A MAN WITH AN UNLUCKY DAY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XXIV, 10 December 1898, Page 768

A MAN WITH AN UNLUCKY DAY.

A remarkable statement is published in the ‘Lancet’ by Dr. T. G. Richard, surgeon to the workmen employed in the Risca colleries, South Wales. It is corroborated, says Dr. Richards, by persons in a position to know the facts, and there is every reason for accepting it as true. It relates to a miner engaged in one of the Risca colleries who suffered a series of fractures while at work in the pit. The strange thing about it is that all the accidents, although spread over a number of years, occurred on the 26th of August. Here is the record: At the age of ten he fractured his right index finger. It happened on August 26. When thirteen years old he fractured his left leg below the knee through falling from horseback, also on August 26. When fourteen years of age he fractured both bones of the left forearm by stumbling, his arm striking the edge of a brick (August 26). In another year, on August 20, when fifteen years of age, he had compound fracture of the left leg above the ankle by his foot being caught under an iron rod and his body falling forwards. Next year, again on the same date, August 26, he had compound fracture of both legs, the right being so severely crushed that it had to be amputated at the lower third of the thigh. This was caused by a horse, hitched to a tram of coal, which, running wild underground, caught him in a narrow passage, crushing both legs severely. After this the unluck miner made up his mind not to go to work on August 26, and he ‘played’ on that day for a number of years—how many years it is not quite clear from the report, but that does not matter. In 1890 the miner either shook off his superstitious fears or forgot his reckoning. At all events he went to work as usual on August 26, and as ill-luck would have it, he was crushed by a fall of earth and sustained a compound fracture of his left leg.