Headstrong Irishman

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 9

Headstrong Irishman

NZPA-Reuter Birmingham John Delaney should be dead. He says he is alive because of the luck of the Irish. Mr Delaney, a 56-year-old father of four, was walking home when a concrete coping stone fell from the second floor of a building on to his head, knocking him unconscious. An ambulance rushed him to the Birmingham Accident Hospital, where 17 stitches were put in a huge head wound, a nurse said. X-rays disclosed a skull fracture but no other dam-

age, and a few hours later Mr Delaney sat up in bed. “I have a bit of an ache, that’s all. I also feel slightly dizzy,” he said yesterday. At the building which shed the stone, an engineer, Mr Geoffrey Jenkins, said: “I can’t understand why this man’s not dead. The whole concrete ledge came down. It was four inches thick and must have weighed at least a hundredweight” “Such a weight normally would mean death, but Mr Delaney is fully conscious and his conditionals satisfactory,” said a hospital spokesman.