TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1936, Page 12

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

BOY IN ICE COMPARTMENT. Every so often one hears a terrible tale of human privation that is so horrifying it makes our own troubles seem insignificant iir comparison, says a writer in the “San Francisco Chronicle.” One is inclined to scofi at. the yivid details of some .other person's harrowing experience and say “such things can’t happen.” But that trite phrase, “Truth is', dtranger than fiction,” has been proven time and again. 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 compartment of a freight car without winter clothing or food. During that period -he 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 . below-zero, cell. And the most difficult part of the agonising .affair/, is thatJJtie boy. , came through it alive and will not suffer any permanent4niurfeJB.s •*7 ■*? It all started" vzheri 'Glenn graduated from elementary, school last June. His father Wanted him to go to high school in the; autumn; but the independent chap was not'at all pleased with the/ i4ea> and; tq|dy ;kisZ- father sq. 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 for California, where he went to work in the vegetable fields. While there his sister wrote to him, saying his father had been injured in an accident, was getting worse, and was worried about his absence.

Glenn decided to return home. The torture that followed is more starkly realistic when told in his own words. “I was starting back for Minnesota—or 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 outside hear me. While the train was going there wasn’t much use shouting, but I made 1 all the noise I could when it stopped. - . “After I’d done this about five or /six times and no one answered I began to get worried.” For a moment the boy hesitated in i his dramatic story as his eyes filled with the terror of those terrible shocks. The doctor attending him in the hospital where he was ing 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. . “It was terrible cold,” he said weakly, “and I was getting cramped, too. You see, the compartment was about three feet’wide by eight feet 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, though, I began to get drowsy and I lost all track of time.

“I got so I could tell when we were in a big city, because there would be a lot of noise from trucks and other trains. Then, too, we’d stop longer in the big cities.” The listeners grouped around the small, * white bed in thg hospital in ’Baltimore, where Glenn’s sub-zero ride came to an end, felt a tug at their hearts at the irony of• such situations; - help within a few feet for the pathetic 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 or a beacon or some sort of search? light 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 bump. That part bothered me when I had to 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 trianigular slats that are pretty hard. “I knew I would have to get 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 have snow and the water from the melting ice in the next compartment was the best I could do. i had a tobacco can and I rigged it up with some string so I could scoop the water up. I drank some of it and nibbed the rest of it on my hands and feet.” 1 (

At this point the doctor interrupted to tell the groups assembled around Glenn’s bed that this procedure was probably the thing, that saved his legs and arms. If the frostbite had really settled in his appendages, they probably would have had ito be amputated. “I ate the seeds out of some cotton balls I was carrying,” said Glenn. “Then I ate some roses I had in the other/pocket. You know,” he smiled, ‘‘those roses tasted pretty good. Then 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 foot but I knew it was freezing. After a while I got numb and drowsy and I lot count of the days then. I don’t know how I happened to make a noise as those men were coming past here in Baltimore.” Glenn was talking of Bernard Rocklin and Burleigh Brown, who, heard him moaning as they were passing the car he was trapped' in. “We took him to the shed near the cars,” said Rocklin, “and started to give him first aid. When he came to partially he stretched his arm outward towards the fruits and vegetables stored there. It was the most pitiful thing I ever saw.” 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 citi- j

zens raised a subscription to take care of that situation. When questioned about his return to home, Glenn said, “If Dad wants me to go to school, that’s O.K. I’ll ! ( be glad of the chance. There’ll be no : more running away on train trips!”