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Automobile Killed Man

Automobile Killed Man image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
September
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

AUTOMOBILE KILLED MAN

TERRIBLE ACCIDENT AT THE RACES IN DETROIT. 

SPECTATOR STRUCK BY RUNAWAY RACING MACHINE. 

CHAUFFEUR OLDFIELD THROWN INTO A TREE.

Detroit, Mich., Sept. 10.- A sharp report of a bursted tire, a wild plunge of an automobile into a fence lined with spectators and a pathetically distorted body, thrown fully seventy feet from the scene of the disaster and lying in the grass with the life blood slowly ebbing away, formed the feature of the closing day of the automobile races Wednesday, transforming the exciting spectacle of a moment before into the direst tragedy. 

The catastrophe happened in the final event, a ten-mile open in which Barney Oldfield, the American champion, and Harry Cunningham of Detroit were the only competitors. Oldfield was tearing along at a rate of 1:02 to the mile, hopelessly beaten through two miles lost at the start, but pushing his machine to the utmost in the endeavor to make up the lost ground. He was rounding the turn at the head of the stretch when, with a sharp crack the front tire on the right side of the machine exploded, rendering the big automobile completely helpless. 

The wheels took the short arc of the circle and the machine struck the fence at full speed, smashing it into toothpicks and throwing Frank Shearar of 148 Seyburn avenue, Detroit, who stood directly in its path outside the fence, high in the air and fully seventy feet from where he had been standing, inflicting injuries from which he died while on the way to the hospital. 

Auto Leaped Thirty Feet.

Where the accident occurred the track is banked to a height of about twelve feet. Over the crest of this bank Oldfield's machine leaped, covering fully thirty feet before it struck the ground. Oldfield himself was thrown clear of the wreck, shooting through the air into a tree top and turning over completely, landing on his back. His clothing was torn to tatters, one rib was broken and there are two long, ugly cuts on his back, from gravel which he struck where he fell. The chauffeur, however, pluckily gathered his wits, got to his feet and walked back on the track, where he was welcomed by the other chauffeurs as one brought back from the dead.

His machine, the Winton "Baby Bullet," is a complete wreck, the wheels smashed, the motor a maze of broken wires and twisted metal, and the framework splintered and torn. 

Shearer had been standing on the track, leaning against the fence, and received the full force of the impact, being thrown high in the air and down the bank. Both his hips were broken, his legs were nothing but splintered bone and limp flesh, and he had received internal injuries from several broken ribs. During the twenty minutes in which he lived after the accident he bled steadily at the mouth and drew his final breath fitfully. He never recovered consciousness.