Escape speculations

[L Verge]

Somewhere, we were discussing the condition of Booth's leg by the time he reached the Garretts. I have to tell the story of one of our Surratt volunteers who right now is not able to work because his doctors have grounded him until his leg heals.

This gentleman is a train enthusiast and took a son and granddaughter to an antique train attraction in West Virginia on the Memorial Day weekend. While visiting the site, one of the personnel asked if they would like to ride a hand cart - that little "flatbed" machinery that is powered by two men pumping what I would describe as a seesaw.

As our volunteer started to mount the contraption, he tried to position his camera under his arm to protect it, and in the process, he banged his head on the handlebar of the machine - naturally causing heavy blood flow like one gets from most head wounds, no matter how slight. That injury caused one of his legs to slip off of the machine and scrape along his shinbone. It wasn't until after his head wound was stapled that he realized his leg was hurting. He pulled up his pants' leg and saw a nasty bruise starting, but no broken flesh. He thought nothing about it until about 24 hours later when the bruise was very impressive.

He came on home to Maryland and just stayed off of it for about ten days - refusing to go to the doctor even though it really started looking dangerous. When he could barely walk and the leg was swollen badly with lesions starting to form, he finally decided that his wife might be right that medical attention was needed.

He ended up in the hospital with a very serious infection and stayed there for a week. Even though the skin was never broken except for the infection-induced lesions, the doctors told him that any further delay in treatment might have cost him his leg.
He's now at home, but home nurses come by every other day to check on his progress and yelled at him because he wasn't resting enough with the leg elevated. The injury happened on May 23, and he's still home bound.

When he first called me with the news about June 1, all I could think of was Booth's broken leg. If my friend's bruise could turn so serious, I kept wondering what a broken bone being jostled around was doing inside Booth's leg for twelve days. I believe there is also a reference somewhere about the leg being rather sloppily wrapped and not really getting support. I tend to believe the soldier's statement that Booth's leg looked quite bad by the time he got across the Rappahannock River.