The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-10-26
AND SUDDEN DEATH
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CONTINUED on page elght)
into post-and-rail fence can put
You beyond worrying about other
injuries Immediately when a rail
comes through the windshield and
tears off your head with it's
splintery end-not as neat a job
but thoroughly efficient. Bodies
are often found with their shoes
off and their feet all broken out
Of shape. The shoes are back on
the floor of the car, empty and
with their laees still neatly tied.
That is the kind of impact pro-
dueed by modern speeds.
But all that is routine in every
American community. To be re-
membered Individually by doctors
and policemen, you have to do
something as grotesque as the
lady who burst the windshield
with her head, sp!ashing splinters
all o-er the other occupants of
the car, and then, as the car roll
ed over, rolled with it down the
edge of the windshield frame and
cut her throat from ear to ear.
Or park on the pavement too
near a curve at night and stand
IN front of the tail light as you
take off the spare tire - which
will immortalize you in some
bOdy's memory as the fellow who
was mashed three feet broad and
two inches thick by the impact of
a heavy duty truck against the
rear of his own ear. Or be as orig
inal as the pai2 of youths who
were thrown out of an open road
ster this spring-thrown clear
but each broke a windshield post
with his head in passing and the
whole top OF each skull, down to
the eyebrows, was missing. Or
snap off a nine-inch tree and get
yourself impaled by a ragged
branch.
None of all that is scare-hction ;
it is lust the horrible raw mater
isl of the years statistics as seen
lin the ordinary course of duty by
policemen and doctors, picked at
random. The surprising thing is
that there is so little dissimilarity
in the stories they tell.
It's hard to- find surviving &C.
eidect victim who can bear to
talk. After you come to the gnaw-
ing, soaring pain throughout YOUR
body is accounted for by learning
that You have both coIlarbones
! smashed, both shoulder blades
splmtered, your right arm broken
in three places and three ribs
cracked, with every chance Of bad
internal raptures. But the pain
can't distract you, as the shock
begins to wear off, from realizing
that you are probably on YOUR
way out. You can't forget that.
not even when they shift Won
from the ground to the streteher
and your broken ribs bite into
your lungs and the sharp ends of
your eolarbones slide over TO
stab deep into each side of your
screaming throat. When you've
stopped screaming, it all comes
oaek-yoQ're dying and YOU hate
yourself for it. That isn't fiction
either. It's what it ACTUALLY feels
Ike to be one of that $4,000 =
And every time you pass ON q
ohnd curve, every time YOU hit it
up on slippery road, every time
S99 step on it harder than vour
fetNexes will safely take. every
TIME you drive with your reac-
tons slowed. down by a drink or
TWO, every time you, follow the
man ahead too closely, you're
gambling a few seconds against
inns Kind of blood and agony and
sudden death.
rake a look at yourself as the
man IN the white jacket shakes
ms head over you. tells the bows
WIN the stretcher not to bother
ana turns away to somebody else
VINO isn't quite dead vet And
tnen take it easy.
Thank goodness there are two