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the time they got to Cozumel she was bed-bound. The ship gentleman whose family had run a small neighborhood grocery
didn’t dock, so she was transferred to the island by boat, where store in Mazatlan for many years. He was an American citizen,
a displaced intertrochanteric fracture was diagnosed. She had but had gone down there to help his siblings run the store after
purchased trip insurance from the Norwegian Postal Service, and their parents had died. I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but
when the situation was reported to the Service, they arranged somehow he got crosswise, to his detriment, with a man who had
for the transfer to San Antonio. Besides the fracture she was in a machete. He sustained several large but mostly superficial lac-
pretty good shape, so the next morning I fixed he hip. Although erations here and there, which had been given good first-aid, and
her granddaughter spoke fluent English, Grandma spoke only a both-bone fracture of his left forearm, thankfully closed. It was
Norwegian, which set up one of the more humorous moments. a fairly classic defensive injury. We got everything sutured up, I
After the surgery, my wife had insisted that I bring the exhausted fixed the fractures and we got him started on rehab for his shoul-
granddaughter home to our house to let her rest. She had stayed ders, which had taken most of the cutting injuries. He was dis-
overnight the first night at the hospital, sitting with her grand- charged to his home in Gilroy, California, known far and wide as
mother. I went to the hospital from my office later that day to “The Garlic Capital of the World.” A year or two later my wife
check on the patient. I came out of the room to the nurses’ desk and I were in the San Francisco
and told the staff I needed a translator. Several of the Hispanic area and we visited him and
folks volunteered, which wasn't much help since none of them his wife at their home.
spoke Norwegian. We ended up using the bedside phone to call I didn’t charge him for
my house and the granddaughter translated for us. Anyway, she the post-op home visit.
did well, we got her up and moving a bit, and when she was ready
for discharge after almost a week, the Norwegian Postal Service Fred H. Olin, M.D. is a
sent a physician and a nurse to accompany them back home, semi-retired orthopaedic surgeon
everyone in first-class seats all the way. who doesn’t miss taking trauma
The third one I can recall right now came in the same way, but call one bit…although sometimes
this time from Mazatlan. The patient was a middle-aged Hispanic it did get interesting.

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