top of page
Writer's pictureCharlie B

Adventures of a Bamfield Doctor

Updated: Apr 26, 2020

I returned to Bamfield in the 1990s as a tourist years after my commercial fishing. When the children were small, as a family we spent many holidays in rented accommodation in Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast. As the years went on we found it to be increasingly busy with development and the appearance of many boats and six or so seaplane flights with roaring engines charging in and out of the harbour starting at six o’clock in the morning. Party time on anchored boats seemed to start at noon and go on all night. So the shine gradually came off this destination especially when the kids got older and had summer plans with friends and had other interests. The last straw for me was the sight of water skiers weaving around the bay impinging on the fishing boats. The accessible sport fishing declined also.


Captaining the Jennings boat, Queen Mary in Bamfield, 2015

One of our UBC staff nurses Sheila had moved to Bamfield with her husband who had built a big motor sailer boat in his back yard with a view to retirement to take up commercial fishing.

She took the job as nurse in the small Red Cross hospital which supplied nursing services to the community.  She replaced an older nurse who was retiring after serving for many years. The unit was on the West side of the Inlet with an attached house and a dock for boats. She invited me to visit so I went over in my camper and in the process renewed my acquaintance with the Ostrom family who remembered the Jean B and brother Dick from the 1940s and 50s. The. family - Roald, Ebba Carl, we’re still alive and I met teacher daughters Suzanne and Katherine. Ebba’s husband was a ball of fire working the gas dock, gardening all at full throttle. He had a small boat with a commercial licence so he could sell his fish. He would go out at daylight, come in at 8 o’clock from fishing, sell his fish next door at the MacMillan fish camp, eat breakfast and then open the gas dock. Full speed !! I went out with him a few times. Continuous conversation and a laugh a minute.

Kathleen and Suzanne Jennings

On their invitation I tied my boat to their dock and parked my camper at the back of their wonderful wild garden full of rhododendrons and flowers with a little stream and ornamental pond. Sheer heaven. I returned here annually for many years and it was a great privilege. This continued right until about 2018.


My camper in the Jenning's garden


There was no doctor in Bamfield. The nurse handled everything that came along to the Red Cross unit. Severe problems were evacuated by air or over the logging road to the hospital in Port Alberti.  The nurse seemed to know when I was in residence in the back yard and if she had a problem she would ask me to help. Sometimes it got a bit busy. Maybe since I didn’t charge it was more attractive. Great way to meet the community.

Some of the medical interactions were memorable. The Coast Guard became aware that I was there too . So I was asked a few times to help with acute special problems, usually serious ones. For instance the Coast Guard pulled up at my camper to say that a First Nations lady in  the Pachena village nearby had collapsed. Away we went top speed. When we arrived there was no need to ask where she was because a large crowd stood at the front of a house which extended up the front steps. I shouldered my way into the crowded kitchen and directed into a bed room where a frantic substitute older nurse was attempting rudimentary CPR. On the bed was a large older lady, blue, not breathing and with no heart beat her pupils were dilated and fixed. She appeared to have been dead for some time. The poor nurse was a wreck feeling that she could have done more. I spoke to her distraught husband. At that moment a rescue helicopter landed in the adjacent field ant two paramedics emerged on the run. I met them at the bottom of the stairs and after a bit of an exchange told them the situation. They stood down after looking at her.  Months later an autopsy report came through. She had died of a huge pulmonary embolus, a blood clot from her leg that travelled to her lungs.

The nose bleed.  Memorable. A hammering on the camper door at midnight revealed Leonard with a flashlight to say that the nurse needed me urgently to  help with a hemorrhage. A quick trip in the small Jennings boat in the pitch black waving a flashlight got me up to the scene of the action. There was blood every where. An older lady was having a torrential bleed out of her left nostril. I determined that it was from the back of the nose in the pharynx. She volunteered that she had similar small bleeds in the past and was told that she had a venous malformation in that area.  She also said that she had been told that she had poor blood clotting tendencies.

