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Show 30 Energy Edition, January, 1994 Dorman recalls life in Carbon County coal camps and internCmp in California at the time. To his surprise, he leceived a call from Colorado native Eldon Dorman did more than treat people s eyes and prescribe glasses for 50 years between 1911 and 1991, the year he retired and hung up his shingle for good. Dorman came to Carbon County 57 years ago this month from a job in Spanish Fork, where he worked for a doctor who had become ill. Hed been in Utah Valley since July 1936 and was fresh from medical school . Superintendent Terry McGowan of the Blue Blaze Coal Company at Consumers, one of the early coal camps in the Gordon Creek area. The company offered him $300 a month and an office adjoining a small five-be- d hospital, which he was to operate himself as coal camp for Consumers, doctor National and Sweets. Dormans employer had recovered, and the two werent getting along too well w hen he was offered the jo!) ni Carbon County on Jan 2, 1937. lie said yes to McGowan and was expected by noon the following day. The young doctor missed d a curve on snow-packe- roads near Tucker and ended up in the creek, his car out of commission. He and his medical bag made their first appearance into the coal camps as passengers in the back of a flat-be- d coal truck, as he nursed his own injuries from the accident. Patients were already waiting. With his own hurts Dorman forgotten, attended several sick peo- ple, took care of injuries and by midnight, had delivered a baby boy for which he recieved a $20 bill soon after the umbilical cord was cut. The young doctor was sure he had come to the right place. So began CONVEYOR BELT SERVICE Vulcanizing, Repairing and Rebuilding Any Size Industrial Conveyor Rubber Belting Steel Cable Belting AII PVC Belting Work Guaranteed 24 Hour Service Chute Liners Belting Specialty Belts Sampler Belts Bucket Belts -- Skirting 'Belt Scrapers Cold Repairs -- Cold Splicing Hot Repairs Training Head Pulley Relagging Changing out of Belt Line SERVICE "No job too small or too large - no job too far away" Frank Pugliese Gene Pugliese FAX Number Bus. Phone P.O. Box 722 0 Res. and 190 South 100 West, Price, Utah 84501 MOBILE PHONES - Frank Pugliese Gene Pugliese the three-yea- r is being loaded into railroad cars at Blue Blaze in Consumers. (Photo courtesy Dorman collection) Coal camp career for J. Eldon Dorman, M.D. He was soon to be known as Doctor, Doc, Mr. Doc, and was frequently called Little Mr. Doc as he was a slight man, about 130 pounds. The camp doctor was highly respected saying mister in front of doctor or doc was the way an immigrant coal miner expressed ld his special respect, he explained. Doctoring was hard in those days. There were no antibiotics, no sulpha drugs, and oxygen was about all we had, but it saved quite a few people, Dorman recalled. His little office and hospital had a portable oxygen tent that made the rounds of the coal camps, fighting pneumonia. Besides treating patients in his office, Dorman made house calls to all three camps, plus he attended the severely injured at the hospital in Price. Roads were sometimes impassable due to winter snows or heavy mud in the spring. Just getting to the patients in a days time was enough to tire the young doctor out. But the one thing the camp doctor was expected to do the most was to be at the portal after a miner was hurt. Dorman didnt know it when he was hired, but the reason he got the job in the first place was because the former camp doctor took a week of vacation that previous Christmas instead ofthe expected few days. He also left without telling anyone where he could be reached. A serious accident occurred while he was gone the camp doctor was fired when he came back from vacation and Dorman was hired to take his place. The doctor had a company phone in his office and home and was always called if there was an accident in the mine. It was quite an uphill walk, so even though there was no road, in good weath- (Continued on Page 31) |