Kenny's Loggin' – A Hip Replacement

Dec 19, 2024 - 8 months ago

Normally work got going around end of March, this year was different.

Kenny's Loggin' - A Hip Replacement — *Ken Wilson photo.*

Head Office wanted Menzies Bay Division to sort and bundle some cedar wood from MacKenzie Sound. We started early in January and it was cold, minus 17. The only reason I was there is I was a scaler. All the other departments were idle except for the boom. I was probably the lowest guy on the seniority list working. Most of the regular boom crew were still laid off, as lots of men from other departments had previous boom experience and used their seniority to bump the junior men. The logs from MacKenzie Sound were all cedar. Only four sorts, cedar sawlog, shingle cedar, gang cedar, and cedar pulp. All the bundles were wrapped with four bundle wires so we had two guys at the breakdown float pulling wires. We had so many bundle wires the float was starting to sink. The wood got sorted real fast and kept us four scalers very busy. Fred Trant and I were company scalers, Fred Ivan was a faller who had a scalers ticket and the fourth was Bob Tracy from Garret Log Scaling contractor. This wood was being scaled for government so we had government check scalers visit at least once a week. There wasn’t much other logging in the area so the check scalers wouldn’t have any one else to check. I was checked by Bruce Gerhart. He replaced my scale with his because I missed a log that was under the rest of them.

Heading out to do some scaling, I placed my can of Chicken Noodle soup on the heater. A bit later coming back into the shack, I noticed my soup can with a bulge. I stuck the can opener in and the noodles burst out covering the ceiling as we had the stove turned up for the cold weather.

Sometime later the division is operating full bore now, with everyone returning to their regular jobs. I headed out to scale a pocket of cedar sawlogs. I stepped onto a cedar log, walked down its length and jumped onto a cedar slab about two feet by a foot. I walked down the length and jumped onto the stiff leg. My caulks stuck into the slab pulling my hip joint. After that I felt pain in my hip. The pain didn’t go away. Went to see my Doctor Phipps who sent me for x-rays. Once the x-rays were back he sent me to see Dr. Leete who told me I needed a hip replacement, my bones were dying from necrosis.

The Workman’s Compensation Board asked me to go to a hearing to find out if my injury was work related. Erik Erickson was a union representative who helped me at this hearing. A long day of asking me lots of questions about my activities. In the end they okayed my claim. So I started receiving WCB benefits. Waiting for the hospital to call to schedule my surgery was taking some time. W.C.B. was bugging me about when I was getting my surgery. I told them to phone my doctor and the hospital to find out. Apparently the hospital only budgeted for two hip replacement joints a month and there were a few people ahead of me. When W.C.B.found that out they bought a hip joint for $2,100 and I had hip replacement surgery on Dec. 10, 1993.

The hospital stay was for six days. I was in some pain and couldn’t sleep, rang my buzzer and the nurse would come and give me a shot with something that made me sleep. About the third time I rang the buzzer the nurse came into the room, I put my butt out for a shot. When the nurse saw this she brought me some Tylenol Threes, I wasn’t going to get any more of the good stuff.

On the third morning a therapist took me down to the bottom floor for some therapy. She was hanging a metal spring above me on the bed frame when she dropped it landing right on my privates. After that I was released from the hospital.

After some rehabilitation I returned to work and found out that Menzies Bay Division was going to build a dry sort, so my job would no longer be on the water we were moving to pavement!!

A Note from our Editor, Linda Horn:

Happy Trails, Beany

Ken “Beany” Wilson began writing for Supply Post newspaper in August 2021. Every month, he has entertained us with stories from the setting.

Ken began his column — cheekily named Kenny’s Loggin’ — sharing photos and film taken by his father Dennis, also a lifelong logger in BC. Ken taught himself to transfer these old Super 8 films and VHS tapes into digitized video. See our YouTube channel for some of these, and find more videos here, shared by Ken's son.

Over the years, Ken shared stories of his 50-year career in the logging industry — from running yarders to bundling and sorting — told from the heart with gritty humour.

Ken shared that one day he plans to put all these stories into a book of some sort, and we look forward to reading it!

We are sad to announce that this is Ken’s last column with Supply Post. We can’t thank him enough for sharing his stories with us over the years. If you enjoyed his stories and videos, please do send him a message, in care of [email protected], and we’ll make sure he gets it. As he rides off into a Vancouver Island sunset, we wish him all the best.