The unit had no nasal packing kits. After brain storming I asked if there were any tampons and they were duly produced, a selection of sizes. There were also urinary catheters. I tied the tampon string around the the tip of the catheter, pushed it up her nose and reached into the back of her throat with a clamp forcep and pulled the catheter and string out of her mouth. Then with gentle pulling I pulled the tampon to which I tied a second string on the opposite end up her nose, into the back of her throat. I now had two strings, one out of her mouth and one out of her nose. I tightened them up and secured them with an artery forcep which hung down to her chin.  A bizarre sight but it did the job. At daylight she was transported to Port Alberni hospital. I was told later that the lady with the dangling forcep created a sensation. The didn’t remove it for some time. Fortunately she was a wonderful patient, she remained calm and cooperated fully. I received a nice thank you letter later. I went back to bed!!


Cleaning fish on the Bamfield dock in 2018: not quite my top speed of 3 per minute in 1948 on the Jean B

I was at a retirement beach party at Brady’s beach. Suddenly the Coast Guard red inflatable roared around the point and landed on the beach. I heard my name being called and the next thing that I knew I was flying up the Inlet at top speed the Red Cross dock had a small group of people clustered around a supine figure laying on the dock. Someone was attempting CPR. He was a very big older man. Two American fishermen up the channel saw an aluminum boat going in circles with a slumped figure in the stern, fishing rod clutched against his chest. They managed to chase and board it. They said later there was actually a salmon on the line !! They pulled him into their boat and took off for Bamfield, providing what CPR as was possible. They deserved a lot of credit. He was quite dead. I noticed a nitro patch on his upper chest so he apparently had a cardiac history. I heard no follow up.

Embedded fish hooks before barbless regulations were an ongoing problem. The nurse was very slick at extracting them. She had a large cork board in the waiting room of the clinic covered with recovered hooks. The Macmillan company fish plant was right next door to the Ostrom’s where I parked. The manager fish buyer was a young guy that I came to know. I bought cooler ice from him. Several times, fishermen would come in there with various problems and he would ask me to help. One time he asked me to come down to help a guy with an embedded fish hook in his chin. The nurse was away somewhere. I was confronted with two older men sitting side by side with arms folded uncommunicative. I inquired as to who had the hook and one of them pointed at the other without a word. I could t see a hook but on closer examination there was a small hole under his chin with a stain of blood around it. On inquiring where the hook was the patient pointed at his partner and said “asshole cut it off. So the severed shank had retracted into the tissue under the tongue where the big barbed No. 2 blue salmon hook was embedded . Smaller problem suddenly became bigger. I thought there would be a problem getting ahold of the shank but even more recovering the deeply embedded barb.

This could involve going up to the hospital but they implored me to try. I had my bag with some freezing, scalpel curved forcep. I stretched him out with a pad behind his neck, put in some local, opened the skin a bit, located the shank stub, grasped this and to my surprise, with rotation and traction the hook backed right out with minimal bleeding. A steristrip to the skin a cloth pressure pad on the wound and a wrap secures around and tied at the top of his head and he was out the door mumbling thanks and how much did he owe me. I suggested that he leave a donation for the underfunded RedCross clinic. He never did!

The Fisherboy 2 - a sister ship to our boat years ago - was tied up at the Ostrom gas dock. The current Native owner, a really good guy was down in the engine room changing the oil in the engine collapsed with severe abdominal pain. He was draped over the engine in fetal position barely able to speak. I managed to press his abdomen and it was rock hard. Obviously an inter abdominal catastrophe. He could not move with the spasm and pain. Luckily I had a syringe and vial of the narcotic pain killer demerol. I managed to give him a small amount intravenously and the rest deeply into his posterior. As he gradually relaxed, with the help of three others we managed to move him up the narrow ladder to the deck. His vital signs were ok.

His abdomen was rigid and silent. Ruptured internal organ?  Ruptured aortic aneurysm ?  It didn’t matter. We had him air evacuated to hospital and at my description of the situation they prepared an operating room for him on arrival. He had a ruptured ulcer in his upper gastrointestinal tract with peritonitis. After a prolonged period he made a full recovery.

