The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-06-17
Jefferson Coroner Example
 Of Winning Ouer Handicaps; Ignores Loss Of Both His Legs

Is the loss of both legs a handicap?
 "No" vehemently answers J. D. Russun,, coroner of Jefferson county. And surely the coroner ought to know.
 Tt all depends upon the person" ]" continued the coroner. If person is willing to sit down and bewail his fate because by some unfortunate ac- cident he is deprived of his walking appendages then he Is handicapped, but if he is determined to get around and do a regular days work he can do it. I know because I've been there myself and I have been through all the experiences of cripple"
 Despite the fact that Coroner Rus sum has had both legs severed above the knees he Is as active almost as any man with his natural legs. He gets around with as much agility as a normal man and in his two and one half years as coroner of Jefferson county has not been in place where he could not navigate" with his cork legs.
 An outstanding feature of Coroner Russum's service as coroner is that despite his "handicap" he has been able to reach the scene of investiga- tion before the police, In the majority of the cases on record.
 Most Eventful Trip.
 "Tve been in some mighty queer places since I became coroner" said Mir. Russum. i've been in places where man with two real legs would have quaked, but I've always come out on top. l will never forge ct one trip I made to Bessie mines, out on the Warrior river, over a year ago.
 Tn the car with me were Deputy Virgil Sandifer and two newspaper men. We had received a tip that a negro had killed white man and that trouble was brewing.
 The trip to Bessie was made in record breaking time and we arrived there about II o'clock. All was quiet in the little mining town and all the light we could see came from the flickering lights in Fat Top prison camp. We passed lone negro who told us that a white man, moral degenerate, had been killed by a white man at the mines and that his body was in little outhouse down in a deep ravine.
 We finally found the night watch man and he explained that earlier in the evening a white man had at tempted an attack upon negro girl and that the mining deputy had come to her assistance and shot the man.
 "The bullet entered the mans head and he ran out of the shanty on down through the negro quarters with blood squirting from his wound
 When he arrived at a barbed wire fence he attempted so jump over it and died there suspen nded by the wire.
 The negroes in the settlement be- came superstitious and had fled from the community and the white deputy had placed the dead mans body in a lonely deserted cabin, sending In a call for me.
 "I have held hundreds of investi- gations but the queerest of all was the investigation 1 held at midnight into that killing at Bessie Mines."
 Here the coroner paused.
 Down Difficult Trail.
 ''The cabin, in which the body lay," resumed the coroner, twas ap- preached by an almost impossible trail down from the mountain side and one which man with two real legs did well to travel. Of course the members of my party thought 1t impossible for me to go down to the cabin and offered to bring the body up to me, but l was determined to try my hand.
 And l did try my hand. If you ever have put on pair of tom walkers and tried to climb through fences, jump ditches and rocks, you can ina zine how I felt coming down that trail. Finally I made it and held the investigation in the cabin there at midnight.
 ~The return trip was as bad as the trip down, but I made 1t finally and I think that if I had my real legs