The Savannah morning news., 1902-06-09
FELL TWENTY FEET
LITTLE CLARE AVERY's FEARFUL
TUMBLE FROM A WINDOW.
NARROWLY ESCAPED DEATH.
WAS TAKING CARE OF HER DOLLS
CLOTHES.

Climbed Up on a window sill to
Shake "A Blanket and Lost Her Bal
ance-BOunded From "A Projecting
window Ledge as She Fell, and
Struck Twenty Feet Below on the
Hnrd GrOund-Her Face Bruised
and Torn, but in Half an Hour She
Told How She Fell.
Little Clare Avery, the 41l-year-
daughter of Capt. and Mrs. Van B.
Avery, fell from a .second-story win
dow at the home of her parents, No.
613 Barnard street yesterday and
struck on her face some distance from
the house on the hard ground.
The little ones escape from death
was almost miraculous. Although
badly bruised about the face, she was
apparently little injured otherwise.
While she was momentarily stunned
by the fall-a distance of nearly twenty
feet-she quickly recovered conscious
ness and told, in her childish way, the
best she could, how it happened.
The accident occurred about noon.
Mrs. Avery was at church and little
Clare was at home with her grand
mother, Mrs. Cherry, and her aunts.
She was playing with her dolls and in
some way had climbed up to the sill
of an open window to shake a tiny
coverlid of her dolls bed and, leaning
out, lost her balance and fell-just
how no one knows. She herself, al
though conscious of having gone to the
window, could not tell how she had
managed to climb up almost as high
as her little head before she fell.
She had been out of sight of
the family but a few moments and
hardly a minute before she went out
of the window had called to the family
in the adjoining room that she was in
Mammals room playing dolls"
The dull noise as she struck the
ground attracted the family Every
one seemed to know what it was, and
looking out they saw the little form ly-
ing face downward on the ground in the
yard. She was unconscious when pick
ed UP and her face was bruised
and bleeding. DR.. Dunn was quickly
summoned and a messenger was sent
for Mrs. Avery, who arrived in a few
minutes. In the meanwhile a score of
people had rendered offers of assist
ance.
BY the time the doctor and Mrs.
Avery arrived the child had regained
consciousness. Are you much hurt ?"
her grandmother asked. Yes" she
said, II fell out of window"
DR.. Dung and DIR. Crowther made a
careful examination then and again
later in the afternoon, but
aside from the severe con-
tusions which distorted her face,
and the shock of the fall, there were
no visible evidences of further injury.
How the child climbed high enough
to lean out of the window is unknown,
but from a rent in her dress it was
evident her clothing had caught as she
fell out and held her for a second, and
after that she struck on the projecting
ledge of a window below and bounded
off into the yard, striking fully eight
feet from the house.
Capt Avery is cruising on the tug
w. F. McCauley. An effort was made
to reach him by signals from Tybee,
but the tug had not been sighted up
to dark. The doctors assurance to
the family at night was that the little
girl will be up all right in a day or
two.
The accident caused a good deal of
excitement in the neighborhood where
it occurred, and hundreds of people
supposed the child had been killed.