In every settlement Doctor Grenfell was hailed by folk who needed a doctor.  There was one broken leg that required attention, one man had a broken knee cap.  In one house he found a young woman dying of consumption.  There were many cases of Spanish influenza and several people dangerously ill with bronchial pneumonia.  There was one little blind child later taken to the hospital at St. Anthony to undergo an operation to restore her sight.  In the course of that single journey he treated eighty-six different cases, and but for his fortunate coming none of them could have had a doctor’s care.

He found the lad Ambrose suffering intense pain.  After his accident the lad had been carried home by a friend.  His people did not know that the thigh was broken, and when it swelled they rubbed and bandaged it.

The pain grew almost too great for the boy to bear.  A priest passing through the settlement advised them to put the leg in splints.  This was done, but no padding was used, which, as every Boy Scout knows, was a serious omission.  Boards were used as splints, extending from thigh to heel and they cut into the flesh, causing painful sores.

The priest had gone, and though Ambrose was suffering so intensely that he could not sleep at night no one dared remove the splints.  The neighbors declared the lad’s suffering was caused by the pain from the injured thigh coming out at the heel.

Ambrose was in a terrible condition when Doctor Grenfell arrived.  The pain had been continuous and for a long time he had not slept.  The broken thigh had knit in a bowed position, leaving that leg three inches shorter than the other.

It was necessary to re-break the thigh to straighten it.  Doctor Grenfell could not do this without assistance.  There was but one thing to do, take the lad to St. Anthony hospital.

A special team and komatik would be required for the journey, but the lad’s father had no dogs, and with a family of ten children to support, in addition to Ambrose, no money with which to hire one.  A friend came to the rescue and volunteered to haul the lad to the hospital.

It was a journey of sixty miles.  The trail from the village where Ambrose lived rose over a high range of hills.  The snow was deep and the traveling hard, and several men turned out to help the dogs haul the komatik to the summit.  Then, with Doctor Grenfell’s sledge ahead to break the trail, and the other following with the helpless lad packed in a box they set out, Ambrose’s father on snowshoes walking by the side of the komatik to offer his boy any assistance the lad might need.

The next morning Doctor Grenfell was delayed with patients and the other komatik went ahead, only to be lost and to finally turn back on the trail until they met Grenfell’s komatik, which was searching for them.

The cold was bitter and terrible that day.  The men on snowshoes were comfortable enough with their hard exercise, but it was almost impossible to keep poor Ambrose from freezing in spite of heavy covering.  Now and again his father had to remove the moccasins from Ambrose’s feet and rub them briskly with bare hands to restore circulation.  He even removed the warm mittens from his own hands and gave them to Ambrose to pull on over the ones he already wore.