One Man With Courage Makes a Majority
Jeff Milton vs. The Burt Alvord Gang
By: Bob Boze Bell 03/01/2007
The Race to Save Jeff Milton
After standing off five armed outlaws all by his lonesome, Jeff Milton is rushed to Benson where a special engine and boxcar arrives to transport him to the hospital in Tucson. An improvised tourniquet goes a long way in helping save Milton’s life. At Saint Mary’s hospital in the Old Pueblo, Dr. H.W. Fenner operates on Milton’s shot-up arm, tying the bone with piano wire.
After nearly three hours under chloroform, Milton awakes in the night, thirsty for water. A young Mexican boy, assigned to watch over Milton, tells the lawman he is on strict orders not to give Milton any water.
“Listen here,” the grizzled lawman hisses at the boy. “If you don’t bring me some water, when I get up from here, I’m going to kill you.”
The boy quickly brings a pitcher of water. Jeff drinks it all, calls for more and finishes three pitchers before his thirst is satiated. Then he sleeps eight hours.
A nurse arrives the morning and notices Milton’s gun under his pillow. The nurse reprimands him, “You can’t keep that thing there.” He replies, “Well, if I can’t, I’ll go to another hospital.”
With the wound not healing properly, Dr. Fenner sends the lawman to San Francisco for treatment. By this time, Milton’s arm is stinking and his left leg is swelled up to the size of his body. When the doctors at the Southern Pacific Hospital tell Milton to prepare his will because they are amputing his arm at the elbow, Milton tells them they aren’t taking off his arm. He asks for the bill and pays it.
Someone chauffeurs him to Lane Hospital in San Francisco so he can be seen by Dr. Goodfellow, an old friend of his from Tombstone. Ordering Milton a whiskey, the doctor probes and cleans out the wound, fitting his patient with a brace to support his arm. Goodfellow predicts Milton will never use the arm again.
Milton throws the brace out the train window on his way back to Arizona. He fashions a buckskin bag with birdshot, which he ties to his wrist so he can constantly attempt to grab it with his bad hand. Over time, he is able to flex his hand, but he never does recover the free use of his arm.
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