Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1886 — A Tramp’s Great Feat. [ARTICLE]

A Tramp’s Great Feat.

As the South-bound freight train left * this station Tuesday afternoon, a number of our citizens were eye-witnesses of a scene that made the blood in their veins run cold. A tramp was trying to “beat” his passage on the train ana attempted to get on a brakebeam. He missed his reckoning and his feet dragged on the track between the rails. The train was moving about six miles per hour. To let go was certain death. He struggled frantically to get his feet on the brake-beam, but failed. Meanwhile, the spectators •vyere horrified, and many turned their eyes away from the scene. At last, by an almost superhuman effort, he got both feet up between his hands against the brake-bar of which he had to hold, and, after swinging several times until his body had gained sufficient momentum, he let go with his hands and shot out from under the car head first, and landed on his back on the side of the embankment, down which he rolled into a mud puddle. His face was devoid of color when he arose, the palms of his hands were bleeding, and he trembled as if suffering from a severe chill. His adventure and marvelous escape aroused fbe sympathies of those who witnessed tine knock at “death's door,” and a collection of several dollars was promptly taken up and given him. He was a robmt young man of about 25 years of ty* and owed his life to his strength A&4a^iitr. — Ur alley ( Ohio ) Herald.

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