| OCR Text |
Show People Keep on Getting Hurt, War or Not, In Ingenious, Sometimes Humorous Ways Reaper Strips Farmer; Soldier, Ogling Girl, Falls in Coal -Hole The comic note creeps in now and then, even in the grim catalogue of the year's accidents. A few ludicrous examples from the files of the National Safety Council indicate indi-cate what vaudeville-like mishaps mis-haps can happen. Residents of Cocoanut Grove, Fla., were mildly surprised one day when their morning mail was delivered by a mailman who, of all things, wasn't wearing any pants. It wasn't the heat the pantsless postman explained. ex-plained. He'd merely fallen off his bicycle and landed In an anthill. And, he added with simple pride, even when the United States postal service serv-ice gets ants in its pants, the mall must go through! Dr. W. A. Franklin stood before his junior high school class in Ponca City, Okla., to demonstrate the safe way to handle matches. "First, re-move re-move the match," he was saying, "then close the container." As he flipped open the container to demonstrate, dem-onstrate, all the matches caught fire. Dr. Franklin bandaged bis burned hand., Then, with exemplary fidelity, fidel-ity, he closed his lecture with this observation: "That, students, Is what happens when one becomes momentarily careless." As Private Ernest M. Scofleld of Denver, Colo., huddled in a foxhole in the Solomons, dodging enemy shot and shell, a stray bullet dislodged a cocoanut from a tree limb overhead. over-head. The cocoanut landed kerplunk on Private Scofleld, broke his left leg, and he became the army's first cocoanut casualty. Residents of Dayton, Ohio, were startled one fine day this summer to see a small electrically-driven invalid's in-valid's chair scoot through a red traffic light and crash into a huge six-ton trailer truck. When Ben Myers, the unperturbed and uninjured unin-jured pilot of the chair, had been extricated from the wreckage, he explained ex-plained he was on his way fishing and, bubbling over with high spirits, had failed to observe the light Sympathetic Sym-pathetic onlookers helped him pick up and reassemble a large and wriggling wrig-gling supply of crawfish, crickets and grasshoppers, and he went hilariously hi-lariously on his way. Blits Welding. During army maneuvers in Tennessee, Ten-nessee, a bolt of lightning struck the zipper of a sleeping bag, neatly welded weld-ed it all the way around and sealed up a soldier who happened to be inside. The soldier, understandably perplexed, howled for help, then pleaded for anonymity. In Chicago, Colton Ankebrandt was testifying in the case of a driver who inadvertently had piloted his auto into Mr. Ankebrandt's parlor, through the wall of the house. The incident had happened ten days before. be-fore. "And where Is the car now?" asked the court Mr. Ankebrandt appeared surprised. "Why, your honor, it's still in our parlor," he replied. "It doesn't bother us much." Foreseeing, however, that Mrl. Ankebrandt might wish to rearrange re-arrange the parlor furniture some day, the court ordered the car removed. re-moved. Lieut. D. M. Schultz of the army air forces ran into trouble while flying fly-ing over Portland, Ore., and bailed out Obligingly, he landed on the roof of the U. S. Veterans' hospital, where it was no trouble at all for hospital attendants to pop out and treat him for minor Injuries. Then there was the case of Sergt D. P. Smith, an aerial gunner of the Australian Air forces, who was visiting visit-ing the Chicago Service Men's Cen-1er. Cen-1er. He decided to try his hand at bowling. He did all right too, for a novice, except that he neglected to remove his fingers from the bowl-ing bowl-ing ball. He accompanied the ball on a short flight and made a crash landing with more embarrassment than pain. In Detroit, a city-bred horse V i ii i named Davie, blase in the heaviest auto traffic, ran away and wrecked his buggy when he met a terrifying sight another horse. At Hammonton, N. J., a speeding train hit a truck driven by Jules Press. Mr. Press left the truck and flew high into the air. So did four blankets. The blankets landed on the road bed. Mr. Press landed on the blankets. No no pillow. Hlghballer. In Mankato, Sask" a steer in a cattle car poked an Inquisitive horn through the car's slats, caught up a switch lamp hanging outside the car and roguishly baffled the engineer by swinging red and green signals all the way to Moose Jaw. Herbert L. Carpenter, a subway rider In Brooklyn, N. Y., appeared before the mayor with a plan to eliminate subway rushes, of which Mr. Carpenter had grown weary. Later the same day he was trampled tram-pled In a subway rush and had to go to a hospital for treatment. In South Bend, Ind., Miss Ruth McGrady slipped, fell, broke her right wrist, stood up, slipped, fell, broke her left wrist Private Louis Henrique fell 14 feet down a coal-hole as he was strolling along in Denver, Colo. Aft-erwards, Aft-erwards, dug up and refreshed with a bath, Private H. explained: "She smiled as we passed . . ." Mrs. Blanche Heck of Centerville. Iowa, had not ordered her winter coal. She was a little surprised when a loaded coal truck entered her home, pushed the bed on which she was lying, through the wall, into the next room, and left her against a hot stove, uninjured. James Holllngshead was taking a horseback ride in Summerberry, Sask., one day when a passing freight train frightened his horse. The horse dashed against the train, thoughtfully tossed Mr. Holllngshead onto a passing flat car, backed away, and fell dead. Loyal comic strip fans were goggle eyed one day when Connie, of "Terry and the Pirates," drove a car up and over an opening bridge. "Of course, it could only happen In the funnies," they told themselves. But a 17-year-old Milwaukee, Wis., youth did it in real life. He drove up the rising leaf of the Sixth street bridge, made a graceful 18-foot arc over the gap, then pancaked on the slanting slant-ing span on the other side. The car was damaged, but the driver was unhurt It Is described in the Bible that the lilies of the field toil not neither do they spin. But Rancher Walter Wynhoff of Wilbur, Wash., is no lily. For as he toiled on his ranch, the spinning rod of his reaper caught his overalls and spun him into the air. When he landed he was clad casually in shoes and eye glasses. Canned. And little Erlan Wittola, three, of Kulm, N. D., crawled Into a large cream can in his back yard. He had no trouble getting in, but his parents were able to get him out only after an operation on the bottomof bot-tomof the cream can. In Omaha, Neb., the Berigans' dog, Bozo, got his foot and tail caught In a bay mower. Farmer Berlgan Jumped over a fence to help Bozo, cut himself on one knee and hit himself in the eye with the other knee. His daughter, Pat ran out of the house, slipped and apralned her wrist Mrs. B., startled as she was canning vegetables, Jumped and cut her finger. Champ, another Berlgan dog. Jumped over the barn door to see what was going on, and broke his foot The Berigans learned later that a cousin in Keokuk was uninjured unin-jured 'that day. For Old Slwasb. When Phillips high school defeated defeat-ed Amundsen high In a hard-fought football game in Chicago, not a player play-er on either team was hurt But as Phillips scored a touchdown, an enthusiastic en-thusiastic substitute on the bench yanked Coach Lou Tortorelli's arm so violently that the coach's left shoulder was dislocated. Staff Sergt. Leroy Post of Evans-ton, Evans-ton, 111., survived 37 bombing mis-slons mis-slons in the New Guinea area. He helped sink three Jap transports and shoot down at least six Jap planes. For this he was awarded the Distinguished Dis-tinguished Flying Cross and the oak leaf cluster. Then he was removed from the danger zone to become an instructor in an armament shop in Salt Lake City. A few days later his arm was caught in a machine and the bone was fractured. And in Pocatello, Idaho, the sole survivor of a plane crash was Private Pri-vate John J. Lucky. |
