The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-09-14

straight stretch with three lanes
of traffic-like the notorious AS
tor Flats on the Albany Post road
where there have been as many as
I27 fatalities in one summer
month. This sudden vision of
broad, straight road tempts many
an ordinarily sensible driver into
passing the man ahead. Simulta-
neously a driver coming the other
way swings out at high speed. At
the last moment each tries to get
into line again, but the gaps are
closed. AS the cars in line are
forced into the ditch to capsize
or crash fences, Che ,passers meet,
almost head-on, in a swirling,
grinding smash that sends them
caroming obliquely into the
others.
A trooper described such an &C
cident-fve cars il one mess,
seven killed on the spot, two dead
on the way to the hospital, two
more dead in the long run. He re.
membered far more vivivly than
he wanted to-the quick way the
doctor turned away from a dead
man to check up on a woman with
a broken back; the three bodies
out of one car SO soaked with oil
from the erankcasc that they
looked like wet brown cigars and
not human at all; a man, walking
around and babbling to himself,
oblivious of the dead and dying.
even oblivious Of the dagger-like
silver of steel that stuck out Of
his streaming wrist; a pretty girl
with her forehead laid open, try
ing hopelessly to crawl out of a
ditch in spite of her smashed hip.
/ A frst-class massacre of that sort
is only a question Of scale and
numbers-seven corPses are no
deader than one. Each battered
man, woman or child who went to
make up the $4,000 corpses chalk
ed up last year had to die per-
sonal death.
A car careening and rolling
down a bank, battering and smash
ing it's occupants every inch of
the way, can wrap itself so thor
oughly around tree that front
and rear bumpers interlock, re-
quiring an acetylene torch to cut
them apart. In a recent case of
that sort they found the old lady,
who had been sitting in back, ly-
ing across the lap of her daugh-
ter, who was in front, each soaked
in her own and the others blood
indistinguishably, each so shat
tered and broken that there was
no point whatever in an autopsy
to determine whether it was bro
ken neck or ruptured heart that
caused death.
Overturning cars specialize in
certain injuries. Cracked pelvis,
for instance, guaranteeing agoniz-
ing months in bed, motionless, per-
haps crippled for life - broken
spine resulting from sheer side
wise twist-the minor details of
smashed knees and splintered
shoulder blades caused by crash
ing into the side of the car as she
goes over with the swirl of an in
sane roller coaster-and the lethal
consequences of broken ribs,
which puncture hearts and lungs
with their raw ends. The conse-
quent internal hemorrhage is no
less dangerous because it is the
pleural instead of the abdominal
cavity that is filling with blood.
Flying glass-safety glass is by
no means universal yet-contrib-
utes much more than it's share to
the spectacular side of accidents.
1t doesn't merely cut-the frag-
ments are driven in as if a cannon
loaded with broken bottles had
been fired in your face, and a
silver in the eye, travelling with
such force, means certain blind
ness. A leg or arm stuck through
the windshield will cut clean to
the bone through vein, artery and
muscle like a piece of beef under
the butchers knife, and it takes
little time to lose a fatal amount
of blood under such circum-
stances. Even safety glass may
not be wholly safe when the car
crashes something at high speed.
You hear picturesque tales of how
a flying human body will make
neat hole in the stuff with it's head
the shoulders stick-the glass
holds-and the raw, keen edge
of the hole decapitates the body |
as neatly as a guillotine.
Or, to continue with the decapi-