IN BUSH HUT.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18904, 20 January 1927, Page 13

IN BUSH HUT.

DIFFICULT SURGERY.

FIGHT FOR YOUTH'S LIFE.

(7BOM OCR OW» COBMSPONDEKT.)

SYDNEY, January 13.

A surgical operation, in circumstances that must be unique, was recently performed by leading specialists of this city on a seventeen-year-old youth who had been the victim of a shooting accident in the Burragorang Valley, a practically uninhabited stretch of rough country in the Blue Mountains. Unable to remove the stricken lad from the valley, four surgeons scrambled down a rough,, narrow track, and performed a serious operation in a bush hut.

Tho accident to the youth, Allan Crago, a member of a well-known Sydney family, occurred on Boxing Day. He was shooting with three other youths when a rifle accidentally exploded. The bullet pierced Crago, passing through his kidney. One of the party was a Boy Scout with knowledge of first aid. He attempted to carry Crago on his back to tho only houso for miles around —the rough bush hut of a cattle breeder. Tho carrying hurt Crago, so his companions improvised a rough stretcher, and carried him to the hut.

Down Goat Track. Three doctors were summoned from Wentworth Falls, and they had to clamber down six miles bush track, broken and rugged, with stretcher, medical instruments, and supplies of food. A nurse and two other doctors followed a few hours later. It was seen that Crago could not be moved. Tough shelters were improvised with tarpaulins, and the doctors continued to tend him, one never leaving his side for a fortnight. It was then seen that tos ave Crago's life the' operation of removing the pierced kidney must be performed.

Ono of the leading surgeons of Macquarie street, the home of skilled "and expensive surgeons, was summoned to Wentworth Falls, and like his fellowdoctors, he was conducted down the rough six miles goat track. Onee in the valley, work was begun. In the old tumbledown hut tho surgeons fought for tho boy's life. It was a reward for such high human enterprise that the operation should have been attended with success. Though tho boy is evon yet too weak to travel to the top of the valley, and will be for several weeks, the daily news of his progress is that he is recovering well. The valley where the boy is lying is known as Kadumbaj and 60 or 70 years ago bushrangers found the rough track down, and made it their lair. The settler in whoso rough hut the operation was performed is the only one for miles around. Ho lives down there with his wife and two boys, tho latter of whom are being educated by correspondence. They make weekly trips to Wentworth Falls to post their lessons and home oxercises, and bring back provisions. Yet all along the banks of the creek at the foot of the valley is rich gardening country, but there is no outlet except by the rough track. They are still waiting for a road to be built which will give them access to profitable markets. As it is, they have to take their cattle by a circuitous route 60 miles to Camden, itself some 30 miles from Sydney, while the valley is not more than 50 miles from Sydney as the crow flies.