TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 22272, 25 February 1936, Page 12

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

CDOPED IN ICE CHAMBER Every so often one hears a terrible tale of human privation that is so horrifying it makes our own troubles seem insignificant in comparison, says a writer in the ‘San Francisco Chronicle.’ One is inclined to scoff at the vivid details of some other person’s harrowing experience, and say “ such things can’t happen.” But that trite phrase “ Truth is stranger than fiction ” has been proven time and again j For example, take the case of Glenn Boldan, 14-year-old boy, of Minnesota. The torturous experience that young Glenn recently went through sounds unbelievable, but it actually happened. For 11’days and nights Glenn was cooped up in the freezing ice compart* ment of a freight car without winter clothing or food. During that period be travelled from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast without being, able to free himself or attract the attention - of railroad workers who would have been able to release him from his belowizero cell. And the most difficujt part of the agonising affair to believe is that the boy came through it aliye and will not suffer any permanent injuries. It all started when Glenn graduated from elementary school last June. His father wanted him to go to high school in the autumn, hut the independent chap was not at all pleased with tha idea, and told his father so. Throughout the warm summer there were recurrent squabbles about Glenn’s future.. His father was _ adamant _ about . Glenn’s continuing his studies in the autumn, so when September " came around the freckle-faced boy ran away, , from home. He hopped a freight and landed in Wyoming, where he herded sheep for a while. . Then he. left tor California, where he went to work inf the vegetable fields. While there his sister wrote to him, saying his father had been injured in an accident, waa. getting worse, and was worried about his absence. Glenn decided to return home. The torture that followed is_ mors starkly realistic when told in his own words“l was starting back for Minnesota—-oF-trying to—when I got into the refrigerator car. There were some other boys with me, but they slipped out the first night and took all the food we’d, brought along. It wasn’t much, but it would have looked pretty good to me later. . ’

“ When I found they’d gone I tried to get out, too, but the cover on top of the ice compartment where we' were hiding was shut tight and .I couldn’t budge it. I wasn’t exactly scared then;] I- thought I could make someone out* side hear me. While the train was going there wasn’t must use. shouting* but I made all the noise I could when it stopped. “ After I’d done this about five or. six times and no one answered 1 began to get worried.” \ For a. moment the boy_ hesitated in’ his dramatic story as his eyes filled with the terror of those terrible shocks.. The doctor attending him in_ the hos« pital where he was recovering from starvation and temporary frost bite stepped, forward and told him he didn’t have to continue if he wished;' but Glenn said he would be all right. 1 , “It was terribly cold,” he said weakly, “and I was getting cramped,, too. I could move around, but nob much. You see, the compartment was about 3ft wide ( by. Bft long, and just high enough for me to stand in. For five or six days I could keep track of time by the light that came into the * car in the daytime. Towards the end v though, I began to get drowsy, and I lost all track of time.

“I got so I: could tell when, we were in a mg city, because there would bp a lot of noise from trucks and othei* trains. Then, too, we’d stop longer in the big cities.” The listeners grouped around tho small white bed in the hospital _.’nl Baltimore, where Glenn’s sub-zero ridq, came to an end, felt a tug at th«iw> hearts at the irony of such situations;! help within a few feet for the pathetio little boy, and yet as unattainable as though he were at the freezing North Pole. “ A couple of times we stopped near airports,” continued Glenn. “I could hear the sound of the motors, and once or twice I could see the flash of a beacon or some sort of searchlight swinging past the walls of the car at regular intervals. “ I could tell, too, when we were going over the mountains, because then! they would put an engine on the back - of the train as well as the front, and the whole train would jerk and bumpThat part bothered me when I had tor lie flat on the slats at the bottom and pick up some water from the drain! trough at the bottom of the car.- It was a train filled with lettuce, and before the trip begins they pile ice on top of it, and the water runs through to the drain. There is no floor to this car, just wooden triangular slats that are pretty hard. “I knew I would have to have something to rub on my hands and feet to. keep them from freezing It gets cold out- in Minnesota in the winter, and all the boys know what to do. You rub snow on your hands and feet when! they start to freeze. I didn’t havei snow, and the water from the melting ice in the next compartment was tho best I could do. . “ I had a tobacco can, and I rigged i* up with some string so I could scoojj the water up. I drank some of it and rubbed the rest of it on my hands and feet.” At this, point the doctor interrupted to tell the groups assembled around Glenn’s bed that this procedure ■ wa« probably the thing that saved his leg* and arms. If the frostbite had really settled in his appendages they probably would have had to be amputated. “ 1 ate the seeds out of some cottonl balls I was carrying,” said Glenn- “ Then I ate some roses I had in th«( other pocket. You know,” he smiled- “ those roses tasted pretty good. Them I chewed part of my woollen cap. “ After that I tried chewing my shoes, but that wasn’t so good. I ■ wrapped some paper round my left footbub I knew it was freezing. After m . while I got numb and drowsy, and li lost count of the days then. I don’t' know how I happened to make a noism as those men were coming past here iqf Baltimore.” ■ , , _ , Glenn was talking of Bernard Rock« lin and Burleigh Brown, who heard hi ml moaning as they were passing the car he was trapped in. “We took him tm the shed near the cars,” said Rocklin- “ and started to give him first aid.When he came to partially h* stretched his arm outward towards tho fruit and vegetables stored there. It. was the most pitiful thing I ever saw.’V* When it became certain that Glenn would suffer only temporary injuries from his torturous trip the police notified his parents. But his,father had no money to pay his fare home, so sympathetic Baltimore citizens raised « subscription to take care of that situation. When questioned about his return to home, Glenn said: “ If dad wants mo to go to school, that’s O.K. I’ll bo glad of the chance. There’ll be no more running away on train trips!” - / . t f