Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 275, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1916 — DIES THREE TIMES RETURNS TO LIFE [ARTICLE]

DIES THREE TIMES RETURNS TO LIFE

CALLS FOR WATER AFTER Hit BECOND DEMISE

Strangs Cass of 300-Pound Laborer Fatally Injured by Fall From Hay Wagon.

Denver, Col.—Death comes but once to the ordinary man, but to Charles Gallagher, 58 years old, and weighing nearly 3QO pounds, it camt three times before it decided to re main. Three times in the early morn Ing hours nurses and physicians in the county hqspital pronounced their patient dead, only to learn in two of the Instances that the evidences of death had been false—that the tests had failed. It was not until rigor mortis stiffened the body following the third death that the authorities felt safe in turning the body over to the coroner.

It was about 1 o’clock on the previous afternoon that some farmhands, employed on the ranch of J. L. Taylor near Arvada, heard screams for help. Hurring in the direction of the shouts, they found that Gallagher, another workman, had fallen from a hay wagon with the result that his back had been broken. They summoned Mr. Taylor, who hurried Gallagher to the county hospital in a motor car, arriving there about 2:30 o'clock. There it as found that In addition to the broken back, Gallagher also was suffering from a fracture of the skull. Death was almost a certainty. But neither the doctors nor the nurses had even a vision-of the multitudinous death to come.

Therefore, when at 1:35 o’clock next morning, Gallagher’s pulse, heart and breathing ceased, the physicians applied the usual tests for death and nrdftrftd the body and bed of Gallaghei into the "dressing room” or “dead room,” to be shrouded. The garments of death were wrapped about the body of the man, the eyes were closed, the hands were pinioned that when the rigor of death came they, would be in place. Then the door was closed and the “dead” man left for the coroner. The operation had consumed about fifteen minutes. Five minutes later, Miss Grace Cramor, a nurse, passing the door of the dressing room, paused at a horrible, gurgling, straining sound from within. She turned and opened the door. With a scream the nurse half reeled, then leaped forward. There on the bed, his face contorted, his wrists purple, his broken frame convulsing and swaying as he struggled against his bonds, Charles Gallagher, pronounced dead twenty minutes before, was seeking to free his hands and to call for help. Quickly the nurse released his Bonds and summoned the physicians. The excited beating of the pulse soothed and became normal again. For fully five minutes there was every evidence of an entire return to life. Then the pulse weakened once more, the eyes glazed again and the stethoscopes denoted that the heart bad ceased its beating entirely. From one to another traveled the glances of the physcians. “There’s no doubt about it this t'me,” they said. “But just the same we’ll watch.’ And there they remained, watching the still form of the man on the bed. A quarter of an hour, a half hour, -,-hile test after test was made. And with every test there came the reply that life was gone. , Five minutes j, ore —eight minutes more—and then the cry, “His heart’s beating again!” It was a physician with his ear to a stethoscope. Another doctor listened. The faint beating of the heart became stronger; at the wrists there came evidence of pulse. Life had returned. But this time life was fainter, feebler. Where the pulse had been strong before, it was weak now. twice dead, turned his head slightly. His lips mumbled something. The nurse bent low. “What is it?” "Water—Water,” his lips gasped. The nurse turned. She hurried forth and returned. But when she entered the room again the doctors ence more were applying the steth oscopes and shaking their heads. For life had departed again. And this time in certainty. But with two returns to life already recorded, there was not even a chance for certainty now. It was not until three hours later, when the hospital authorities felt sure that life really had departed, that the authorities felt safe in notifying the coroner that the body really was ready for his care. “Explanation?” exclaimed one of the physicians when questioned about the strange case, “there isn’t any ex p’anation. The man Just died three times, and that’s all there to to It Every test of death that we know was applied to him and they all show«c that life was negative. The man was dead—to every possible test. Then he came to life again. That Is the only explanation that can be given.” V . ,

Sugar cookies put, piping hot int'r an earthen jar lined with clean cloth and "kept covered, will be much nicer fjinn if allowed to cool In the air. The doth inside takes up the steam, which might otherwise make the lower cookies sodden.