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Title
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Scottsbluff Narratives, 1937_008
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Alternative Title
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1937 Scottsbluff Narratives
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Date
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1937
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Creator
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Frank Shoemaker
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Description
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Frank Shoemaker - Sandhills Narratives
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Identifier
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321301
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Transcription
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2 As I was bleeding profusely from several scalp wounds, the blood oozing out under my hat-band and selecting tangents across my cheeks, all unknown to me, this admission must have afforded my listeners an impressive example of under-statement. I was conducted to a car and we rushed to Gering, only a half mile distant: the driver, myself, and a good Samaritan whose name I never learned. Immediately after seeing the flow of blood from the arm wound I had stuck my right hand inside my clothing next to the skin and had used them and fingers as a tourniquet; I remember how they ached from the long-continued pressure. I was asked which of the two Gering doctors I wished to handle the matter. I knew neither personally, but I remembered that one of them I had seldom seen on the street without a cigaret in his face or fingers; so on a chance I indicated the other. Contact with this doctor fortunately was prompt, and I began to receive proper attention. The doctor explained, as he did the first things, that the cleaning and stitching would be painful, and that he would give me an anesthetic. Twenty-eight years before, I had had my sole hospital experience; a burst appendix, peritonitis. I remembered the stultifying and retarding effect upon recovery, of my anesthetic (absolutely necessary in that case); so I told the doctor that, unless he definitely ordered anesthesia, as was his right, I would prefer to consciously stand the pain. He was kind enough to let me have it my way; reassuring me, however, that it would hurt plenty. -As a diagnostician he approached perfection; it did hurt plenty.
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Rights
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To inquire about usage, please contact Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. These images are for educational use only. Not all images are available for publication.
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Is Version Of
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frank_h_shoemaker_321301-01024.jpg
