<Begin Segment 19>

JN: Was that hose the thing that you had an accident with?

RT: Yeah. And what I used to do -- and after they built the swimming pool, I used to go down there three o'clock in the morning, because it's hot all the time, see, in the summer. I used to go down there three o'clock in the morning, and I'd swim for a while for my exercise and stuff. And then I'd come back and we'd start cookin'. Well, so one day, I guess my eyes weren't open enough. And I came back and -- see, you make coffee hobo-style, a big pot of water and you put the coffee in the sack, and you put it in there and shake it up and down. Yeah, the color's right, okay. [Laughs] So I'd just got through makin' the coffee. And see, they're 30-gallon pots that we're makin' this stuff in, in boiling hot water. I and another guy was taking it to the counter, and I slipped on the water hose, and I ended up in the hospital.

So after that, I was, I stayed in the hospital for almost a month. And it's amazing. I got one little scar right there, and my arm and everything. The doctor that was there says, "You watch this." Get, took a tweezer, skinned me alive. And he says, "Watch it real good, you'll it get, it turns shiny." He says, "You can't just pull it down. You gotta go slow." He says, "You might wonder why I don't do it quick. I gotta go slow." He says, "You watch, it gets shiny as it, as I pull it down." And that's what happened. The skin is forming that fast.

TI: You mean he took a scalpel or...?

JN: He was all burned, you see...

TI: Oh, you were burned?

RT: I was burned complete, see.

JN: By that boiling water he spilled.

TI: Okay.

RT: Gee, I was surprised. I said, "Gee, what's that shiny stuff?" "That's new skin coming on," he says. "This way here, you won't get, you won't get blood poisoning or anything."

JN: I think he's an exceptionally powerful healer, because he's gone through many physical things that he's survived. He heals...

RT: So after that, when I came back, why, after they let me out of the hospital, then I stayed, I had to stay in the barrack for about a week.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.