Yeah.  It -- it was -- you know, it's -- when you lose someone, you know, it's sad and stuff, but when you deliver a baby, it's so happy.  So joyful bringing another life, you know, new life.