Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1887 — IMPALED IN MID-AIR. [ARTICLE]

IMPALED IN MID-AIR.

Clans Petersen Pall 100 Feet Upon an Iron Rod and Hangs There. N. Y. World. J. Pierpont Morgan, the well-known banker, is erecting a memorial chapel and library to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Tracy, the deceased pspynts'of his wife erforcl place, in the rear of St. George’s Episcopal Church, where the late Rev. Stephen H. Tvng, .D. D., officiated. A distressidg accident occurred there yesterday morning. Claus A. Petersen, a young man who had abandoned a seafaring life a few months ago because of its perils, and resumed his trade as an iron- worker, was at work on the building. While bracing iron beams on the roof he stepped upon a box and was thrown headlong towards the well-hole in the cellar —a distance of over one hundred feet. In flying through the open space his 'body swung around and struck against the unfinished iron stairway. The rail had been left exposed, and Petersen fell face down-ward upon one of the upright iron prongs. It pierced his body like a lance, leaving him suspended in midi air over the well-hole. The iron bent nearly double with the writhing man. His fellow-workmen hastened to his rescue, but Petersen was so firmly fastened to the iron upright, which had run completely through him, that they wero powerless to render him any assistance, and the poor lellow was slowly bleeding to death when an ambulance surgeon from Bellevue Hospital arrived. It required the combined strength of three men to tear Petersen’s body from the iron prod, during which he suffered excrutiating agony. When he reached the hospital it wa3 found that his lungs had been pierced and his body had terrible wounds in the breast and back, from which he had bled profusely. The surgeons said their wa3 only one chance in ten of his recovery.