A total of over sixty people worked in all the hospital’s wards. Some were sent there from other partisan units, while others were former patients who joined its staff after recovery. Before the war, the hospital staff were engaged in various professions; most of them were workers, farmers and craftsmen, while some were students and officials. Compelled by current needs they turned into nurses, builders, stewards, etc.
“With a comrade like him I could endure even worse trials than those in mid-November 1943.”(Dr Viktor Volčjak)
Before joining the partisans, Gašper worked as a forester at Jelovica. There, he and his father one day found and took care of a wounded partisan. As punishment they spent some time in the Begunje prison. After release, he was summoned to the German army, which he avoided by joining the partisans. Due to an ankle injury, he was treated in a small partisan hospital in Gorenjska. After recovery in autumn 1943, he came to Cerkno as a male nurse. During a German attack in November that year, the medical staff and the wounded withdrew to Gorenjska. The transfer took place in extremely adverse winter conditions, which required tremendous efforts from the staff. Dr Volčjak recalled that Gašper hallucinated because of exhaustion. He developed great confidence in this young man with whom he had lived through many difficult moments. Gašper was the first of the staff to whom he disclosed the plan to build a hospital in the gorge, as well as being its first nurse. Later, he was assigned to the communication point in Praprotnik’s mill, where he took care of the wounded. The communication point was discovered by German soldiers during the offensive on 17 April 1944. Gašper succeeded in moving most of the wounded to safety before he, his assistant and two of the wounded were shot dead by soldiers. About his premature and tragic death, Dr Volčjak wrote the following: “The doors of death opened and closed behind Gašper so quickly that he was unable to leave us any messages other than his sacrifice which still denounces all the violence of this world.”