note: transcription publicly contributed - please contact us with comments, errors or omisions

MG 1 volume 2124 number 216a

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Archibald MacMechan, F.R.S.C.
Director
Halifax, N.S.

man. At Camp Hill Hospital the man got out of the car unassisted and started to walk up the steps with his arm round R. P.'s neck R. P. helping him. After two or three steps up the man fainted. R. P. carried him into the building.
R. P. made in all 23 trips on December 6th, from the devastated area to Camp Hill Hospital. Many of the cases he carried were very serious. One man had the jugular vein pierced, but the stopped the bleeding in time and he lived, (Captain MacDonald?) A woman had the back of her head and her neck cut very badly. In Russell Street he found a girl with every vestige of clothing gone, simply bathed in blood. R. P. thought that she was frightfully injured but found later that she only had surface cuts. However, there was hardly an inch of her body that was not cut or scratched. One woman had her breast completely cut off. A man with crushed side died in R. P.'s car on the way to hospital. A child of five years had a broken spine. "Affected me far worse than anything I saw in France". "Over there you don't see woman and children all broken to pieces". Drove car over fences and houses, collapsed. Blowouts, punctures. Went on flat tires. Car badly damaged. Required about $350 worth of repairs.
NOTE - Saw man with piece of wood--part of a window sash--driven through the back of his neck, from left to right, like a skewer.
Every [hou] second house on Macara St. was on fire. Once when there were three victims in the car the front of a burning house collapsed just as they were passing. Two beams, one burning fell across the car. One tire was burnt, a mud guard smashed, and the cowl and windshield were broken. A soldier on the running board was cut and R. P. swallowed some glass, but the car kept on.