Fear & Shock

For all their studies of accident victims and war wounded, doctors still cannot explain much about individual differences in reaction to shock. One thing that has a lot to do with the effects of shock, many doctors believe, is fear. Not only will fear of pain make pain feel worse, but fear itself seems to contribute directly to the shock reaction, so that one man may die helplessly where another may save himself. Last week, to support this view, came the story of a man who had little fear.

Carl Creel, 26, a mechanic six weeks out of the Army, was jouncing along a Mississippi highway one day when he hit a hole in the road and his car flipped over on its side. Creel's left arm, part way through the window, was trapped between the car and the paving. He could think of only one thing to do, and he did it. As Creel told his own case history:

"The blood was jetting out more than a foot. I was afraid the car would catch on fire, so I got my knife out of my pocket and went to work. The skin was not too hard to cut, but every time I chopped through a tendon I felt a jerk in the nerves of my neck. The cutting was made easier by the fact that bones in the arm were broken through. I just followed the line of the break with the blade of my knife."

Thus Creel amputated his forearm. Holding the arm against his ribs and squeezing it with his right hand to stanch the bleeding, he walked a mile to the nearest house, where he got a towel for a crude tourniquet. Two hours after the accident, he got to a hospital in Hattiesburg. Professionals tidied up his rough & ready surgery, and Creel was soon resting easily. Then he expressed his chief fear: that the amputation might make it harder for him to support his wife and baby.

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