The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-02 00:00:00

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A LIFE OF MISHAPS,

Although Brunel died at the comparatively early
age of 53, it is even matter of surprise that he lived
so long. Ho had more perilous escapes from vio-
lent death than fall to the lut of most men. We
have seen that at the outset of his career, when
acting as assistant engineer to his father in the
Thames tunnel, he had two narrow escapes from
drowning by the river suddenly bursting in upon
the works. Some time after, when inspecting the
shafts of the railway tunnel under Box Hill, he
was one day riding a shaggy pony at a rapid pace
down the hill, when the animal stumbled and fell,
pitching the engineer on his head with great vio-
lence ; he was taken up for dead, but eventually
recovered. When the Great Western line was
finished and at work, he used frequently to ride
upon the engine with the driver, and occasionally
he drove it himself. One day, when pass-
ing through the Box
engine at considerable s Tunnel upon the
discerned between peed, Brunel thought he
him and the light some object
standing on the same line of road along which his
engine was travelling. He instantly turned on the
full steam and dashed at the object, which was
driven into a thousand pieces. It afterwards
turned out to be a contractor's truck, which had
broken loose from a ballast train on its way through
the tunnel. Another narrow escape which he had
was on board the Great Western steamship, where
he fell down a hatchway into the hold, and was
nearly killed. But the most extraordinary acci-
dent which befel him was that which occurred
while one day playing with his children. Like his
father, Sir Mere, he was fond of astonishing them
with sleight-of-hand tricks, in which he displayed
considerable dexterity ; and the feat which he
proposed to them on this occasion was the pass-
ing of a half sovereign through his mouth
out at his ear. Unfortunately, he swal-
lowed the coin, which dropped into his windpipe.
The accident occurred on April 3, 1843, and it was
followed by frequent fits of coughing, and occasional
uneasiness in the right side of the chest; but so
slight was the disturbance of breathing that it was
for some time doubted whether the coin had really
fallen into the windpipe. After the lapse of 15 days,
Sir B. Brodie met Mr. Key in consultation, and
they concurred in the opinion that most probably
the half sovereign was lodged at the bottom of
the right bronchus. The day after, Mr. Brunel
placed himself in a prone position on his face
upon some chairs, and, bending his head end
neck downwards, he distinctly felt the coin
drop towards the glottis. A violent cough en
sued, and on assuming the erect posture he felt as if
the object again moved downwards into the chest.
Here was an engineering difficulty, the like of
which Mr. Brunel had never before encountered.
The mischief was purely mechanical; a foreign
body had gone into his breathing apparatus, and
r must be removed, if at all, by some mechanical
expedient. Mr. Brunel, however, was equal to the
occasion. He had an apparatus constructed, con-
sisting of a platform which moved upon a hinge
in the centre. Upon this he had himself strapped,
and his body was then inverted in order that the
coin might drop downward by its own weight, and
so be expelled. At the first experiment the coin
again slipped towards the glottis ; but it caused
such an alarming fit of convulsive coughing
and appearance of choking that danger was
apprehended, and the experiment was discontinued.
Two days after, on the 25th, the operation of
tracheotomy was performed by Sir Benjamin
Brodie, assisted by Mr. Key, with the intention of
extracting the coin by the forceps, if possible. Two

attempts to do so were made without success. The
introduction of the forceps into the windpipe on the

second occasion was attended with so excessive a
degree of irritation that it was felt the experiment
could not be continued without imminent danger
to life. The incision in the windpipe was, how-
ever, kept open by means of a quill or tube,
until the 13th of May, by which time Mr.;
Brunel's strength had sufficiently recovered to
enable the original experiment to be repeated.
He was again strapped to his apparatus ; his body
was inverted ; his back was struck gently ; and he
distinctly felt the coin quit its place on the right
side of the chest. The opening in the windpipe
allowed him to breathe while the throat was stopped
by the coin, and it thus had the effect of preventing
the spasmodic action of the glottis. After a few
coughs the coin dropped into his mouth. Air.
Brunel used afterwards to say that the moment
when he heard the gold piece strike against his
upper front teeth was perhaps the most exquisite
in his whole life. The half-sovereign had been in
his windpipe for not less than six weeks.—" The
Brunels," in the Quarterly Review.