I was recounting an incident to my editor Andria Papineau where I was hospitalized for a broken wrist at the time of the Dieppe raid, of which I was supposed to be a part of the assault force and decided that I should post it on my blog, so here it is.

I was starting my truck (or Lorry as the English call them). This truck as like most trucks at this time in history had to be hand cranked to start it up.  I am turning the crank on the truck and at the same time the man at the wheel without any warning pulled out the spark plug causing the engine to backfire and the reverse action of the crank broke my wrist.

This meant no Dieppe raid for me but instead a hospital bed. In all my life I cannot recall such a terrible pain as I suffered after they put my arm in a cast. I became hysterical and threatened to wreck the ward if they didn’t do something for the extreme pain it was causing me. Upon further examination the flesh on both sides of the cast was swelling out and turning blue. The doctor then procured a pair of large clippers and proceeded to start cutting the cast off, with every snip of that clipper there was unbelievable pain, I can still remember the sound of it cracking through the cast, then such relief, it was like having ten orgasms at once! After the cast came off the doctor could tell right away that it had been put on too tight as the flesh seemed to pour right out of the cast and was blackish blue. Then let my arm breathe a little bit before putting it back on correctly.

A few days later I had my arm in a sling when they started bringing in survivors from Dieppe all of them were in worse shape than I was. After the wounded from Dieppe arrived we had a very special visitor come to see us, it was Princess Royal the Queen’s aunt, who was visiting the casualties from Dieppe. She stopped and asked me how I had sustained my war wound. I replied promptly that I had broken my arm cranking a lorry, She laughed and replied haughtily “Ho-ho, you Canadians are so quaint” and quickly walked off, she dropped me like a hot potato!

-Dacker Thicke

Here is a video of me discussing my humanitarian efforts and how being a compulsive giver has influenced my life.  You see it’s a wonderful feeling to help someone but I had come to a place in my life where I needed people to need me. I discuss all this and more so please give it a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6piFdXn6L0g