N&W in 1903 -- Employee Injury

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ARM CUT OFF NEAR SHOULDER JOINT
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Arrived at Hospital With Dismembered Limb in His Right Hand
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Carried It About All Night and Blood Clotted Over Stump Until the Wound Was Frightful to Look Upon
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    A man with his left arm severed about six inches from the shoulder, and carrying it tightly clutched in his right hand, with his own blood and flesh besmeared all over his clothing, was the pitiful sight that was presented to the curious, who congregated around the depot at Welch to witness the coming and going of the trains, when an Italian named Tony Cassino was taken off of a passenger train.  He had been struck by a train near Naugatuck, where he was employed as grademan on the Norfolk and Western railway.  The wound was frightful to look upon.  He still had on his laboring clothes and the arm had not been dressed, and the blood had clotted over the arm where it had been severed.  After being struck  by the train, he wandered around carrying his left arm in his right hand until next morning, when he was seen at the depot by a fellow countryman who prevailed on him to lay down on a cot, and who also tried to find a physician, but was unable to do so, and the poor fellow went all the way from Naugatuck to Welch before he had any medical attention.  Why he carried his dismembered limb with him is not known, unless he thought it could be reattached to his body.  Little information could be gotten from him, as he was not very fluent in the use of the English language, and then the pain he endured would not permit him to answer many questions.  Few people who saw the nature of his wounds thought he had any chance whatever for recovery, but he was taken to the Miners hospital, where the arm, or portion of it which was left, was amputated at the shoulder, and he is now getting along nicely and will recover.  This is the most wonderful display of nerve we have ever heard of.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
August 1, 1903

[This article is submitted in spite of its gruesome details in order to provide some insight into railroading and society of that day, i.e., frequent employee and trespasser injuries and deaths, the lack of local medical attention, the use of regular passenger trains to transport the injured and the nature of newspaper reporting.  Can you image a present day newspaper using similar descriptions of injuries in automobile accidents?]

Gordon Hamilton
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