Saturday, November 24, 2018

Ambulances Kept Busy at Camp Greene During Flu Pandemic, 1918

From The Caduceus, Camp Greene, Charlotte, N.C., Nov. 23, 1918

Somewhere through the stretches of Camp Greene there is always an ambulance running. During the recent influenza epidemic the entire squad of 15 machines was splashing through the mud and rain and racing through the night to answer the calls which kept the telephone at the headquarters of Ambulance No. 60 always jingling.

Ambulance Company No. 60 has made 2,709 calls, and a part of them require hours to execute, since that organization was given control of the motor carriers on August 6. It is estimated that more than 16,000 patients have been carried to and from the base hospital by the ambulance during the past three months, as six patients per load is the average for the calls answered by the Company No. 60 men.

During the months of October the ambulance drivers responded to 1,493 calls. Nearly 1,000 of that number was during the two weeks that the influenza raged in the camp. There were as high as 30 calls per day for a part of the machines and a part of the drivers would not leave their post for stretches of 48 hours. It was a fine show of American grit and the wild rides through part of the camp, when rain and mud and darkness combined against the weary pilot gives a record to the nervy crew that stacks up well against the noble showing of their brother drivers “over there.”

The drivers of the 12 ambulances, which are always in running order while three of the cars are being overhauled, are Fisher, Sharp, Ganey, Hancock, Brown, Arnison, Eckland, Jordan, Spencer, white, Busch and Bozanske. Sergeant W.A. Scanlan is mechanic for the machines and it is through his efforts that the cars, which have been in constant service for more than a year, are kept in perfect running order.

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