Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1915-04-20
AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.
One Man Killed and Two Quite Badly
Injured.

Shortly before 6 O'Clock Tuesday
evening, an automobile accident oc-
Cured on Grand avenue, just south
of the Schofield hill and almost i'm
mediately in front of the Means
property, resulting in the death of
one man and the slight injury of
two others.
The man killed was Matt Stahora,
a young man who had been employed
at the paper mills at Rothschild, and
whose home was at Knowlton. The
injured persons were Otto Thiel.
demonsgrator for the Centaur Garage
and John Gorski, whose home is on
Third street.
Exaggerated and unreliable reports
of just how the accident occurred
have been given currency, and the
PILOT has been at pains to get the
facts, which were sad enough to need
no exaggeration, without casting un-
just aspersions upon the Others who
were in the wrecked car at the time
of the accident. These facts are:
On Tuesday afternoon Mr.. Thiel,
demonstrator for the Centaur Garage,
was given instructions to take a
Jeffery car around .to Mr.. Gorski's
and give that gentleman demon
stration and also to instruct him in
how to run the car, as Mr.. Gorski
said that if he could operate it he
would purchase one.
At the request of Mr.. Gorski, his
wife, the wife of his brother and Mr..
Stanley Faloski accompanied them.
The party rode down to Rothschild
and Schofield and called on some
relatives of Mr.. Gorski. They also
stopped at the Tesch saloon in the
village of Schofield, where Mr. Cor
ski treated the party, but drank
nothing himself, throwing the drink
intended for him into a cuspidor, as
he realized that in learning 10 rdn
the car he was iii need of all his facul-
ties. Among those who partoOk of
his hospitality was Matt Stahora, the
man who was killed in the accident,
whom they met there and who, with
out invitation, climbed into the auto
mobile and insisted on being allowed
to ride to the city, although told that
the car was loaded to its capacity and
that there was no seat for him.
Starting for the city, Mr.. Gorski
sat at the steering wheel with Mr..
Thiel at his side to instruct him, and
ran slowly and at a moderate pace to
within few yards of where the acci-
dent occurred. The car was not
speeding at such rate as to endan-
ger the lives of people along the aven-
ue, as has been publicly stated and
this is atteSted by the fact that the
Jeffery car, along the avenue, was
short distance in the rear of the
Cawley Bros. Car driven by Carl
Weber, and those in this car main
tain that they were travelling at
moderate rate of speed the whole
length of the avenue, and were still
slightly in advance when the acci-
dent occurred, all of which would
not have been possible had the car
operated by Mr.. Gorski, been running
at the rate claimed in some of the
exaggerated reports.
Just as they approached the rise in
the road at the foot of the hill, Mr..
Thiel instructed Mr.. Gorski to press
the accelerator little harder SO as to
speed the machine up little on ac-
count of the hill. He did so and as
the machine gathered momentum,
Mr.. Gorski, as is often the case with
new drivers, became somewhat rat
tied and allowed the machine to
swerve from size to side, doing this
in attempting to regain a straight
course. Realizing that he was losing
control, his intention was to stop,
but instead of showing down the brake
and releasing the accelerator, he did
inst the opposite, with the result
that the machine shot forward at an
increased speed, probably going for
the time about forty miles an hour.
Mr.. Thiel threw on the emergency
brake and grabbed hold of the steer
ing wheel, but not in time to prevent
the automobile plunging down the
four-foot embankment into the ditch.
With the momentum at which the
auto was then moving, his efforts at
the wheel were successful in bring
ing the machine back into the road
way and up the sharp embankment.
The weight of this fearful strain was
all on the left front wheel, and un-
der this it collapsed, the auto turn
ing turtle twice In the roadway and
throwing the occupants out, Stahora
landing in the ditch and breaking