As Myola was threatened by the Japanese advance, the casualties gathered there had to be evacuated to the head of the track. The report of then Colonel Norris, the 7th Division's senior medical officer, noted the difficulty of providing sufficient means to move stretchers. Each required eight bearers which meant those wounded who were able to stagger were treated with "absolute ruthlessness" and not provided with stretchers. In one case, a casualty with a severely fractured patella (kneecap) walked for six days and some with worse injuries volunteered to walk to free a stretcher for the more seriously wounded.