The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-09-17
BALLOON DRAGS
BOY IN FATAL
FLIGHT AT FAIR
Caught By Rope While Watch
ing Ascension Of AerOnaut
And Crowd Watches
Tragedy At Wood
stock

Woodstock, Conn, Sept. 17-Every
year just before the summer cottagers
from Hartford and Boston go back
home the lite town of Woodstock in
Windham county holds its annual fair.
Yesterday was the first day of this
years three day celebration. And the
star event scheduled was a balloon
ascension.
Among the scores of country folks
who edged their way into the fair
grounds and found places In the lines
of carriages and automobiles to watch
the big balloon was a, small boy, Geo.
Bernier.
With his older brother he had trudg-
ed six miles from Mechanicsville, where
good many French Canadians live,
carrying his lunch in a paper bag,
just to see the balloon go up.
The big bag was stationed in the
centre of the racetrack, and after the
best of the local horses had shown
his pace and the prize pumpkin had
been blue ribboned Prof" Fowler
started the fire under his balloon.
well filled and looked like a wabb1ing
beehive Fowler called for volunteers
to hold the guy ropes and keep the
balloon down until he was ready to
start his world renowned triple para
chute ascension
The Bernier boy was the first to re-
spond to the call and held grinly onto
the rope while he watched, big eyed,
while the ba1Ioonist piled infammables
on the fire and made more gas for the
trip.
LITTLE BOY SKYwARD.
When everything was ready Prof.
Fowler stripped off his overa1ls and
stood in the Afternoon sunshine in all
the glory of black spangled tights The
boy never took his eyes off. He
climbed onto the trapeze of the last
parachute and turned to the crowd.
hac
The Bernier boy, Obvious to every
thing but his hero, held tight to the
guy rope he had in his hand.
Up went the balloon while the end
of the Cup rope whipped around and
caught the boys ankle, forming a half
hitch. His hundred pounds or so only
made the balloon careen a trihe as it
sped skyward.
standing about the racetrack held
their breath for a minute and then
there rose a simultaneous shout as the
boy, head downward, dangled from the
guy rope at the edge of the balloon
and well above Fowler on his last par
achute.
Fowler, hanging there, was as help
less to aid the boy as any Of the spec
tators below.
AS the balloon went up the boy in
some way wrigg1ed his hands to the
rope and began to straighten himself.
He grasped the rope, and while the
crowd shouted and c1apped righted
himself and was hanging upright. But
the half hitch Ioosened itself. The boy
hung by his hands alone.
CHILD DROPS TO DEATH
There was hardly a breath of air
shouting crowd hushed itself, for the
boy had begun to slip downward.
Fowler shouted something to the boy,
spectators could not hear what it was.
Fowler later explained that he tried
to get the boy to moose the rope around
his body.
Three hundred feet up and the boy
was still slipping, now nearly at the
end of the guy rope. A hundred feet
more and his tired and torn hands
slid over the end of the rope. Spin
ming in the air for what seemed a
century to the on1ookers, he dropped
Ito the ground, into a vacant space
about the middle of the racetrack.
A thousand men crushed into the
racetrack to where the boys limp body
lay. He had been killed instantly. A
doctor who examined his body said
that the boy was dead before he reach
ed the ground.
Officers of the fair carried the body
to one of the exhibition pavilions and
tried to find the brother to learn where
the youngster lived and who his par
ents were. But the other boy, fright
ened in the hysterical screaming
crowd, had run away and wandered
back only after comparative peace was
secured
Fowler, the ba11oonist, made his flight
and, although nobody watched him,
descended by the three parachute
method at quite a distance from the
fair grounds. He said later that if
the boy could have held on he had in
tended. to stay with the balloon and
not detach the parachutes until the
hot air in the gas bag was cooled and
the contrivance had dropped to the
ground.