"get a tourniquet"

I was about 7 pm, we just drove in to the Chilliwack Garbage dump site....located out at Wolfe Road...there had been no one there for a while, the sun was just going down. The rats had not been disturbed for a while and were scurrying for cover....Whoa, look at em, they are all over the place ...we got out of Gordon's old 33 Chevrolet 4 door and took up our 22s . Mervin , Gordon and I....we were gonna shoot us some rats.....we have flash lights taped to the gun barrels ...when it gets dark the rats pink eyes light up like a neon....oh ya......that's was lots of fun......Gordon and I head in to the thick of it .....Mervin is back a bit....the rats had all hidden by then but as Gord and I were passing a old scrap of sheet tin , a rat made a noise under it....aah haa....hey Gord, if I will move the tin maybe you can you nail the bugger, ........So that I did...very carefully lifting it with my gun barrel.....hey....the rat ran out and right over Gordon's toes...Yipes...he swings the barrel down at the same time ...I think I heard ...bang.. YOICKS.....as he pulled the trigger and the bullet went in his foot.....the next thing a gumboot was kicked high in the air and Gord was hopping and hollering.... "the rat got away"....naw...he was yelling "get a tourniquet"......oh man....we did not know how bad it was and were scared silly....Gord jumped in the back seat and we got his foot up ...I was looking at it expecting it to be blown half off....Mervin was trying to start that stubborn old car...It was going eeern....eeern....eeern ....try again...ern ern it finally caught.....get a tourniquet....get a ...but I looked and there was a red mark on the top of his foot and this little spot on the bottom with a few drops of blood coming from it....It went clean through....hey, that doesn't look so bad.....and off to the hospital we go......it turned out it was quite bad for Gordon.....the bullet caught some bone on the way through and he had to deal with a cast for about 6 weeks....I guess that would be considered a gunshot wound...we expected some flack about that but there was nothing said ...... Merv and I went back to get his boot but it was gone....I wonder who needs one boot?....I guess explaining the cast and crutches was a bit embarrassing for a while...but it was soon another memory .....Gord and I still talk of the incident once in a while.


Dr. Barton was a veterinarian....his wife was a great lady named Bunny......The 3 kids were Jim,Ted and Alice May....they were about 2 years apart ..... Jim being the the oldest ......Barton's was a very special place.....a second home.....for a few years....grades 10,11 and 12 we would go to Bartons ...Mervin , Russ and I ( all in the same grade)......Russ lived directly behind their place across the alley .........Doc was a country veterinarian.....his job took him to farms all over the valley and to the experimental farms in B.C. He also had a building directly behind the house.......the office.....the hospital .....that's where he doctored the small animals....He never gave a bill to a kid....Doc let a lot of bills slide...it was not a money making empire for him....he was just a heck of a guy.
All of us boys had great experiences going with Doc on his rounds......as we turned 16 and got drivers licences we could chauffer him....... Doc's Chevrolet car was new and we all loved to drive it. .......we helped assisting births of animals, milk fever, operating for metal in cows stomachs, de horning, just lots of things....once when he was sewing up a cow he had taken some wire out of, he threw a little piece to the cat...I thought that was hilarious. Did you ever see a newborn lamb struggling to stand up minutes after delivery?...wow, that is something.... On a few occassions,Ted and I would persuade him to stop for a few hours fishing.... Jim had a shop in the basement ...he could be found there most of the time....always had a project going and all of the tools to do it with.....Ted was a few years younger and loved to fish.....I had an old 33 Chev car when I was 16...and we fished together a lot...We would drive to the drainage creeks in the Yarrow and Sumas Prairie area...there was a fine run of Cutthroat Trout in the Spring..........Doc had some great stories and advice....his favorite was ...Whatever you decide to do....do it well.... In 1957 I was in Merritt B.C. working on the gas line. I got a phone call from my mother....she told me Doc had drown in a fishing accident while at the Tranquille Experimental Farm at Kamloops lake...."Old Doc" was 54 years old.