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Show Tells Horror Of Five Days in Wrecked Auto Accident Victim Describes Feelings Trapped 153 Feet From Road. I I MARTINEZ, CALIF. A navy veteran, 26 years old, described the horror of being trapped in the wreckage of his automobile less than 150 feet from a busy highway, for five days, almost dying from thirst with water only 10 feet away. The man, Ernest Kenneth Steele, an oil refinery worker of Richmond, Rich-mond, Calif., is in critical condition and doctors are undecided whether his right arm, mangled in the crash, will have to be amputated. He was rescued by two power company linemen stringing wire through Franklin canyon. Falls Asleep. Steel said his car left the road eight miles west of Martinez when he fell asleep at the wheel while returning re-turning from a fishing trip. j The machine veered through a highway fence, traveled about 100 feet across a field and then plunged into a 35-foot gully. Steele was thrown from the seat but, when he regained consciousness the next morning, he found his right arm was mashed and caught between the door and the side of the car as j it lay on its side. He was helpless, and in terrible pain. i "Every hour of every day I i yelled," he said. "I didn't have anything any-thing to eat or drink except two packages of gum. I ate the last piece just before they found me." His thirst grew intense, and he was tortured by the sight of water in a small creek bed only 10 feet from him. Nobody Heard Him. One morning he heard the hammer ham-mer of a man fixing the fence through which his car had crashed. And all through the ordeal he heard automobiles passing on the highway high-way so close. But nobody heard his continual cries. As Steele grew weaker and felt he could not last much longer he smashed the glass fuel bowl on the carburetor and salvaged a splinter of glass. . . . On the fender he scratched this message for his wife, Mae, 24: "Don't forget I love you." He thought of cutting off his arm to free himself, but he was unable to reach his knife with his left hand and the sliver of glass was' inadequate. inade-quate. Doctors said Steele' probably would have died of thirst and shock m a few more hours. i |