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Show truck’s cab and, with his arched back, bent back Supersirength the caved-in roof. That Saves Lives Whatis the mysterious powerthat, in emergencies, enables a 100-pound mother to lift a car, an ordinary man rip apart a truck’s cab? jects that ordinarily are immovable. Emotionally charged men, women, and children can tap reservoirs of latent, mysterious physical strength. Mrs. Gene Perryman, 25, was standing on the back porch of her Jasper county, S.C., home on Oct. 1, 1965. Her two elder children, Andy, Victor Howell, 2i, was beside the the house waiting for the school bus. She heard Vicki scream, and her daughter’s cry was followed by the squea! cf automobile brakes. Mrs. Perryman ran to the street. Andy had beenstruck by a car and dragged assembly line when he slipped and fell, catching his foot in the conveyor. Thetruck with its heavy frame was inching its way toward him. Howell screamed for help! The truck and frame had started 8, and Vicki, 9, were out in front of to pass over Howell’s leg when 160 feet before the driver could bring bis sedan to a stop. The boy was Charles McClendon, 48, five feet, 10 inches tall, threw both the truck and the frame off the conveyor belt with wedged beneath the car between a rear wheel and the gasoline tank. “| am not sure how I did it,” Mrs. a mighty heave. Weeks later when Perryman told reporters later. “It McClendon was given an award for lifesaving, he said, “A mysterious happened so quickly. But I knew I had to get my boy out. He was pinned beneath the gas tank, and I thought it would catchfire.” voice inspired my feat. it told me to lift the truck, and I did. It was as simple as that. But I don’t know how Mrs. Perryman seized the bumper i did it.” A 12-year-old boy, Robert Heitsche, of the car, raised the vehicle, then shoved it until it rolled off the boy and into a ditch. Andy was taken to was playing on a construction site in West Covina, Calif., when he was buried undera half-ton of steel scaffolding and bricks. The cries of Robert’s playmates broughtpolice officer Clint Collins, 28, to the scene. The 155-pounderstooped and in one quick motion raised the entire mass of scaffolding with its burden of bricks. “It was the sight of that little guy’s handsticking out through the steel and bricks that got me,” the officer said. “At that momentI would have tried crashing through a brick wall to help.” In Columbus, Ohio, in July, 1966, Carolyn Horn, an 18-year-old girl who weighed less than 100 pounds, moved a 40-foot-long, one-foot-thick tree limb about four feet to rescue a cousin pinned beneath it. It has happened time and again— this ability under stress to move ob- Candler Hospital in Savannah where he was later reported in good condition. Mrs. Perryman was a small woman,just underfive feet in height, and she weighed 98 pounds, “If it had been your child,” she said, “you would have found the strength as I did.” What is the source of all this amazing energy? Although many intricate details of how the body secures and releases its energy remain mysteries, some basic facts about the electro-chemical-mechanical system are known. Physiologists tell us that at times of emotional stimulation of the nervous system, glands producethe hormone adrenalin. This hormone increases blood pressure and speeds up the respiration and the heartbeat. In situations of stress, fear, anger, or intense excitement, it gives the individual added strength. When adrenalin is poured into the blood stream bythe glands, the sugar level in the blood is rapidly increased at the expense of stored sugar in the liver and muscles. Anger makes a person’s blood “sweet” rather than “sour.” Thus this hormone is a defense mechanism in times ofstress, adding fuel and energy. Again, someof the energy derived from food can be stored in special forms for use in emergencies and thus does not leave the body immediately as heat. Such storages occur most frequently in muscles in which Tong periods oflittle activity are followed by sudden exertion. It is now known that a chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is responsible for our energy. When activated by impulses from the brain, ATP gives power to muscles in a complex chemical reaction almost explosive in effect. This demonstration of superstrength is one of the most incredible ever recorded: Roy Gaby wasdriving a large 14wheel truck-trailer from Waco to Houston, Texas, when an apparently intoxicated driver raced out of a side road in front of him. Gaby swerved, lost control, and the front of the truck crashed into a huge tree. Thetrailer piled up on the telescoped cab, and Gaby’s body was doubled up beneath the crushed top, his feet pinned between the twisted clutch and brakepedals, the steering wheel jammed against his waist. Police summoned to the scene called in a heavy-duty wrecker, The odor of gasoline was heavy in the air. A small army of men and machines worked furiously to free Gaby. Suddenlyfire shot out from beneath the cab. Other truckers and motorists went to work on the crumpled doors, pounding with hammers, twisting with crowbars but to no avail. Gut of nowhere, a stranger ap- peared, seized the door of the cab and ripped it off. Tossing the door aside, he ripped out the burning floor mat with his bare hands and beat out the fames around Gaby’s feet. He then grabbed the steering column andbent it forward. Next with one hand on the clutch and the other on the brake pedal, he forced them apart and released Gaby’s feet. Then he squeezed his way into the cab, arched his back against the caved roof and bentit out of the way while awe-struck workers pulled Gaby out. Later, when discussing his act of unprecedented heroism and HercuJean strength, the stranger, Charles Jones, said he had recently lost his home and child in a fire, und now every timehesees fire he is enraged. Asked about his super-human strength, Jones said, “A man doesn’t know what he can do until another man is hurting.” @ ILLUSTRATION BY HERB MOTT 1% Family Weekly, April 5, 1970 iaMNicaaCd: : By VINCENT H. GADDIS T AN auto-body plant in Flint, Mich., the frame of 4 nine-seat station wagon was moving down the assembly line mounted on a steel conveyor truck weighing nore than a ton. | azastet, SeiteinsacnsettMetalingus The stranger squeezed into the |