SAVED HER AUNT’S LIFE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8360, 21 February 1913, Page 5

SAVED HER AUNT’S LIFE

GIRL WHO GAVE A FOOT OF SKIN IN FORTY-THREE PIECES. LONDON, January 12. The courage of Miss Lily Headford, of Lodge road. West Croydon, marks her out even among brave women. Miss Headford, who is only twentytwo, still suffers intense pain at times from the effects of her heroic self-sacri-fice in permitting no less -than a square foot of her skin to (be grafted on the head of her aunt, Mrs Solomon, of Park road, Kingston-on-Thames, who was completely scalped by a shafting accident at her husband’s laundry last spring. Mrs Solomon was removed to the London Hospital, where the doctors took as much skin as possible from her body to graft on her scalp. More was wanted if she was to recover, and Miss Headford directly she heard, volunteered ail the live skin necessary. ' On May 30th aunt and niece were placed side by side on chairs in the operating room of the London Hospital. Miss Headford was put under an anaesthetic, and forty-three pieces of her skin were grafted on Mrs Solomon’s bead. Mies Headford lay unconscious for several hours afterwards, and suffered intense agony during the waking hours which followed. For three months sho remained an invalid, and until the last few weeks she has been unable to do finy work. , „ J “Though the paiu is still rather )bad at .times and the left leg has still not completely healed," said Miss Headford — ,«vno m a pretty, dark-haired girl—“L would cheerfully go through it all again. I do not think it was anything brave to do at all. The sole reason for my action, if I must say it, was that I knew my aunt and uncle were devoted to each other, that auntie has had a lot of trouble, that uncle and the two young children were missing her dreadfully, and that it would be awful if anything happened to her." Her Majesty the Queen has, in a letter to a friend of Miss Headford, shown her appreciation of the young lady’s courage.