Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1911 — ACT OF A REAL HERO [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ACT OF A REAL HERO

JUMPS FROM SICK BED TO RISK LIFE FOR OTHERB. : When Bystanders Refuse to Face Peril He Goes Alone in Skiff to Rescue Men From Raging Torrent. Abl act of heroism, which was considered worthy of record, occurred

September 29,1906, with Charles Arms In the role of hero. The accident which resulted In his display of bravery oeou rr e d on the Louisville '& Nashville railroad at a bridge spanning the

Cumberland river at Clarksville. The draw was open to permit the passage of a steamboat, but the engineer of a passenger train failed to stop his train, and the locomotive and two cars plunged through the open.draw Into the river, which "nas flood' high, with a swift current, and full of floating drift The engineer was killed. Two mail clerks, J. G. Martin and Thomas A. Fraser, and the baggageman, Robert L. Morris, were in the cars which went over. . Although they were badly injured they managed to climb out of the cars and to obtain places of temporary • safety on the roofs. -It was night, and dark. The cars floated down stream with the current. Arms, who lived on the banks of ,the river a short distance below, was 111 in his bed with malarial fever. He [heard the noise of the accident, and his little daughter came running to [.his room with the news of it. He immediately arose, and without taking ! time to clothe himself, ran out and jumped Into a skiff. He appealed to ‘some of the bystanders to go with him to the assistance of the persons on the drifting cars, but nobody would ‘accompany him on the dangerous mission. They told him It was madness for him to go out alone, that if ,the current did not swamp him persons leaping from the cars Into his frail' boat would. But In spite of his ill condition Arms went out, and Alone. He passed-' the baggage car, with Morris on top. But as the mail car was drifting further down stream toward a dangerous eddy, he put out after that one first, finally came up with it artd took oft Martin and Fraser. Returning he picked up Morris also and landed all three safely on shore. The president shortly afterward had the honor of sending Arms, although he was not a railroad man, one of these hero medals which are the fed badges of courage in the whole railroad world in America.