A Hero Has Passed

Dr. Knelson was my hero. His passing has been very upsetting to me and I thought I should write to say what an amazing person and doctor he was. I, along with my brother and sister, were some of his first patients. I was born in 1978 which was the year he came to Carteret County. He was in the delivery room when I was born. When I was only a few months old I became very ill and was running an extremely high fever. I was admitted into the hospital and no one could figure out what was wrong. Dr. Knelson realized that I had Salmonella poisoning and began treating me. My mother said she would never forget that Dr. Knelson, as busy as he was, sat in my hospital room all night long and gave me ice baths until my fever broke. He was a special person. Without him I would not be here today. As a child I was sick quite a lot. I was admitted into the hospital many times and he always knew just what to do. He knew me so well sometimes he would just look and me and know what was wrong. I went through many stages of my life with him, birth, childhood, adulthood and most recently motherhood. I continued seeing Doctor Knelson until I was out of college. I remember sitting in his office at 21 years old thinking…I am definitely the oldest patient in this waiting room. He told me that once I got married I was going to have to go to an “Adult” doctor. I hated to let go but a few years later he came back into my life when I gave birth to twins. When I went into the hospital to give birth one of my first questions to the nurse was “Is Doctor Knelson on call?” I was not giving birth unless he was there. Luckily he was and he was in the delivery room when my little boy and girl were born. The twins were preemies and my son Max had infant respiratory distress syndrome. Doctor Knelson kept a close eye on him and decided that he needed to go to Duke or he was not going to get better. He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him with total confidence that I would do whatever he told me to do. I entrusted him with not only my life but my children’s lives as well. Last year Doctor Knelson yet again reaffirmed his hero status in my life when Max was one of the children that was diagnosed with a rare bacterial infection and had to be hospitalized. I spent 10 long days in Carteret General with a two year old. Doctor Knelson yet again made my son well. I know that are probably thousands of stories like mine praising him, but I felt like I needed everyone to know how he touched my life and that he will be greatly missed by my family and missed most of all by me.


Allison Hardesty Bernauer