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Show ADVENTURERS' CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI "A Ride With the Reaper" WELLi one way to have an adventure is to go on an automobile auto-mobile ride with Jeannette E. Lowitt of Arverne, N. Y. Jeannette's driving would thrill you. It might even paralyze you. Like the old patent medicine ads used to say, it invigorates invig-orates the healthy, cures the lame and the halt, and brings the dying back to life. Jeannette started out on her adventure without any automobile auto-mobile at all. As a matter of fact, she wasn't even properly equipped for walking. She didn't have any shoes on. It was a stifling August day in 1930. Even Rockaway Beach was without the slightest sign of a breeze. Jeannette was lying down in her room when suddenly the hot, muggy air was torn by the most piercing, agonizing scream she had ever heard. And from then on, things happened thick and fast. Jeannette jumped out of bed and ran to the door. In front of her house was a crowd of people. In the midst of them was Mrs. Levin a summer visitor holding a tiny infant in her arms. i'My baby! He's dead! " she was crying. And as Jeannette Jean-nette sprang down the steps she heard the frantic, white-faced white-faced mother explaining that while she had left the child alone for a minute min-ute it had picked up a bottle of camphorated oil and drank it Jeannette Starts Trip to Hospital. The baby lay in the woman's arms motionless stiff. His little eyes bulged and his lips were blue. Without a word Jeannette grabbed him and started running running toward the doctor's office, two blocks away. She was still barefooted. The burning sun made her head throb. Perspiration drenched her body. But she sprinted the whole way and burst into the doctor's office, her heart pounding madly. The doctor was in his back office, operating on a man's foot. Blood soaked cotton was strewn over the operating table and more blood was dripping into a pail that hung beneath the patient. "I can't stop," he said. "This man has a hemorrhage. What's the trouble?" At that point the child's mother, who had followed closely behind Jeannette, came bursting into the office. "My baby!" She wailed. "He's dead! He's dead!" The doctor dropped the needle he was holding, snatched the child from Jeannette's arms and ran into the bathroom. Without a word Jeannette grabbed him and started running. Opening the hot water faucet in the bathtub he held the baby under it. A minute passed. There was no sign of life. "Jeannette," he whispered. whis-pered. "He's gone. Look he's foaming at the -mouth. Rush him to the hospital. Take my car it's outside. The key is in the ignition. My patient will bleed to death if I leave him." Jeannette picked up the child again. She dashed out Into the hall and stumbled over the prostrate body of Mrs. Levin, who had fainted. She couldn't even hold the child while Jeannette drove to the hospital. How could she manage alone? She rushed to the street lost a few precious seconds trying to get the baby's stiff, outstretched arms through the narrow door. With the child on her lap she lost more valuable time trying to find the starter. She found the starter at last The motor roared. The car started. She was off turning the corner and putting on speed racing down the boulevard toward the hospital, at Beach Eighty-fourth street, just over the tracks of the Long Island railroad. There was traffic on the streets, but Jeannette made good time. She did, that is, until she came to the railroad crossing near Hammel station. sta-tion. As she was about to cross, the gateman blew his whistle and held up his hand. The crossing gate began to lower. Jeannette screamed. "Wait! Let me through!" But the gates kept right on falling. Jeannette gripped the steering wheel and stepped on the gas. The car shot forward. It bumped onto the crossover just under the gates got into the middle of the tracks and stalled! The gateman cursed. Jeannette jammed her foot viciously down on the starter but the car didn't start. Then, for the first time, Jeannette Jean-nette lost her head. They made cars then, with two kinds of gear shifts, and suddenly she had forgotten which type this was. She sat fumbling with the gear lever while, down the tracks, a train was rapidly narrowing narrow-ing the distance between it and the car. Agony of the Moment Lives With Jane. The gateman yelled ."Get the h off these tracks." Jeannette Jean-nette paid no attention. He ran over and screamed in her car. A crowd was gathering. Frantically, Jeannette kept trying to start the car. Her teeth were chattering and she says she'll never forget the agony of that moment. The gateman had raised the gates half-way. The crowd was screaming to her to get out of the car and run. Then, suddenly, the motor caught. Jeannette jerked the shift lever into what she thought was first speed. It wasn't. It was reverse. The car shot backward with a force that made the baby's head strike the steering wheel. It hit with a resounding thud and it looked like a catastrophe, but it was just what the doctor ordered. The car shot back off the track, and at the same time, something happened to the child. I guess the doctor would have called it regurgitation regurgi-tation or some other swell sounding word, but in plain English well the baby just chucked up. An avalanche of half digested string beans and potatoes landed in Jeannette's lap. And along with it came the CAMPHORATED CAM-PHORATED OIL. A few minutes later in the hospital, Jeannette lay on the floor and cried hysterically while doctors worked over the baby with a stomach pump. If the doctors even noticed Jeannette, they didn't give any sign of it. The baby was the important one. Jeannette was only the one who saved his life. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) |