Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 188, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1912 — NAIL HOLDS BOY FAST, HOUR [ARTICLE]

NAIL HOLDS BOY FAST, HOUR

Rescuer Forced to Saw Off Foot of Plank to Liberate Victim. - Boston. —After lying helpless for an hour and a half in an abandoned barn, pinned to a board by a rusty tenpenny nail, which had pierced his hand, eight-year-old James Gallagher of No. 130 East Eleanor street, Olney, was discovered by a passing farmer, who i found it necessary to saw off 'a foot of the plank to liberate him. The boy was treated at the Frankford hospital, where the surgeons had to use a saw again and cut away the remaining portion of the board before they could remove the nail. The wound was cauterized and a large quantity of lockjaw antitoxin was Injected. The lad had been amusing himself by sliding down an inclined board In an unused barn In Cedar Grove lane, about a mile from his home. He had made only one or two trips when*his hand suddenly struck the huge nail, which had been driven through the edge of the plank over to form a hook. The force of his swift descent caused the sharp point to penetrate entirely across the palm. , Screaming with paiii, he tried to writhe free, but every movement only increased his agony, and he was unable to extricate himself. Literally nailed to the plank, he lay tor more than an hour, until Joseph Wilson, a farmer, of Second street pike, above Fox Chase, heard his cries as he passed in a wagon. Wilson found the lad almost exhausted from pain. He endeavored to free him, but found that his efforts

only added to the victim’s misery. Hs finally walked half a mile and borrowed a saw with which he cut the board across In two places, while the boy, suffering intense agony, lay watching him. Having finally freed the lad, Wilson placed him, with a foot of plank still fastened to his hand, in his wagon and drove at top speed to the Friends’ asylum, the nearest institution. Physicians at that place, however, were unable to give any aid to the sufferer, and It was necessary *for the farmer to drive with him to Frankford before he obtained relief from his pain.