Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 18, Number 26, DeMotte, Jasper County, 28 May 1948 — GRANDSON OF THE JOHN ANDERSONS INJURED IN FALL ON PENCIL [ARTICLE]

GRANDSON OF THE JOHN ANDERSONS INJURED IN FALL ON PENCIL

Wm. James Ridgeway, Jr., 17 months old, while toddling around the living room of his parent’s farm home near Eaton, Illinois Sunday evening, May 16, fell and drove a pencil, which he was holding in his hand an inch into the left lobe of his brain. The accident occured about 9 o’clock and was first called to the attention of the parents when the child started crying. The mother went to the child to investigate and found the baby with the broken off half of the pencil still clutched in his little fist, while the pointed half was protruding from the left eye socket. The child was rushed to the Brook’s hospital in Robinson, where an x-ray examination disclosed that the pencil had penetrated an inch into the brain lobe. It was considered too serious to attempt to remove there and specialists were consulted. He was rushed to the St. Louis hospital where the pencil was removed by a very serious and delicate operation, which took six hours to perform. The condition of the child is very serious, but reports received here Tuesday evening by relatives indicated that he was slightly improved at that time. V'.n. James is a grandson of Mr. and Mrs. John Anderson of DeMotte. His mother is the former Rose Anderson.