Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1895 — Rebuilt by Surgical Skill. [ARTICLE]

Rebuilt by Surgical Skill.

An odd character is now in Winona, Minn., in the person of George Burns, who has good reason for his eccentricity. He has papers to show that he was head engineer on the steamer City of Savannah, which was wrecked on the coast of Massachusetts on January 18, 1884, while en route from Boston to Florida. He was reversing the levers when the steamer struck the rocks, and he was thrown into the machinery, receiving injuries which crippled him for life. There were 118 lives lost in the accident, and Burns was one of the thirty-seven surviving, For a long while he lay on a cot in the death row of Bellevue Hospital, New York. Dr. Hayes Agnew attended his case and removed five ribs from his left side, and trephined his skull, using six ounces of silver sheeting for this purpose. He was compelled to wear a plaster of paris jacket for four years after the accident. A portion of the lower end of his spine and both elbow joints are gone. One knee cap is on the back of the leg, and his heart is on the extreme right side of his body. He is now 64 years of age, and walks very well and has a cheerful disposition. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and served during the war on the gunboat which was stationed at Cairo during the early days of the Civil war.