The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1912-06-20
NECK BROKEN.
Girls is Cured-Walks after -Four.
teen Months.

Picked up for dead but saved from
the dead wagon before it started for
the morgue, when a faint sign of life
was detected, 1S-year-old Esther Har-
ris, whose escape from the Triangle
fire last year was made at the cost
of a broken neck and back has been
cured.
Unable to move even finger for
eleven months after the tragedy, in
which 147 men and women were
killed, she can now stand and walk
unassisted; feat rare in surgery
whose teachings are that in almost
every case of total paralysis result
ing from fracture of the neck the
victim never regains command of mo-
ton.
For fourteen weeks Esther lay un-
conscious. The doctors at St. Vim
cents hospital told her she had only
a few weeks to live. Finally she was
taken home to die. Then, on the bare
hope it might help, a method old in
lesser cases but unprecedented in to-
tai disability, was tried by the chief
surgeon, DR.. Henry w. Frauenthal, at
the Hospital for Deformities and
Joint Diseases.
Esther Now Walks Every Day.
It worked beyond the most san
guine expectations, and after being
absolutely unable to move in the bed
to which she was confined for eleven
months, Esther now gets up every
day and walks little further than
the first two steps she took on Wash
ington's birthday. She wears stiff
steel and leather harness to support
her neck, but in a few months it is
hoped this will be discarded and her
escape from death in life will be
complete.
Esther owes her life to the GOODNESS
and nerve that enabled her to save
herself, when the last opportunity
was presented. While it was her lead
ership that enabled score of others
to escape incineration, it brought
about her serious injuries.
She jumped for the elevator cables
on the ninth floor Of the flaming
building and started to slide down.
Immediately after her man jumped.
He lost his hold and fell. His body
struck the girl as she had reached the
sixth floor. She hurtled through the
shaft to the basement, where she fell
on top of tie cage.
She landed on her back and neck.
On top of her fell twenty other girls
and men who had used the only hope
of escape from the crematory that
the eighth and ninth floors had been
transformed into.
Lost All Sense Of Feeling.
The impact had broken her neck,
yet she did not lose consciousness for
an hour or more after. But her SEN
sibilities had been killed. She felt no
pain. Even when a heavy body fell
directly across her legs she would not
have known it if she had not seen it.
Then she swooned. 1t was while in
that condition that she was removed
from the Washington place elevator
shaft, from which forty bodies were
taken, and she was put in the dead
pile for shipment to the morgue. It
was only as she was being loaded into
the wagon that life movements were
noticed and she was placed in St.
Vincent's ambulance.
Her story came to light through
the action of Max Steurer, counsel
for Harris & Blanck, the firm owning
the Triangle Waist Company, employ
ers of the men and women who were
killed. He made a gift in behalf of
his clients to the hospital in. which
the girls cure had been effected and
to other hospitals in which some of
the injured were treated. Esther
Harris is the niece of Isaac Harris,
who with his partner Blanck was
tried on the charge of manslaughter
and acquitted.
Hope to Have Her Home in Month.
Esther's family lives at No. 1853
Howard avenue, Brooklyn. There her
mother and father expect her to be
again to stay within another month.
At the hospital Esther shares their
belief.
In her fall she fractured the fourth
and fifth cervical vertebrae. This Is
the spine at the base Of the neck, the
lower bone being just on a line with
the shoulder blades. Either fracture
is set down as fatal, doubled the
chances for recovery were none, twas
believed. Her family was told that