FREAK ACCIDENTS

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 12

FREAK ACCIDENTS

DEATH IN THE BATH TUB A RATTLESNAKE IN THE CLOUDS The bath tub is more dangerous than (lying. Grave dangers lurk m the most homely objects and environments. The moral of this cheerful artcile by Arthur Grahame, in the ‘ Popular Science Monthly,’ seems to be: Take all reasonable precautions, but do not worry, for whatever you do you cannot eliminate the risk of accident. The patrons of a restaurant in Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania (U.S.A.), did not know that they were rushing into peril when they stepped into their favourite eating place for luncheon one day last March. Even those seated closest to John Bosak, a Lehigh University engineering student, were not apprehensive. While they were eating there was an explosion. It rocked the restaurant, and several of the customers were injured by knives and forks that were hurled about by the blast.Horrified glances at Bosak, who was groaning on the floor, convinced those present that he had blown up 1 A physician gave him medical attention, and found that he had been seriously burn and that most of his clothing had been tom from his body. The college student, who had been doing laboratory work that morning, had concocted an explosive chemical mixture in a test tube, and had placed the test tube in one of the pockets of his waistcoat. The heat of his body had made the chemical explode. , GLASS EYE EXPLODES. Quite as unexpected was the danger that overtook a factory worker recently. His glass eye exploded while he was at work. He was rendered unconscious, and he suffered severe and painful injuries. _ . Even less common is the accident of being struck by a falling meteor. Yet there is always a chance of encountering that strange fate. _ Stones from meteors are picked up in the United States on an average of one in every sixteen months, and mathematicians have calculated _ that once every 9,300 years an American will be struck by one. Twenty-five years ago a falling meteor put an end to a revolution in Central America. General Pablo Castilliano, leading a revolt _ against the Nicaraguan Government in 1906, was seated quietly in his tent one night in a jungle camp near Puerta Cabezas. A meteor ripped through the canvas and killed him. His soldiers, believing that Castilliano had been removed from the world by an act of God, decided that ho had been an emissary sent to them for their ruination by the devil, and straightway deserted the revolution. Much more immediate than the danger of being struck by a falling meteor is the danger of being struck by lightning. The odds ' are only 7,000 to 1 against an individual being struck' at some time during the span of a life of seventy years, and only 500,000 to 1 against his being struck in any given year. Those are the mathematical odds, but the bolts from the heavens did not run true to form for M. Caisar Beltram, a citizen of Lyons, in France. M. Beltram was struck by lightning five times before he was killed—and pneumonia, not lightning, ended his life. Far more dangerous than Nature’s holts is manmade electricity. In the United States fewer than 500 people a year are killed by lightning; more than double that number are killed by accidental electric shocks through coming in contact with high-voltage wires. Even the most nervous mothers feel fairly well at ease when their children are amusing themselves by flying kites. Yet unexpected and fatal danger sometimes lurks in even that pastime, for each year many youngsters are electrocuted when their kite strings come into contact with high-voltage overhead electric wires. ASTOUNDING AEROPLANE ACCIDENT.

An electric power line combined with an aeroplane crash to _ bring about a series of unusual fatalities. A machine carrying its pilot and a passenger struck a telephone pole. The pilot jumped when his machine crashed, and was injured only slightly. As the aeroplane fell its tail became entangled with the wires of an electric power line charged with 4,800 volts, and when its nose came in contact with the ground the metal parts of the plane completed the circuit between the wires and the earth. The passenger received a fatal shock and the plane caught fire. A mechanic rushed up close to the machine and directed a stream from a fire extinguisher on the flames. The liquid from the extinguisher acted as a conductor for the electric current, and the mechanic was killed. Seeing the man helpless on the ground, and not realising what had happened, a bystander pulled the mechanic away, began operating the extinguisher, and was electrocuted also. Most flying accidents occur on the ground. Of 314 recent accidents on commercial routes 230 were caused by forced landings or were mishaps in landing, taking off, or taxi-ing. But even when the flyer is “ safely m the air he has to face a share of dangers. P. Wiggins, of Scott City, Kansas (U.S.A.), experienced one that was unexpected. While flying alone almost a mile in the air he was bitten by a rattlesnake! He was fortunate enough and level-headed enough to make a sale landing and to obtain medical assistance before the poison had a fatal effect. How the rattlesnake happened to be a passenger in ‘the aeroplane remains a mystery, but Wiggins believes _ that it must have crawled in while his plane was “ parked ” overnight in a field. Although the number of fatal and other accidents in civil aviation has not been reduced in recent years, flying m commercial machines becomes safereach year. In 1930, in almost 37,000,000 miles of flying by American transport aeroplanes, only eigjit pilotsandtv entyfour passengers were killed, and only twenty pilots and twenty-nine passengers were injured. In the last two years there has been an improvement ot S/.Q per cent, in the rate of fatalities a million miles flown on regular routes.

