The age-herald., 1898-08-21
CRUSHED UNDER
 AN ELECTRIC GAR Capt. BrannOn, Formerly Member Police
 Force, ATTEMPTED TO BOARD GAR Alter DfinkinSe and Was Thrown Under
 the Wheels. BOTH LEGS BADLY CRUSHED Had Pasteboard Box With Bird in It Under One Arm, Which
 Likely Caused Him
 To Fall.
ATTEMPTED TO BOARD GAR
BOTH LEGS BADLY CRUSHED

Yesterday afternoon shortly after 6 o'clock J. S. Brannon, of East Lake, was run over by an electric car, corner First avenue and Twenty-first street and fatally injured. He died at the Wilson-Brown in- firmary at 1920 this morning.
 According to number of his friends who saw him just before the accident hap pened, MT. Brannon had been drinking rather heavily before he started to board the East Lake car He carried under one arm a pasteboard box in which he had mocking bird.
 The train which Mir. Brannon intended to catch, started off just before he reached it, but he nevertheless determined to board it. He caught hold of the rear platform of the front car with one hand, his other arm being occupied with holding the bird box The car had by this time gotten up some little speed, and MT. Brannon was unable to maintain his equilibrium.
 Fell Between Cars
 He fell backward and in his endeavor to hold on to the car, swung around between the cars his head and shoulders striking the coupler between the two cars. This must have knocked him senseless, for he was unable to maintain his hold on the car to save himself from the inevitable fate that awaited him under the wheels of the car.
 He fell with his head in the middle of the tracks and his legs projecting over the edge of the rails. The cruel wheels did their work well, those of the front trucks and half of those on the rear trucks pass ing over his limbs before the cars could be brought to a standstill.
 His Legs Crushed
 When his body was pulled from under meath the car it presented a horribly man. gled appearance. His head had been bad ly torn and bruised by contact with the coupler and the iron works under the car, and his legs were twisted all out of shape. The right leg was broken only in one place, just below the knee. but the left was lit- erally crushed nearly all the way from the knee to the ankle.
 At first it was thought that the electric current had passed through his body and that it had done as much injury as the wheels themselves had done, but as the rear car only, which had no current in it, passed over him, this could not have been
 The bird which more than probably caused the accident was crushed under MT. Brannon's body.
 MT. Brannon was stretced out in the middle of the street. and after half an hours wait an ambulance arrived and he was taken to the Wilson & Brown infirm- ary. He was made as comfortable as pos- sible but the doctors never expressed any hope of his recovery. He regained con sciousness after an hour or two and talked some until the opiates began to work and he sank back to sleep.
 One Time Member Police Force
 Captain" Brannon, as he was more famiarly known. is a large man, appar- ently about 45 years of age At one time he was a captain of the police force of Birmingham. and later was an engineer on the Louisville and Nashville railroad. For several months past it Is said that he has been out of employment.
 Mr. Brannon's wife lives with him at East Lake, there being no children. Their only child, Miss Fannie Lou Brannon. a young lady of about 16 years of age, died only last week.