Flooding Doesn't Keep Dr. Mudgett From His Patient, March 9, 1922

Modern Physician Has His Troubles

Much has been told of the tribulations of the old-time country doctor and his faithfulness in getting over difficulties to see his patients, but the present differs from the past in most things only in a different date on the calendar.

Not long ago when the rains had filled the streams of the county to over-flowing, it transpired that Dr. Mudgett had at the hospital at the Farm Life School a serious case that had been sent over from Southern Pines and was followed by an operation that compelled close attention. The case had been one that required quick action, and the friends of the invalid, who was from the North, had urged that the sick man be sent to Raleigh for the operation. The doctor told them there was no time to get to Raleigh as the job was one requiring immediate attention, so the man was taken to McConnell, and there a quick operation brought quick relief. But it was the type that had to be followed up, and the morning after the operation Dr. Mudgett started for the hospital. He knew he could not get through with his big car, owing to the condition of the roads after the night of snow and rain, and he set out in a Ford. He reached the river below McCaskill’s and found the bridges and the whole bottom under water. He slowly crossed the first bridge, passed through the water in the bottom, which was so high on his car he feared any minute that it might drown him out or wash the car from the road, and then as he reached the second bridge he saw that it was impossible to get over, as some of the bridge seemed to be gone. He backed out, worked his way over the bridge he had crossed, reached the road by the McLean place, and turned out toward Carthage. At the cement bridge on the Carthage road he had more difficulty, as the road there was drowned out, but by crowding through he reached the other side and then worked around by Zeb Blue’s and down that way to the hospital, where he found his patient in excellent shape, gave him the proper attention, and pulled him through in a few days so he was able to be out.

When asked what he would have done if he had stuck in the water, the doctor said: “It would have been a case of wade to shore and get to the hospital, for the man had to be attended to, and it was not a matter of getting wet or leaving the car to pulled out later. It was simply one of reaching that sick man dressing those wounds and taking care of him.”

The man was a Highland Pines Inn guest, and it is not likely that the McConnell hospital lost any of the esteem of the people at the hotel when the story became known.

From the Moore County News, Carthage, N.C., March 9, 1922