Page 6
THE BATTALION
Monday, December 17, 1951
From National Records
Accidents
By PAUL JONES
Director of Public Information
National Safety Council
(From, Public Safety Magazine, Dec., 1051)
Do you ever have the feeling that things in this good
old TJ.S.A. may just possibly be a little wacky?
Well, take it from the National Safety Council—you’re
right!
The Council has just completed its annual roundup of
odd accidents, and dazedly reports some mighty queer goings-
on in the field of freak squeaks.
A dog who’s a hot rod driver ... a fish that caught a
fisherman ... an airplane that crashed a red traffic light
... a horse and wagon that collided with a sailboat . . .
a garden rake that shot the raker—these and many other
dizzy doings indicate that things have been slightly screwy
in 1951.
THE POOCH WHO PINED to drive a hot rod was riding in a
truck with his master, William C. Hollis of Denver. As Hollis drove
through Topeka, Kan., at a prudent pace the dog stirred impatiently,
reached over and planted a heavy paw on the accelerator. The truck
leaped forward, went out of control, collided with a passenger car.
Four persons were injured. The dog hasn’t driven since.
POLICE IN MIAMI, FLA., are
used to seeing all kinds of traffic
on busy U. S. Highway 1 during
the tourist season. But even they
were startled when Robert Sim
mons, of Dayton, Ohio, landed his
airplane on the highway one Au
gust afternoon, rolled, through a
red traffic light and nudged a truck
before he stopped.
Simmons had been forced down
by carburetor trouble. Nobody
was hurt. No traffic ticket.
SPEAKING OF DOGS, they say
it’s news when a man bites one.
Then it must be hot stuff indeed
when a fish catches a fisherman.
But it happened in Edwardsburg,
Mich. As David Quinn, Jr., was
ice fishing, he suddenly let but a
yelp.
Hanging on to his leg for dear
life was a four-pound pickerel. It
took Quinn and two friends several
minutes to pry the fish loose. It
had leaped at Quinn as he had
hauled it up through the ice.
In Chicago a sailboat got on the wrong tack and collided
with a horse and wagon driven by Randolph Johnson, a non-
nautical pilot who found himself a little at sea when confronted
by a boat traveling along a busy street on a trailer. Damage to
the boat was $500. The land forces suffered no casualties.
Many a tired and perspiring gardener has moaned “I’m
shot!” as he finished his raking. But Lincoln Stewart, of Colum
bus, Ohio, really meant it. He was raking trash in a dump when
the rake struck and discharged a bullet in the trash. Stewart was
shot in the ankle.
And all of us who have greeted a new day by groaning,
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a steam roller,” can get a
first-hand report on the feeling from eight-year-old Stanley
Willoughby, of Portland, Ore., who actually underwent the
experience. Fascinated by a three-ton roller, Stanley grabbed
on to a pipe at its back and walked along as it rolled.
Suddenly the roller backed up. It knocked Stanley
down, passed over his legs and hip, and imbedded him neatly
into the hot, soft asphalt. He was injured only slightly.
EVERY DIRECT MAIL ADVERTISER yearns to turn out copy
that smacks the recipient right in the eye. But few achieve it so
literally as the writer of a letter addressed to Policeman Joseph Green
of the Chicago traffic detail. The envelope was blown off the top of
a filing cabinet by an electric fan and hit Green squarely in the eye,
sending him to the hospital.
TO SKEPTICS who believe
chivalry is dead, here is a note of
comfort: Cab Driver James Deeds,
of Des Moines, la., gave up his
seat for a lady—and did it the hard
way.
Helping a fair passenger unload
a big sack of groceries from his
cab, Deeds backed into a passing
car, felt a draft, looked up in time
to see the seat of his pants disap
pearing down the street on the door
handle of the offending auto.
•
“THIS IS going to hurt me
worse than it hurts you,” said
Ellsworth B. Wilson, of Mishawaka,
Ind., as he started to spank his 10-
year-old son.
It did.
During the spanking Wilson
knocked over a' lamp, suffered a
head cut, was taken to the hospital.
The boy’s injuries were not visible.
Auto Accidents Aren't Bloodless
Horrible
And in Boston, Mrs. Catherine Meenan was injured in an
automobile accident as she sat in her second floor apartment. In
the street below, a car had struck a pedestrian, knocked off his
shoe, hurled it 25 feet through the open window of Mrs. Meenan’s
living room. It hit her on the head, inflicting scalp wounds.
In Gouverneur, N. Y., Sterling Tait beat out Harold Murphy
in a hot Republican primary race for town clerk. A few weeks
later, Tail’s car hit Murphy’s dog. Tait stopped to investigate.
The dog bit him. Murphy rushed Tait to the hospital. On the
way he had to stop so suddenly that Tail’s head banged against
the windshield hard enough to shatter the glass. An hour later,
Murphy’s dog died. Republicans Tait and Murphy shook hands,
agreed the New Deal must be to blame for it all.
Every year a few lucky people survive fantastic falls.
