Twelve Hours Adrift in January: A Lenora Rancher Loses Both Feet
Henry Schutze spent half a day drifting in an open boat on the Pend d'Oreille. He survived the cold, but the frostbite took both his feet at St. Luke's hospital in Spokane.
It was found necessary to amputate both feet of Henry Schutze, the Lenora rancher who was [adrift] for twelve hours in a boat on the Pend d'Oreille river on Jan. 26. The operation was delayed as long as possible in the hopes of saving his feet, but it was found impossible to do so. The operation was performed at St. Luke's hospital, Spokane.
“The operation was delayed as long as possible in the hopes of saving his feet, but it was found impossible to do so.”
Before the bridges and paved roads, the Pend d'Oreille was a highway and a trap at once: a rancher's errand could turn into a night in an open boat. Frostbite amputations were ordinary industrial-age medicine, and St. Luke's in Spokane was the nearest place that could perform them. Northeastern Washington is still a country of long drives and thin emergency services, where weather decides who gets home.
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