Show I WITH A BROKEN NECK I I I Alive with His Spinal Column r I Fractured I I I RUN OVER BY FREIGHT CABS They Broke His Arm Leg and Rib and Very Nearly Flubbed Him Be Doesnt Like It Dr Lewis A Sayre has a very interesting inter-esting patient on his hands just now A man with a broken neck The mans name is Baldwin and he lives m Birmingham Ala Besides the distinction of a broken neck Mr Baldwin is alive and well that is as a man with a broken neck can be HOW IT HAPPENED Mr Baldwin is the superintendent of a freight yard in Birmingham and about a year ago met with the accident that left him in his present peculiar and far from enviable condition Ho was standing on the top of a caboose directing direct-ing the sidetracking of some freight cars when a number of cars that he hadnt notieed dashed into the caboose He was thrown off his feet and fell between the caboose and the cars He cant recall just now whether he fell on his head or not but the moment he struck the ground he instinctively thrust out his right arm to save himself and it was immediately crushed by the wheels of the freight car In some way that he cannot explain his left leg got across the track audit too was crushed by the wheels of the car All the cars some haltdozen in number num-ber passed over Mr Baldwin and made a sad wreck of his arm and leg AN INVENTORY or FRACTURES He was unconscious when the men about the yard picked him up and carried car-ried him into the depot His physician Dr Luckey was summoned and after a great deal of hard work restored Mr Baldwin to consciousness A careful examination was then made by the physician ho discovered that besides the broke m and leg Mr Baldwins neck and ir e of his ribs were also broken He was injured internally too and his body was covered with bruises Taken all in all Mr Baldwin was in avery a-very bad way and his physician said he had about one chance in a million of recovery But strange to say that one chance prevailed and as stated above Mr I Baldwin is alive today The only thing that interferes WIth his thorough enjoyment of life is that broken neck A PIECE OF PATCH WORK As soon as practicable Mr Baldwin I was taken to his residence and his physician set about the herculean task of putting him together Dr Luckey had studied tinder Dr Sayre so the first thing he did was to put one of Dr Sayres corsets on Mr Baldwin Dr Sayre had this corset for use In just such cases It is laced about the persons body From the back a steel rod curves over the head ana holds straps and plaster of Paris casts by which the head of the patient is maintained m a certain fixed immovable immov-able position A man with a broken neck it seems must keep his head still If he attempts to wag it or to bow he will certainly snap the spinal cerd and thus put an I end to himself in a jiffy Dr Luckey rigged this corset about Mr Baldwin and then put his leg aud arm in splints and attended to the five I broken ribs The external bruises and the internal injuries were also looked after and Mr Baldwin then started on the slow road to recovery SLOW CONVALESCENCE For weeks he was unable to stir anything any-thing but a muscle or an eyelid Then the leg got well and he was able to move about slowly and cautiously Next his arm regained its pristine strength and Mr Baldwin saved Mrs Baldwin the trouble of feeding him He felt very happy when he found himself able to uae his knife and fork again The fractured ribs had renewed their former intimate relations the external bruises and the internal hurts bothered him no more and Mr Baldwin declared that out for the broken neok he was as well as ever Mr Baldwin owed his recovery in a i great measure to tis wonderfully strong constitution He is a big strongman strong-man and was never sick a day in his life He is well liked in Birmingham and was met with showers of congratulations congratu-lations when he made his reappearance on the streets there and resumed his duties at thc freight yard ALMOST A GONER Naturally he felt worried about that crack in his spinal column and was very uncomfortable with his head in the one position all the time He could not turn it any way and when he wanted to look about him he was forced to turn his wholo body all the way around Some months ago he went to Chicago to see if the physicians therf could do anything for h m Some halfdozen of them got to work at him one day The moment they unfastened the straps that depended frank the steel rod Mr Baldwins chin fell forward on his chest and he became insensible He remained in an unconscious state for twelve hours during which every expedient adopted by the physicians to revive him failed They thought Mr Baldwin was done for but finally put his head back in the casts and strapped it in its old position Then Mr Baldwin recovered recov-ered conciousness The Chicago physicians didnt loosen the straps again and Mr Baldwin went back to Birmingham He had a pretty close call NOW HE COMES TO NEW YORK Early last week Dr Luckey advised Mr Baldwin to come on to t ew York and place himself under the care of Dr Bayre He reached here on Friday and as he approached Dr Sayres house at Fifth Avenue and Thirtieth Street he encountered a boy who had his head tied UD with just such a contrivance as he bad about his own Mr Baldwin questioned the boy and Iparnod that his neck was broken too and that he bad jUt t come fron Dr Sane who hid told him that he would bethoroughly recovered in a very short timeMr Baldwin almost ran the rest of the distance to Dr Sayres office I was amazed said Dr Sayre to a Hrald reporter yesterday when Mr Baldwin came ino my office It was such a curious coincidence One patient had just goneout with broken neck as anot her came in in the fame plight Well I examined Mr Baldwin and found as near as I could that his neck was broken I didnt attempt to take the corsets off him because I was alone at the time I wouldnt care to do that unless my sons were present to help me if anything happened Mr Baldwin came here again today with the intention of accomping me to Bellevue Hospital where I meant to deliver de-liver a lecture to the students on his case but the weather was so horrible and my arm was so sore with rheumatism rheuma-tism that I didnt dare to leave the house Some day next week Ill try to fix Mr Baldwins broken neck His is cer rainly one of the most remarkable cases I have ever met with THAT BOSDOUT BOY Such fractures as his can be fixed The boy he met on the street was from Rondout It seems that recently he and some more boys agreed to go skating skat-ing and on the way to the pond got into a tight in the cornfield Cornfields Corn-fields as you know are furrowed The boy fell and his head rested on the ridge on one side of the furrow and his chest on the ridge ou the other a boy stepped on his neck and broke it His mother brongbthim here and I put one of my corsets on him Hell be all right in a short time A man from Connecticut came here a couple of years ago with a broken neck He is as well as ever todayNew York Herald |