The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-05

fallen from the gridiron and had pierced
me through, but what the instrument re-
ally was, or how it had come to wound
me, did not know.
1T seems that in prying loose the ex-
traVaganza scenery a crowbar t feet 8
inches long of IL inch diameter octagon
steel, and weighing seventeen and half
pounds, had been i'll use. With the finish
ing of this work the head property man
had ordred an assistant to take the crow
bar below to get it off the gridron, where
it was an unsafe tool. The assistant,
thinking to save himself a trip down the
ladder and up again, proceeded TO lower
the crowbar to the stage with a rope. He
evidently did not consider the smooth sur
face of the steel for he tied but a single
knot about the bar and then dropped 1t
below the beams of the gridiron. At once
the crowbar commenced to slip through
the knot He tried to draw it back, but
the movement only made the bar slip
faster i was then he gave HIS first
shrek of LOOK out below Had turn
ed my gaze upward at moment l would
not have been injured, for where the
crowbar was to strike was fully six feet
from where I was standing. Before l
could gather myself, however, came his
second yell of Look out!' This was de-
Ivered in such a piercing tone that l Ielt
the coming object must be Immediately
L
the wings. His third yell, LOOK
came to me Just as the sharp point or the
bar pierced my flesh.
THE steel entered between the hIth anu
sixth ribs to the right of the spine, passed
through the lower lobe of the rlght lung,
grazed the liver, and made its exit half
an inch above the navel the point OIL the
bar protruding six inches
"ZVhen the surgeons reached the theater
and examined the fearful wound, and the
instrument that had caused it, the du-
bious shakes of their heads told me that
they offered no hope; but, somehow, felt
as though 1 would live through it, and l
did.
For eight weeks and three days I lay
on my back, the first two weeks 1t being
momentarily expected / would die. The
surgeons had no prior similar case from
which to draw deductions or information,
and, as they plainly told me, ii was blind
work with them, but they would do their
utmost. A strange phase of my case was
that whereas in such wound the pus
usally forms in four days, with me it was
ninteen days before suppuration appeared,
and then l was enabled by coughing eff
fort to discharge the accumulation. To
this strange action of the wound the doc
tors ascribed much of my recovery"
MIR. Justice is an athletic-built siX-footer,
weighing 1877 pounds, and is the picture of
health to-day. The crowbar which passed
through his body was secured by friends,
who had it nickel-plated from the head to
the section where it ceased entrance, leav-
ing the portion of the steel which had
passed through the flesh just as it appear
ed when Justice. in his agony, drew it from
his body The nickeled part of the bar
was suitably engraved and presented to
Mr.. Justice on his recovery.
Surely miraculous escape" remarked
one of the party, a mining man, as Mr..
Justice ceased speaking, but you are not
the only man who has had bar of steel
plugged through him and lived to tell the
tale"
mo" answered Justice, 81 have heard
of the Virginia City miner, who was
pierced by falling drill, but his wound
was different, inasmuch as the drill took
a diagonal course from near the spine to
an exit of the point through the right
side"
However that may be I cannot say"
answered the mining man, but this do
know, that Jimmy Trevillian, a Cornish
man, working in the camp Of the Gould &
Curry shaft, on the Comstock, was struck
by drill which had fallen 200 feet. was
pierced through and through, and to the
best of my knowledge is alive to-day to
tell the tale.
II was in Virginia City at the time"
went on the mining man, land while not
in the shaft when the accident occurred.
arrived at the hosting works before Ire
william had been brought on top.
THE stump of the Gould & Curry shaft
was exceedingly wet and hot, the almost
scalding water dripping from above caus-
ing the men to wear rubber coats to pro
tect their skins. Trevillian was in q stoop
ing position, using a pick, when the falling
drill came. 1t struck him fairly point on
not having made sound in it's passage
from the station above, where it had
slipped from a car. Entering at the miners
back, 1t emerged just beneath the floating
rib on the right side, carrying with il,
through Trevillian's body, the piece Of
rubber coat the drill point had cut
through at its entrance. A partner of Ire
Williams at once seized the battered head
of the drill; another, taking his skull can
for swab placed 1t around the drill ar
the point Of exit, and as one man hauled
the other cleansed the part Of the drill