Today’s Particularly Sad Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On December 6, 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a munitions ship (the Mont Blanc) collided with a vessel in the Narrows of the harbor, triggering a catastrophic fire and explosion that destroyed much of the city and killed over 1,600 people and injuring over 9,000. Many of the injured had been staring out the window at the burning vessel when it exploded, resulting in horrifying facial injuries from broken glass. Dr. George Cox, a local eye surgeon, operated for more than three straight days. Here is an excerpt about his efforts:
Friday night, Dr. Cox stood dazed, watching as his medical student carefully poured two or three droplets of chloroform onto ribbed cotton gauze. Cox was preparing to remove both of a man’s eyes. As the med student held the cone over the man’s face, Cox turned to his other patient, the man’s wife. He could save one of her eyes, Cox thought, if he took out the other, worrying about how a marriage could survive with one eye between them. ‘The double cases were particularly sad.’ He tried not to consider it; there were too many terrible cases, some so bad they could not be treated. ‘In one poor woman the whole frontal bone had been chopped off and she lay there with her brain exposed, moaning until she died some twelve hours after. It was said that she was found in her backyard holding her headless baby in her arms.’
Culled from: Curse of the Narrows