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BY: Okay, and you've also told me a story about a time when you were an orderly in Tule Lake, where there was a young, white man who was brought to the hospital. I would love for you to tell that story, it's very interesting.
HY: Well, there was a little town, there is a little town called Merrill, which is near Tule Lake. Tule Lake is just south of the Oregon/California border, Merrill is just a little bit north of the border. And he and his friend were trying to repair a car, motor of a car. And so, I don't know why, he took the air filter off the carburetor and poured gasoline on it, they were going to restart the car. When he poured the gasoline in the carburetor, his friend stepped on the starter, and, of course, the rotor spun inside the carburetor and a spark, and it spewed flaming gasoline all over this boy, and he got very, very badly burned. There was a hospital closer by -- not closer by -- at Klamath Falls, but that was more than thirty miles away from Merrill. But Merrill was only about ten or fifteen miles from the Tule Lake hospital, my camp hospital. So his parents chose to bring him -- because it was an emergency -- chose to bring him to Tule Lake hospital because it was much closer. And when they got him here, he was badly burned, he was burned all over. So one of my jobs, in those days, the doctor, instructor said, "Paint this burned boy's skin, his back and his chest, with a solution called gentian violet." Gentian violet is a type of a dye, but it had some antibacterial or antibiotic properties. It was an dye, so it made him kind of bluish purple, it would color the skin. And that's what my job was, my orderly job, was to paint his skin with this gentian violet solution every four hours, night and day. Of course, I only had one shift. But anyway, after about a day in the hospital, the kid obviously wasn't getting better. Because all they had at the Tule Lake hospital was intravenous saline. They did not have any blood, and that's what this kid needed, blood plasma, actually. But there was no means or way of processing blood plasma at our hospital, so they just give him salt solution and that wasn't enough, so he was dying. And then one day his parents came to visit him and he looked up at his parents and he said, "I don't want to be in this damn Jap hospital." And I went, oh, gee. You know, I didn't say anything or do anything, but man, this young kid is dying and he doesn't want to be helped in a Jap hospital. Man, that made me feel so bad. But he did die, he died in a hospital.
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