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MG 1 volume 2124 number 217

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

PERSONAL TESTIMONY

Dr. Grace Rice.


Dr. Rice had very little to say. Worked in her office until four o'clock in the afternoon on the 6th of December. Then she went up to Richmond. Worked there for hours fixing people up as well as possible and sending them off to hospital. Sent many to monastery of the Good Shepherd. Went out to the monastery in the evening and worked there until two in the morning. Dr. Rice is rather inclined to think that the marvellous endurance of [pp] pain was as much due to unselfishness as to shocked nerves. Of course the pain must have been deadened to some extent, but many of the injured suffered horrible agony in silence. There were so many others to be looked after that each one let the doctors do their work as quickly as possible so that they might get on to others. The courage lasted a very long time. Is lasting up to the present day. Took two pieces of glass out of a patient on the 27th of May and the woman refused to take an anaesthetic as she was "afraid of dreams that might come". She sat there and let Dr. Rice work without flinching.
Dr. Rice did not work in the hospitals, but worked with the people who were not in hospital.