In 1951 the champion freak squeak faller was two-year-old
Tommy Paiva, of New York City. Tommy fell 15 stories
(120 feet) from a window in his apartment, landed in some
shrubbery and escaped with a broken thigh and assorted
cuts and bumps.
AND IN RICHMOND, IND., Steeplejack James Swootan went to
the hospital with injuries suffered when he fell—not from a steeple,
but off a bar stool!
IN CINCINNATI, Clayton Busch’s car was struck by two trains
traveling in opposite directions. He was left standing on the tracks,
steering wheel in hand, suffering only from cuts and bruises compli
cated by acute amazement.
DRIVING ALONG a highway
near Fort Wayne, Ind., Mr. and
Mrs. Jaines Gibson of that city
were having one, of those sprightly
little chats husbands and wives
sometimes have about the hus
band’s driving habits.
Mrs. Gibson ended the discussion
by throwing the car keys out the
car window. Mr. Gibson slammed
on the brakes, and two cars fol
lowing him piled up in a three-car
collision. Gibson was charged with
reckless driving.
The driver of the second car
was charged with operating a car
without a license. His companion,
owner of the car, was accused of
permitting an unlicensed driver to
operate the car.
The driver of the third car v r as
charged with improper car regis
tration. No charge was placed
against Mrs. Gibson, who had
merely thrown the keys out the
window.
(Reprikted from the
Reader’s Digest, Aug., 1005)
(Like the gruesome spectacle
of a bad automobile accident it
self, the realistic details of this
article will nauseate some read
ers. Those who find themselves
thus affected at the outset are
cautioned against reading the ar
ticle in its entirety since there is
no letdown in the author’s out
spoken treatment of sickening
facts.)
Publicizing the total of motoring
injuries — almost a million last
year, (1934), with 30,000 deaths—
never gets to first base in jarring
the motorist into a realization of
the appalling risks of motoring.
He does not translate dry statistics
into a reality of blood and agony.
FIGURES EXCLUDE pain and
horror of savage mutilation—which
means they leave out the point.
They need to be brought closer
home.. A passing look at a bad
smash or the news that a fellow
you had lunch with last week is in
a hospital with a broken back will
make any driver but a born fool
slow down at least temporarily. But
what is needed is a vivid and SUS
TAINED realization that every
time you step on the throttle, death
gets in beside you, hopefully wait
ing for his chance. That single hor
rible accident you may have wit
nessed is no isolated horror. That
sort of thing happens every hour of
the day, everywhere in the United
States . If you really felt that, per
haps, the stickful of type in Mon
day’s paper recording that a total
of 29 citizens were killed in week
end crashes would rate‘something
more than a perfunctory tut-tut as
you turn back to the sports page.
An enterprising judge now and
again sentences reckless drivers to
tour the accident end of the city
morgue. But even a mangled body
on a slab waxily portraying the
consequences of bad motoring
judgment, isn’t a patch on the
scene of the accident itself.
NO ARTIST working on a safety
poster would dare depict that in
full detail.
That picture would have to in
clude motion-picture and sound ef
fects, too—the flopping, pointless
efforts of the injured to stand up;
the queer, grunting noises; the
steady, panting groaning of a hu
man being with pain creeping up
on him as the shock wears off.
It should portray the slack ex
pression on the face of a man,
drugged with shock, staring at the
Z-twist in his broken leg, the in
sane crumbled effect of a child’s
body after its bones are crushed
inward, a realistic portrait of an
hysterical woman with her scream
ing mouth opening a hole in the
bloody drip that fills her eyes and
runs off her chin. Minor details
would include the raw ends of
bones portruding through flesh in
compound fractures, and the dark
red, oozing surfaces where clothes
and skin were flayed off at once.
THOSE ARE all standard, ev
eryday sequels to the modern pas
sion for going places in a hurry and
taking a chance or two by the way.
If ghosts could be put to a use
ful purpose, every bad stretch
of road in the United States would
greet the oncoming motorist with
groans.and screams and the edu
cational, spectacle of ten or a doz
en corpses, all sizes, sexes and ages,
lying horribly still on the bloody
grass.
Last year, a state trooper of my
acquaintance stopped a big red
Hispano for speeding. Papa was
obviously a responsible person, ob
viously set for a pleasant week
end with his family—so the offi
cer cut into papa’s well-bred ex
postulations: “I’ll let you off this
time, but if you keep on this way,
you won’t last long. Get going—
but take it easier.”
Later a passing motorist hailed
the trooper and asked if the red
Hispano had got a ticket. “No,”
said the trooper, “I hated to spoil
their party.” “Too bad you didn’t,”
said the motorist, “I saw you stop
them—and then I passed that car
again 59 miles up the line. It still
makes me feel sick at my stomach.
The car was folded up like an ac
cordion—the color was about all
there was left. They wore all
dead but one of the kids—and he
wasn’t going to live to the hospi
tal.”
MAYBE IT will make you sick
at your stomach, too. But unless
you’re a heavy footed incurable, a
good look at the picture the artist
wouldn’t dare paint, a first-hand
acquaintance with the results of
mixing gasoline with speed and bad
judgment ought to be well worth
your while. I can’t help it if • the
facts are revolting.
