The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1921-08-05
NEGRO BECS FOR
A SILVER SKULL.
Jim Barnes Lost, Top of His
Head in a Boiler Explosion
And Still Lives

James Barnes, colored. Of
Eure, n. c.. wants a silver skull
Such a skull as he wants ordinar-
lily costs a thousand dollars il
the case Of a poor man. or hum
dred thousand or so for rich
man. But the surgeons in Johns
Hopkins Hospital have agreed to
give James Barnes a silver skull
Job free of charge If he will fur
nish only the silver. It will take
$50 worth Of silver to piece out
Barnes skull.
Barnes was in Elizabeth City this
week trying to raise the sixty dollars.
His is an interesting case. Il modern
miracle in fact One night last summer
he went to sleep in the boiler room of
small saw mill near Eure in Gates
The boiler blew UP during the
night and catapulted him several hun
dred feet away. y piece of iron from
the bur<ted boiler struck him in the
forehead and tore the top of his skull
off.
\ searching party found the bloody.
mutilated body of Barnes in the woods
next day after the explosion. His head
was split wide open and hogs had come
upon the body and eaten off two of his
fingers. The searchers believed him
dead and IeiSurely set about to get n
cart to take his remains off
But while they were gone for the
cart Barnes recovered enough con-
sciousneSs to crawl to the railroad
track nearby. An engineer on an At
Iantic Coast Line train sighted the
bloody form near the track, stopped the
train and took Barnes on board. he
was conscious, but couldn't talk. The
trainmen took him to
Norfolk hospital. The doctors dressed
his wounds and when he came to his
sense they told him he might as we'll
20 back to North Carolina to die. They
do anything for a head with
the skull blown away.
But there was one doctor in Norfolk
who had more faith in science and this
doctor interested the staff of Johns
Hopkins in the case. Those Johns
Hopkins fellows are ready to try any
hing once And so Jim Barnes was
sent on to Johns Hopkins and the Johns
dopkins surgeons undertook to save his
ife. They discovered that the Negro's
brain was intact and after cutting away
III the splintered and fractured bone his
lead looked like a canteloupe that had
, ,ouarter slice taken out of it. The
loctors then put Barnes under a mar
.otic and sliced a piece off his leg and
,rafted it on top of his head. The op-
ration was successful and Barnes came
,ut of Johns Hopkins a few weeks ago
With a whole scalp, but not with a
whole skull.
And now the doctors want to give
,im a skull. They are anxious to take
he top of his head off again, put IN
slab of silver for the missing skull
md graft a new scalp on top OF that
The doctors are not exactly satisfied
With the scalp they have already graft
d. They took the skin out OF his
high and it's doesn't grow wool like the
est of the scalp, the result being that
Ie is bald on the patch. If the doctors
et another chance at him they say
hey will graft piece of skin that will
row wool, tho it may not exactly match
he wool of his head.
But in meantime Jim Barnes, who |
ad the top of his head blown away |
nd was so near dead that the hogs
tie him, is living and doing fine. But |
is life is in jeopardy until he gets !
liver skull. Over exposure to the sun |
r a slight tap on his head would be
atal to him as he is.