Kitchen-table appendectomy in 1916 Alberta

Jim Thompson, MD
Sundre, Alta.

CJRM 1998;3(3):166-67

Rural Roots features items on the history of rural medicine, to show where we've been and therefore where we're going. Submissions are welcome. Please send your submissions to the Editor: Box 1086, Shawville QC J0X 2Y0 or email them to cjrm@fox.nstn.ca

© 1998 Society of Rural Physicians of Canada

The Yo Ha Tinda Ranch is a federal government horse ranch in a beautiful, remote mountain valley west of Sundre, in south-central Alberta, on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Today Sundre's ambulance can drive there, up a dirt road at the end of a paved country highway. In 1915 there were no doctors in Sundre, and the only access to the ranch was by horse path, or through the mountains from Banff to the south.

Muriel Eskrick, a local resident and amateur historian, told the story of a little girl's appendectomy this way.¹ [Quoted with permission.]

In the winter of 1915­16, Ike's stepdaughter, Frances, was stricken with ruptured appendix. Unable to move her, with no roads but pack trails, Ike saddled and rode to Sundre. He phoned a doctor in Olds, who refused to make the trip to the ranch. Ike turned back for the Yo Ha Tinda, changing horses at John Morgan's ranch. Reaching home, he paused long enough to again change horses, and then headed through the mountains to Banff. Obtaining fresh horses from L.C. Crosby at Banff, Ike and Doctor G.M. Atkins began the treacherous trek back over the ice of the Cascade and Panther Rivers and the snow-blown mountains, the doctor first making arrangements for his nurse, Miss Pulcher, to start for Sundre, via Calgary and Olds, by train. In those days the pack trail crossed and re-crossed mountain streams, and while making one crossing, the doctor's horse plunged through the ice, throwing the doctor right under the water. They stopped long enough to light a fire and dry out a bit. Ike had brought along some cheese and a bottle of whiskey for sustenance on the trip. One can imagine the whiskey being put to good use right about then. In all, twenty-one river crossings had to be made in order to reach the Brewster Ranch. Those, plus snow-filled gulches and wind-swept mountain ridges, must have made this trip a nightmare ordeal.

They arrived at the ranch to find the little girl dangerously ill . . . . Without rest, Dr. Atkins turned the kitchen into a makeshift operating room and placing Frances on the table, proceeded to operate, with Billie Winters assisting.

N.T. Hagen of Sundre, always a willing neighbor in times such as these, was waiting in Olds with his faithful Model T, and met Miss Pulcher at the station. He brought her as far as Coal Camp. Billie Winters met her with a team and buggy and they headed west as fast as they could. The wagon trail went as far as Bill Logan's ranch. When they arrived they found the house in darkness. Bill Logan was away, but they made a quick lunch and Winters saddled the team he had been driving, and in the pitch black night, they started the final twenty-mile stretch of the trail to the Yo Ha Tinda.

Dr. Atkins stayed with the young patient for several days before returning to Banff. He must have been a very weary, but extremely satisfied man, for the operation was successful. He was called to the ranch a few days later, when Frances' condition seemed worse. He made this trip by train to Olds, with N.T. Hagen once more supplying transportation from there to Coal Camp and Rube Brooks meeting him at that point with saddle horses. Frances made a complete recovery.

Dramatic as this anecdote seems, it describes common practice in rural Alberta until the 1940s. Surgery often was done out of saddlebags on kitchen or schoolroom tables, and transport to hospital often was not available in winter.

Today a Basic Life Support ambulance can pick up a septic patient in the Yo Ha Tinda after a radiotelephone call from Sundre, a 2.5-hour round trip. The patient would be assessed by 1 of 6 doctors in the Emergency Department at Sundre Hospital. Depending on the patient's condition, he or she might be admitted to Sundre hospital for antibiotics, transferred to Olds by ground ambulance for surgery, or transferred to Calgary by helicopter for intensive care management.

Reference

1. Eskrick M. Road to the Yo Ha Tinda -- a story of pioneers. Sundre (AB): Sundre Round-Up Press; 1960. p. 20-1.