If you have the nerve to drive
fast and take chances, you ought
to have the nerve to take the ap
propriate cure. You can’t ride an
ambulance or watch a doctor work
ing on the victim in the hospital,
but you can read.
The automobile is treacherous,
just as a cat is. It is tragically
difficult to realize that it can be
come the deadliest missile. As en
thusiasts tell you, it makes 65 feel
like nothing at all. But 65 miles
an hour is 100 feet a second, a
speed which puts a viciously un
justified responsibility on brakes
and human reflexes, and can in
stantly turn this docile, luxury into
a mad bull elephant.
COLLISION, turnover or side
swipe, each type of accident pro
duces either a shattering dead stop
or a crashing change of direction
—and, since the occupant—mean
ing you—continues in the old di
rection at the original speed, every
surface and angle of the car’s in
terior immediately becomes, a bat
tering, tearing projectile, r aimed
squarely at you — inescapable.
There is' no bracing yourself
against these imperative laws of
momentum.
Anything can happen in that
split second of crash, even those
lucky escapes you hear about.
People have dived through wind
shields and come out with only su
perficial scratches. They have run
cars together head on, reducing
both to, twisted junk, and been
found unhurt and arguing bitterly
two minutes afterward.
BUT DEATH was there just the
same—he was only exercising his
privilege of being erratic ... a
wrecking crew pried the door off a
car which had overturned in an em
bankment and out stepped the driv
er with only a scratch on his cheek.
. . . his mother was still inside, a
splinter of wood from the top driv
en four inches into her brain as a
result of son’s taking a greasy
curve a little too fast. No blood-
no' horribly twisted bones—just a
gray haired corpse still clutching
her pocketbook in her lap, as she
had clutched it when she felt the
car 1 leave the road. . .
A trooper described an accident
(which occur when improper pass
ing of cars on the highways is at
tempted). . . five cars in one mess,
seven killed on the spot, two dead
on the way to the hospital, two
more dead in the long run. He re
membered . . . the quick way the
doctor turned away from a dead
man to check up on a woman with
a broken back; the three bodies out
of one car soaked with oil from
the crankcase so that they looked
Persons Killed—By Age Groups
Aices
0-4
Per
cent
Agf-s
5-14
Per
Cent
Aires
15-(i4
Per ,
cent i
^Kes 65
fe over
Per
cent
COLLISION WITH:
Pedestrian
470
37.9
970
44.1
5,630
20.7
2,330
48.3
Automobile
410
33.1
530
24.1
10,010
36.8
1,460
30.2
Horse-drawn
vehicle
30
.1
10
.2
Railroad train
50
4.0
50
2.3
1,250
4.6
80
1.7
Street car
30
.1
10
.2
Other vehicle
100
.4
20
.4
Fixed object
GO
4.8
70
3.2
2,680
9.8
190
3.9
Bicycle
10
.8
280
12.7
140
.5
20
.4
Non-collision
240
19.4
300
13.6
7,280
26.7
710
14.7
Miscellaneous
80
.3
TOTAL
1,240
100.0 2,200
100.0 27,230
100.0
4,830
100.0
like wet brown cigars and not hu
man at all; a man walking around
babbling to himself, oblivious of the
dead and dying, even oblivious of
the dagger-like silver of steel that
stuck out of his streaming wrist;
a pretty girl with her forehead
laid open, trying hopelessly to
crawl out of the ditch in spite of
her smashed hip. . . .
OVERTURNING CARS special
ize in certain injuries . . . cracked
pelvis, broken spines, smashed
knees, (all which guarantee agon
izing months in bed, motionless,
perhaps crippled for life) . . . and
the lethal consequences of broken
ribs, which puncture hearts and
lungs with their raw ends. . .
But all that (injuries from fly
ing glass, driving through tele
phone posts, careening cars rolling
over banks) is routine in every
American community. To be re
membered individually by doctors
and policemen, you have to do
something as grotesque as the lady
who burst the windshield with her
head, splashing splinters all over
the other occupants of the car and
then rolled with it down the edge
of the windshield frame and cut
her throat from ear to ear. . . .
None of all that is scare fic
tion; it is just the horrible raw
material of the year’s statistics as
seen in the ordinary course of duty
by policemen and doctors, picked
at random. . . it’s hard to find a
surviving victim who can bear to
talk . . . for when you stop scream
ing it all comes back—you’re dying
and you hate yourself for it. . .
AND EVERY TIME you pass on
a blind curve, every time you hit
it on a slippery road, every time
you step on it harder than your
reflexes can safely take, every-
time you drive with your reactions
slowed down by a drink or two,
everytime you follow the man
ahead too closely, you’re gambling*
a few seconds against this kind of
blood and agony and sudden death.
Take a look at yourself as the
man in the white jacket shakes his
head over you, tells the boys with
the stretcher not to bother and
turns away to somebody else who
isn’t quite dead yet. And then take
it easy.
Seventeen of every 100 drivers
involved in fatal traffic accidents
during 1950 were reported to have
been drinking.
Motor vehicle collisions with rail
road trains killed 1,520 people last
year.