Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1899 — The Accident To Baby Spitler. [ARTICLE]

The Accident To Baby Spitler.

The accident to little Elizabeth Spitler, the five year old child of Mr. and Mrs. C. G. Spitler, which occurred late Friday afternoon, was not a very serious one, but it was a very narrow escape for the child. She and a little visitor of her age, a daughter of Warren Springer, of Chicago, had started to go to meet the other children as they come from school. Just as they got to the railroad track, the 3:27 north bound train came along not of course, under very great headway, it being only two blocks from the depot, where the train had stopped. Elizabeth was ahead and appears to have been on the track but not between the rails. She was always abnormally afraid of trains, and seeing this one coming she appears to have been too frightened to move. Tbe engineer saw her and tried to stop tbe train, but it was still moving fast enough that some part of the engine, probably the side of the pilot, struck the little girl on the cheek and knocked her down. The blow from the pilot bruised one side of her face and the force of the fall the other, but neither injury was sufficient to cut through the skin. Thus she is not hurt at all seriously, but it was as, before said, a very narrow escape.