Naval Air Station Hospital, Jacksonville, Florida

December 24, 1960, Christmas Eve, I was 22 years old the previous July.  A good friend named Rodney D. (Rocky) Lewis called and asked if I could help him change a rear wheel bearing in his car.  He was from Georgia, and he and his wife and daughter wanted to go home for Christmas, but the wheel bearing had gone bad during the day.

We removed the back axle with the attached wheel bearing.  We took it to a parts place where we thought they would use a hydraulic press to remove and reinstall a new bearing on the axle for us.  They had no mechanic on duty because it was Christmas Eve.  We tried several places all with the same result.  We then returned to Rocky’s home.  I decided we could remove the old bearing somehow, and the new one would not be difficult at all to replace.  I tried to pry it off with several available tools with no luck.  In desperation I picked up a hammer and cold chisel in an attempt to cut it off.  I made little headway until I picked up a larger hammer.  When I swung the sledge, the bearing broke and pieces flew everywhere.

It was only a few minutes later until we had the new bearing in place and reinstalled the axle in the car.  Rocky, Harriett, and the baby were good to go, but for some reason I was seeing black spots in front of my eyes.  When Rocky returned from a short test drive I told him I needed to go to a hospital as I had something wrong with my vision.  From the clinic on Cecil Field I was removed to the US Naval Hospital at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville a few miles distant.

X-rays showed that I had some retained foreign bodies deep within my right eye and it was bleeding internally.  Pieces of magnetic steel, non-magnetic steel, and cement from Rocky’s porch steps were all embedded within the eye.  With the use of an electromagnetic needle the magnetic particles were removed by Doctor Lauuwe, but the remainder of the particles stayed where they were.  After six weeks of bed rest with bandaged eyes I was finally allowed to arise, but with very little vision in that eye.  I spent about half of 1961 in the hospital and the other half on light or limited duty.