Late the following spring I was reading in my camper and answered a knock at the door. There he was, thinner but grinning away. After cheerful greetings he said “doc I got somethin’ for you”. He stood aside and here was a wheel barrow full of freshly caught sockeye. I was speechless but finally blurted out thanks but said I didn’t think it was legal to accept Native caught food fish. He grinned even wider and said don’t worry if you are checked they are so stupid just tell them that they are Mexican cohos!!   So Leonard and I had a canning event.


Getting ready for a day of fishing with my friend, Ralph Christensen

I had quite a few other adventures. A group of visiting American fishermen were living in the motel. The nurse had a call that one of them had a problem. I walked over into a room full of cigar smoke with a hot poker game in progress. In the bedroom a man was moaning and writhing on the bed. It turned out that he had a large inguinal hernia for years which had always been reducible - until now. It obviously had been out all day and swollen and non reducible I didn’t try to hard in case the enclosed bowel without its blood supply was compromised and the bowel damaged. He needed surgery quickly and needed middle of the night transport to the hospital over the bumpy road 60 km away. Confronting the poker players I informed them of the situation and since their big canopied pick up truck at the door I identified the owner and told him to get moving. He objected strenuously because “ my fish are in the back”. With restraint we prevailed and put a mattress and blankets into the back of the truck and with a shot of painkiller the nurse and patient left to meet the ambulance coming from Port Alberni. The surgeon was waiting and he made a successful recovery.

Other briefer descriptions: An elderly guy from Victoria appeared at the clinic in urinary retention. He had been drinking beer all day and yanking on the starting cord of a balky outboard engine. The nurse asked for help. His bladder was almost up to his belly button. Fortunately the clinic had a selection of catheters and I asked her to bring me one and specified the size. She appeared with as short very short thin catheter designed for women.I held it up in front of her face and said with all due respect to her husband this wouldn’t cut it. She actually blushed. Fortunately the proper catheter went in ok and, called a Foley, has a side arm on it with a water inflatable balloon on the end which when blown up retains the catheter into the bladder. The bladder had to be emptied slowly over many hours to prevent possible shock. Attached to a leg bag he and his friend he and his friend headed to Victoria in the morning for later prostate surgery I presume.


So there was the visiting Russian marine scientist whose wife  wanted to commit suicide. There was a lovely older American couple in a huge motor home who I was asked to visit and was able to help with a problem. He was flabbergasted when I didn’t want to be paid. I had tea instead. I recall that he commented that we should all be one big country. I informed him that my ancestors had helped to kick them out of Canada in the war of 1812. His response was that he didn’t know nuthin’ about that and was very surprised.


There was a young hippie girl pregnant at term who wanted to have her first baby in a tent at Brady’s beach and wanted me to attend. It came out that she had ruptured membranes. After considerable argument we shipped her out to the hospital in Port Alberni.  No sand castle obstetrics for me !!


Brady's Beach

There were lots of other minor incidents. I was happy to help the community and I even had lots of time to fish and visit. My wife Joan, who died in 2005, enjoyed her books, walks and visiting with the Ostroms. Occasionally on a nice evening she would come fishing and several times hooked a salmon on a jig. However she would rather read a book in the bow and talk to the sea gulls .


When I returned to Bamfield in the late 90s or early 2000s a new hospital and residence was being built on the East side of the Inlet. We were invited by the Red Cross to stay in the residence for a week or so. A close friend who I worked with at UBC, a talented nurse named Audrey supervised the unpacking of bedding, the making of beds, the unpacking of dishes and flat wear, installing them in cupboards and drawers.. There was a helicopter landing pad at the back of the residence between it and the clinic building. We witnessed the first rescue helicopter land there. Its down draft blew all of the tiles off the roof of the residence back porch!!


I understand that the village has much better medical services now with a regularly visiting doctor including occasional specialists. The clinic building is well designed and offers various community outreach programs. Better than a peripatetic doc with a fishing rod in his hand !!

The end of an era for me. At age 88 with the burden of old age I doubt that I will be able to visit again.

320 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Комментарии


bottom of page