Before the days of routine tetanus vaccinations, Ollie Fisher injured her toe in her family’s garden as a 10-year-old in 1944. It got infected and she nearly died, but she recovered and went on to become a nurse.
By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org
At 90 years old, Ollie Fisher has a lot of memories tucked away in her brain. But her experience at Riley Hospital for Children when she was a young girl of 10 is quite clear.
“I just wanted to put in a word for Riley,” the Kokomo woman said by phone on the day the hospital celebrated its 100th birthday earlier this month. “Between Riley and God, my life has been saved.”
She went on to take the listener on a walk through her life, sharing stories sprinkled with wisdom, humor and love.
Fisher’s introduction to Riley came 80 years ago, thanks to what should have been the simplest of injuries. Then known as Ollie Purvis, she scraped her toe while weeding her family’s garden in Marion, Indiana, one summer day in 1944.
“I was barefoot, of course,” she said. “I was a little kid. Well, a germ got in there and gave me tetanus and lockjaw. After a few days, I couldn’t open my mouth.”
Tetanus is a potentially fatal bacterial infection that causes painful muscle spasms, often starting in the jaw and neck, and progressing to the rest of the body. Other symptoms include headache, fever, sweating, stiff muscles, seizures, high blood pressure and fast heart rate.
A vaccine, developed in 1924 and improved in 1938, can easily prevent the infection, but it was not widely used until 1948, when it was combined with diphtheria and pertussis toxoids to create the DTP vaccine.
Fisher, of course, didn’t know any of this. Nor did her parents. When she told them she didn’t feel well, they were just sitting down to dinner one night.
“I’ll never forget, it was a fried chicken dinner, and I just looked at it. I wanted it so bad, but I couldn’t open my mouth. My dad told me to go in the other room if I wasn’t going to eat, so that’s what I did.”
By the next morning, however, things had taken a turn. Somehow, she stood up, but that was as far as she got.
“I couldn’t take a step. I was stiff as a board.”
Her parents were getting ready for work, and she remembers starting to cry and making noises that sent them rushing in to see what was wrong, but she couldn’t talk through her clenched teeth.
They piled her into a car and drove her to the family doctor. After taking a look at her, the physician instructed her father to carry her out into the waiting room and lay her on the couch.
The doctor then pulled her parents aside and told them the devastating news: “He said I had lockjaw and probably wouldn’t survive. He said I had to go to Riley.”
The drive from Marion to Riley in Indianapolis was torture, she recalled.
“Every time we’d go over a bump, it would take my breath away.”
She remembers being put in an isolation room, where her parents could only look at her through a window of the door. But she also remembers feeling safe.
“They just treated me so well,” she said. “The nurses were so sweet and kind to me, and I made up my mind right then that I was going to be a nurse when I grew up. And I did.”
During her 32-day stay at Riley, she recalls that her brother was also in the hospital in Marion after being hit by a car.
Her father visited her a couple of times, taking a Greyhound bus and sleeping overnight in the bus station.
“When you don’t have a lot of money, I guess you do what you have to do,” she said.
Fisher recovered over the next month at Riley, then went home with no lingering effects, she said. She began her nursing career at Marion General Hospital and remembers later seeing her former doctor who delivered that devastating news to her parents in 1944.
“I worked in the surgery unit, and he saw me and told the other doctors that I was lucky to be here, that my life was saved at Riley Hospital. They were amazed.”
Fisher, who would go on to marry, have a family and work as a nurse for decades, said she sent many a child down to Riley for various ailments (including her own grandchildren), particularly during the years she worked as a school nurse.
“I just loved the children,” she said. “I even helped them with their homework.”
Even though she retired several years ago, she remains “on call” for her family, according to daughter Cynthia Fisher-Elkins, sometimes referring back to her old medical books when someone in the family has a question.
“She comes from strong stock,” Fisher-Elkins said.
Fisher has had other health scares over the years, including three strokes and several falls, but she remains mobile with the help of a walker, and she has many stories to share.
“I’m 90, but I remember everything. I dearly love Riley Hospital, and I felt like I had to talk to someone and tell them.”
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