RISKS OF TRAVEL. A man may expect to ride—if Ins riding career is not cut short by old, age —500,000,000,000 times in tramcars before he meets a fatal accident. He is instilled in looking forward to 2/0,000,000 miles of travel m trams before he loses his life in a railway accident. He may expect to travel 21,000,000 miles as a passenger in motor vehicles before becoming tho victim of ft fatal nuschance. As a passenger in commercial aeroplanes flying over regular routes ho can look forward to 1,500,000 miles of flying before the last crash. Many a traveller has flown thousands of miles in passenger aeroplanes without being inconvenienced by even a trivial mishap. That was not the luck of David L. Jones, of London. One day he took a passenger flight. Tim machine crashed, but he was not injured. Undismayed, he tried again. Once more the aeroplane crashed, and again he escaped injury. A little later he was in Berlin, and was in a hurry to return to London. It seemed to him that he must have suffered his share of bad luck in the air, so he boarded one of the large Lufthansa air; Uncra* fiver

the South of England the German ship! ran into a heavy fog and crashed on ai hillside. J ones was one of the six wh« were killed. Accidents lead to hospitals, and moslj people are anxious to keep out of host pitals as much as possible—but they! feel safe while they are in one. Yet? even in hospitals unexpected danger* lie waiting. Mrs Maude Branton, of Los Angeles, California (United! States), was on an operating table int a hospital when she was killed by an! explosion of anaesthetic gas in he*, lungs. The surgeons suggested that the explosion was occasioned by a spark! of static electricity, perhaps from th* hand of the operating surgeon, perhap* from the metal cone employed in administering the anaesthetic. Another unusual accident in a hospital occurred when a doctor, watching an anaesthetic being administered, was overcome by the fumes, fell, and fractured his skull on the concrete floor of the| operating room. “ Safe at home ” is a comforting phrase, but it ceases to mean anything when you study the statistics of accidents. Every year about 30,000 Americans are killed by accidents ini their homes, many more than are killed in industrial accidents, and it is estimated that there are 4,500,000 nonfatal accidents in homes every year,Falls, cuts, bums, scalds, and asphyxiation are the most common hom* dangers. BLINDED AT GOLF. Golf is the cause of many accidents* One of the most unusual of them occurred when a business man swung* missed the ball, hit the root of a treaj solidly with his clubhead —and lost th« sight of one of his eyes! Although' he did not know it, he was a victinl of a not uncommon eye disease, ini which any severe jar is likely to resulti in blindness. Several persons have lost! their sight when well-meaning friend* slapped them heartily on the back* Cadet James Glattly, a member of that United States track team, was the victim of another unusual sporting accident last spring. While he was running at top speed he ran into an in-accurately-thrown javelin that had struck the ground in front of him* The butt of the javelin entered hi* mouth, and he suffered concussion of the brain.

One of the many accidents never fully explained was the misfortune o< a man in New York, who, while walking along the street, was struck on the head by a heavy hammer that seemed to come out of the clear sky. Careful investigation resulted in only one logical inference, that some ironworker on’ a tall building under construction halt a block away had thrown the tool' to a mate, and that the mate had missed catching it. Sometimes the cause of an accident is another accident. That was so when a barn in Evanston, Illinois (United States), was destroyed by fire. It happened this way: The driver of a milk truck stopped at the petrol station to fill his tank. While he was doing sdf he got the tails of his white canvas coat wet with petrol. .. When about! to climb to his seat he flicked the ashe* off his cigarette. They fell on his coat' tails and set the coat afire. The startled driver pulled the coat off and threw it away from him. The blazing coat landed on the tail of a horse, standing near by. The outraged horse switched its tail, throwing the flaming coat on to a pile of hay. The burning hajf set .thg fears PS firgl