Open Features: The Airport Was Deserted
"What shall I do?'' asked the nurse. Arthur Grace, who lives in the Phillipnes, recalls a roll-reversal incident that occurred during his Royal Air Force service.
The airport was deserted. Our graveyard shift had dispatched the last plane and settled down for a few hours sleep leaving me to nurse a sore finger.
Somehow I’d got a splinter embedded down the side of a nail, and it hurt. I walked over to the sick bay where a lone nurse kept vigil.
It was dark inside except for a pool of light around her desk. She was small and as dark as the surrounding room. Introductions over, and need explained, I waited expectantly for her expert attention.
“What shall I do?” she asked.
Taken aback at this reversal of roles I proferred “Can you dig the splinter out?”
“What shall I use?”
By this time not only my finger throbbed. My forehead was beginning to throb too.
“Have you got a needle?” I ventured.
She thought for a moment then, tentatively showing one from a hypodermic syringe, quavered “Will this do?”
I accepted that it might and prepared for action. It did not start immediately.
“Do you think I ought to put something on?” she essayed.
After a few moments I suggested “How about rubbing alcohol?” That got us moving.
She dug around for a while and seemed satisfied all the splinter was out, then I found the room beginning to spin a little and I called a halt. Just as well as the nurse had a feeling an anti-tetanus shot might be called for. I claimed I still felt dizzy and promised to report for one later.
Fiftee years later, and retired here in the Philippines, I still have to honour that promise. Happily, my sister-in-law, on a holiday visit a week after the incident, sterilized a needle over a candle flame and removed a sizable chunk of wood, so no harm done.
