The Harrison times., 1911-03-25
PECULIAR ACCIDENTS.
The T-c-y Of Life" illustrated In
Stories of Falls.


The irony of life" was strikingly
Illustrated recently in the news of a
rustic who slipped from a six barred
gate and broke his neck and of an
Italian aeronaut who fell 1000 feet
with his collapsed balloon with no
worse result than a sprained ankle.
A Frenchwoman, Nine. Morel. and
her daughter, while elm Ning in the
Alps, near Zermatt, fell distance Of
1,20O feet. not much less than a quar-
ter of mile, and, although the mother
was killed on the spot, her daughter
escaped with few bruises. Mr..
Whymper, the famous mountaineer.
had a similarly miraculous deliverance
from what seemed to be certain death
when scaling the Matterhorn. Losing
his footing. he fell from rock to rock
to the bottom of precipitous gully.
100 yards in depth, only to recover his
feet with no worse damage than
badly cut head. And NJ. Parville,
French writer, tells the story or an
East Indian living in the island OF
Oghin who fell over a precipice 1000
feet deep with no more serious con-
sequence than a good shaking, his fall
being broken by the dense vegetation
which grew at the foot of the cliff.
While climbing waterworks tower
240 feet high in Chicago a steeple-
Jack dlsodged loose stone and was
precipitated to the ground from
height of l75 feet, fortunately strik'
ing telegraph wires forty feet above
the street and thus breaking his fall.
The spectators gasped with horror as
they saw the man drop swiftly to de
strurtion. A rush was made to PICK
up his shattered remains only to dis
cover that be was practically un'
harmed. Not bone was broken. and
a week later be was walking about as
II nothing had happened.
More remarkable and indeed al
most incredible was the experienc" of
Charles Woolcot when he WAS making
a parachute descent in Venezuela. Al
height of 5000 feet Woolcot nun
himself off his balloon into space,
when. TO the horror of the thousands
of onookers. the parachute failed To
open. The man dropped like stone
with terrible speed until. when about
200 feet from the earth, the parachute
few open and at once collapsed. He
was dashed to the ground, his riSh,
thigh and hip were broken. both ankles
and knees were badly crushed. and his
spinal column was dislocated, and yet,
after year spent in hospital, Wooico'
was restored to soundness Of limb at!-
er surely the most terrible adventure
Of which any man has lived to tell the
story.
But 1t is In the history Of balloonlns
that one encounters the most remark
able cases of sensational drops from
the clouds. When Mr.. Wise. Il famous
aeronaut Of the early nineteenth cen
tury, was once making an ascent his
balloon exploded at an altitude of 3D.
900 feet and began to drop swiftly to
the earth. more than a couple or
miles below THE descent at first was
rapid" Mr.. Wise writes, land accom-
panied by fearful moaning noise
caused by air rushing through the net
work and the gas escaping from above.
In another moment felt Il slight shock,
and, looking up to see what caused 1t,
discovered that the balloon was can't
ing over, being nicely doubled in the
lower half into the upper"
The balloon had. in fact. formed It.
self into Il parachute and, oscillating
wildly, continued its descent until 1t
struck the earth violently, throwing
the aeronaut ten yards out Of the car,
"The car had turned bottom upward,
and there | STOOD" says Mr.. Wise,
"congratulating myself and the per-
spiratlon rolling down my forehead in
profusion. st. Louis Post Dispatch.
En1J,,, Eoto Toe -tha host IL, I la