Our Clearing Company had been in Manila in the Philippines for only a short time when an ambulance drove up and announced they had a patient. This was a common, every day experience, nothing new or unusual. We immediately unloaded the patient, placed him in our observation room and began asking questions of those who brought him. He was unconscious, just barely breathing and would go into long periods of no life signs.
To keep him alive, I immediately began giving him artificial respiration. While some of his friends were there, I continued the respiration while talking with them to learn some of the details. He was eighteen years old, a Christian, didn't smoke and had never had a drink.
When this soldier's army outfit arrived in Manila, one of the civilians offered him a drink to celebrate their freedom from Japanese rule. In a weak moment he succombed and took his first drink.
As it turned out, the drink had been made with the wrong kind of alcohol--wood alcohol. At this point, when he took his first swallow, he began struggling for his life. By the time he arrived at our medical facility, he was in real trouble. It was at that point that I began the artificial respiration and continued without stopping for eight hours. The he gasped, took his last breath and died. We were sorry to lose him but we had done all we could.
This young fellow never had a second chance -- the first was his last.
Submitted by Arthur E. Harms
