Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/117

 Popular Science Monthly

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��of accidents is greater in the cit^- than in the countr>% and the months of June, July, August. September and ^larch in their respective order, furnish the greatest number.

Examine the claims paid by the insurance companies and you get some idea of the limit- less diversity of accidents, of serious results from trivial causes, of miraculous escape with slight injuries, of the tragic and hu- morous causes that would fill five hundred pages without a repetition.

"I was asleep," said one claimant, "and dreamed that a wild bull was rushing after me, when I kicked at the imaginary- animal, striking the wall vio- lently and breaking my foot." "While assisting a lady to board a train, the point of the umbrella which she carried under her arm, was accidentally thrust into my left eye, destroying the sight," complains another.

A third has been around the three times and never been injured, but stepped in a bucket left on the cellar stairs and fell, breaking both his legs.

"Shoveling coal in a furnace when a shot cartridge which was in the coal exploded and the charge entered his right side," reports an accident company of one case. "Was walking in front of his house when the wheel which had come off from an automobile and rolled a block, struck him, fracturing both bones of the right leg," reads another report.

"Stepped on the tail of a cow which arose and threw him on his head causing con- cussion of brain." It's true, too.

"Slipped in the bathtub and fell, rupturing the spleen." It hap- pens more fre- quently than might be sup- ix)sed.

"While asleep

���£ Int. Film Sen-.

Photograph taken during the Astor Cup Race, at Sheepshead Bay, New York, recently. Ruckstall, one of the contestants, is shown crawling out from under his car, which turned turtle while rounding a curve at terrific speed. He was slightly injured but his mechanician and the car were unscathed

world in a hotel the building caught fire. In endeavoring to get out of bed, I was caught in the bedclothes and fell against a table, fracturing three ribs,"

"I was chasing a rooster with some scissors to clip his wings, and fell, driving thescissorsintomyownbody." Itsounds absurd, but it happened.

A Port Jefferson man was electrocuted while taking a foot bath in a metallic tub. He had one foot in the tub half filled with water, when his head came in contact with an electric light fix- ture.

One company paid money (after investigation) to a man who "crawled under a bed for a stock- ing; a needle lying on the floor ran into his breast." Accidents oc- curring at home contribute in nor- mal years twenty- six per cent, of all accidents.

���An instance of fires resulting from smut ex- plosions in grain. Much valuable machinery is destroyed in this way during harvest time

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