Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1914 — LADOGA YOUNG MAN FELL FROM TRAIN [ARTICLE]

LADOGA YOUNG MAN FELL FROM TRAIN

Laid Out AIL Night Near Pleasant Ridge and Has Small Chance of Recovery. Harley Brown, apparently about 28 years of age, was picked up by the local freight crew at Pleasant Ridge this Saturday morning at about 8 o’clock and brought to Rensselaer, where he is hovering betwfeen life and death with chances very much against him. Indications are that he is suffering from concussion at the base of the brain. Brown with two other young men was stealing a ride on passenger train No. 3, which left Chicago Friday- night at 9. o’clock and which is due to pass through Rensselaer at 11:05, but which was about an hour late that night. He had fallen off the train shortly after midnight and when found by' the local freight crew his feet and left hand seemed to be frozen and he was all but dead. He was brought to the depot, where Dr. I. M. Washburn, the railroad’s local surgeon, assisted by several volunteers, worked with him for several hours, chafing his cold limbs and trying to get some sign of life. His respiration was slightly improved and there was some sign of circulation but it will be a hard pull for him if he recovers. The only abrasion of the skin was on top of the head and this seemed to be only superficial. There was another bump over the left eye, while the cinders in which his head was embedded when found had left marks about the left side of his face. The train crew found him just this side of Pleasant Ridge, on the north, side of the track with his head doubled under his shoulder, evidently in just the position where his body had landed when he fell from the train.

He was dressed for a bumming trip, having two suits of union underwear, four shirts, four pair of socks, three pairs of pants and a warm, close-fitting coat. A pair of good shoes, a cap and a pair of cotton gloves completed his attire. He had a pocketbook containing $4.50 and several small tools used in his trade as a cooper. Letters in his pocket established his identity and that his home was at Ladoga. Agent Beam communicated by wire with the superintendent of the Monon at Lafayette and at about the time this dispatch reached there the young men who had accompanied hinr on the bumming expedition were trying tojftnd out what had become of him and were sending out dispatches from Ladoga. Relatives will come here this afternoon to look after him.