KAREN:  That sounds pretty scary. 

LILLIAN:  I guess I -- I thought it was at the time, but we were -- I was pretty calm about taking care of patients myself, but I -- my assistant wasn't very -- I had to tell her not to look at -- she had to hand me bandages, sponges, sterile water, and all that from the cupboard here. 

And our clinic was about 10 by 12 size.  It wasn't very big.  That was before they built a new one. 

And having her there was good -- I just told -- asked her not to look at the patients, please.  Because she looked at me -- I could tell she was going to faint.  I told her, get out there on the steps and put your head between your legs and stay that way until you're -- you feel okay.  So she did. 

And I said, okay, now, will you please hurry up and go and get this woman to tell -- wake them up, tell them to come and help me. 

I think I called for two other women.  I wanted their assistance to help because I had to sponge the -- her -- it was raining so bad, her arm's all mud, yeah. 

KAREN:  Yeah.

LILLIAN:  When she got hurt.  And then I had to have that syringe to clean up the wound.  Multiple fractures, kind of hard to look at. 

KAREN:  Yeah. 

LILLIAN:  And I did the best I could with her. 
When she came back, I took care of her.  I guess they had to stitch her up and splice her bones back together or something. 

And there was one opening that I had to keep clean.  Used silver nitrate on it, if there was buildup on there, and cleaned it off.  Little sticks that you clean through that.  They left a place open.  And all I did was break the -- break -- break it open and clean it all out.  Because there was a little drainage. 

KAREN:  Yeah.  What does silver nitrate do? 

LILLIAN:  It -- it cleared the infection. 

KAREN:  Uh-hum. 

LILLIAN:  Helped her with the infection.  It was like a -- it was already on a tip, Q-Tip, yeah, they were all in packets.  So it cleared up and healed real good.  Yeah. 

And then there -- there was another incident where I had -- there was a stabbing.  A stomach.  It was just superficial, but some of the intestine came out a little bit. 

What I had to do was -- that happened because he had to walk over to me.  And I bring him to the clinic and laid him on the table there, and cleaned him up.  Put a sterile bandage over it so -- yeah, and send him to the -- he went to Bethel.  I had to send him out.  That happened during the evening, I think. 

KAREN:  And that -- that truck accident, the cause was determined that there had been alcohol involved? 

LILLIAN:  Yes, it is alcohol related.  They were running -- driving up and down the airfield.  And I guess when he turned too fast or something, it tumbled over and just totaled. 

They are lucky.  One of the -- one of the -- one fell out through the windshield.  
And she was laying in -- on the side of the road, and we didn't -- I didn't know it when we went to pick -- we had -- we had to go down and pick her up because somebody came and told me there's somebody else on the field. 

So we went down there and I had -- by that time I had enough men that were able to help and brought her up. 

KAREN:  So the community would come and help if there was an emergency? 

LILLIAN:  Oh, yeah, I knew who to ask.  I did.  I knew who to ask to help.  And they were always there. 

KAREN:  And did you have vehicles at that point? 

LILLIAN:  Uh-hum (affirmative). 

KAREN:  You had --

LILLIAN:  We had trucks.  Uh-hum. 

KAREN:  Trucks. 

LILLIAN:  Yeah, we had trucks.

KAREN:  Because you were living out in Ghost Creek, right? 

LILLIAN:  Yeah.  A mile up.  I wasn't there at the time, this was in during the summer season, and people were fishing, and my health aide helper was in training, so what I did, I moved down from Ghost Creek to stay in her home, and lucky I was there. 

KAREN:  Yeah. 

LILLIAN:  Yeah. 

KAREN:  Because that's what I was wondering was when you lived at Ghost Creek, which was out of town, how did people get to you? 

LILLIAN:  She walked to me, to my door herself, holding her arm.  Told me, I got into an accident and my arm's broken.  She didn't feel any pain.  At the time anyway.  Uh-hum. 

KAREN:  Well, in other situations when you were out at Ghost Creek, did you have a telephone out there or people had to walk to get you, or --

LILLIAN:  They had to walk to get me.  Especially when there was -- I had two deliveries that one day, and I went to my mother-in-law and asked her to come with me. 

And we had to walk down to the village.  And -- or they brought us as far as the beach, and we walked the rest of the way.  And just -- we just got done delivering this one baby, and they sent for me and she was up and she was hemorrhaging. 

And I had to put her to bed and have her husband help me get two blocks of wood to elevate the bed so she would be -- you know, try not to have her hemorrhage too much.  She didn't give birth yet. 

KAREN:  Oh. 

LILLIAN:  But -- and by the time my mother-in-law came to me and stuff, I had her all ready for delivery. 

And after delivery, she didn't hemorrhage anymore.  It got daylight, of course, and I had to send -- I sent her to Bethel with the baby. 

And after that it was all done, somebody else, some -- some woman was having a baby, or she was having -- ready to have the baby, and sent her son up to come and get me.  And this was before the plane came in. 

And I asked my mother-in-law just to tend to her, to the other lady.  Because she was resting.  And I left her there and then I sent for another woman to come and help me. 

She didn't know, she said, I don't know what to do.  I said, I'll tell you what to do.  Just come and help me.  And so we delivered her. 

She delivered real fast all right.  And in fact, she had been in labor all while I was down there and I didn't know it.  But she had several babies and she knew exactly, you know, when to send for somebody. 

Well, that's only one time I had to do that.  You know.  Two deliveries in one day. 

KAREN:  I'm going to take a break here, close your window.  All right.  It's a little quieter now that the window's closed.

LILLIAN:  Uh-hum (affirmative).  I didn't notice it, yeah. 

KAREN:  Yeah.