The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-01
LOSS OF LEGS IN
 ACCIDENT DOES
 NOT DETER HER
Helen Pickenback To Spend Life Helping
 Others
By FAY STEVENSON

&1i BY TAI 0IhVENCON
 NEW YORK, May 31,--This isn't a Polyanna story with happy ending or sob-sister story about beautiful girl who lost both limbs between the knee and the ankle and still smiled and looked life bravely in the face. All that happened to the heroine, Helen Pickenback, known as the wonder pa- tient" of Orange Memorial hospital; but Helen detests hero stuff" and since Helen is a regular" girl with lots of red blood and grit hope to let you see her as saw her yesterday after noon when her nurse wheeled her out into the sun parlor and left usfto chat.
 Helen Pickenback, it will be remern- bered, is the school girl of p who ran to catch her school train and slipped under a Lackawanna railroad train a month ago. Both legs were cut off be- tween the knee and the ankle, but Helen failed to faint and never uttered an outcry. She did not even experience shock" Her mother hurried from their home, No. 56 Northfield road, West Orange. N. J., to the hospital to give her a quart of blood in a trans. fusion operation, and soon after this the only reactions the daughter had were toward recovery.
 Made Life Sweeter
 To say that Helen Pickenback's life has been cut off in the bloom of life would be an absolute falsehood. Her life has only been made sweeter and she seems to have a stronger hold upon it and a desire to help others the very way she started out to before the acci- dent.
 As we faced each other in the sun parlor of the hospital, Helen Picken- back pushed her wheel chair a little nearer my rocker. she is the sort of girl who likes to be near people when she is talking to thtel, to look into their eyes, in fact, to their very souls. And somehow, when you look into Helen's clear hazel eyes you know it is that soul which shines forth which kept her from losing her grip on life. Her hair is very blond and bObbed. Before the accident she had long hair, but she thought 1t would be more comfort, able to have 1t short. Her skin is a lovely peach blossom hue. As she talks and laughs the color deepens and re- cedes.
 We didn't talk about the accident or how brave she was. That isn't the sort of thing to talk about if you wish to make friends with a real girl with deep feelings. We talked about the other patients in the hospital.
 AdOres Riddles
 T love people," Helen Pickenback told me. Since I've been here I've made friends with nearly all the pa- tients and every day I visit the chill dren's ward at least twice. There are kiddies there I simply adore, and I don't know whether I do them any good but l certainly would miss a lot if didn't see themr'
 Then Miss Pickenback told me that she is an only child, her father is Harry Pickenback, secretary of the Hoboken Bank for Savings and her mother has been written up several times for her wonderful garden of wild flowers.
 Il was studying to be a social work err said Miss Pickenback, and this fall expect to go right on with my work. Perhaps one of the reasons l have not had time to brood over my own condition is because am so in terested in what can do for others. I don't mean to be conceited about it, but l want to study their lives and see AoN SdH uclp tueu. OOclbl cOHQl- tions have always interested me and from a little girl I've wanted to get into social work.
 For Social Work
 'I want to take.a a course which would develop me along certain clear-thinking lines, so I attended the Clark School for Concentration in Manhattan. I still have about years work to finish there and then I want to take a two year general course at the New York university. After that I'm going to attend the School of Social Work"
 Several times while we were talking patients came to Miss Pickenback's 's chair to talk to her or receive her cor dial smile. There goes a man who will never be able to swing himself around on crutches," she said sorrow fully, "he has tubercular limbs" There are so many sufferers here that have nothing at all. I can get from my chair to my bed now and very soon shall be able to go everywhere. You see can still 90 on with my plans and since l love people"
 Helen Pickenback smiled happily, waved her hand and the pink flush of youth deepened in her clear white skin -"since I want to know their lives and help them do not feel that am han dicapped at all {"