A Stranger Gored Saving Women and Children at the Tacoma Driving Park
John Christer rushed a mad bull to shield a crowd of women and children. The animal tossed him with his entrails out, and doctors at Fannie Paddock hospital say inflammation will decide whether he lives.
TACOMA, June 30. — For an act of heroism in saving several women and children from the fury of a mad bull at the Tacoma Driving Park, in the West End, John Christer will probably lose his life. Seeing the bull making for the women, he rushed up to head him off. The bull turned on him, his horns catching Christer on the right side of the abdomen, ripping it open to the left side. He was rolled and tossed by the mad animal with his entrails protruding. Only the last part of the encounter was witnessed by several men, who rushed in and bore Christer out of the driving park. He was taken to the Fannie Paddock hospital, where the protruding bowels were replaced. The man is unknown and is too weak to talk, though he recovered consciousness at 10 p.m. If inflammation sets in he will die.
“He was rolled and tossed by the mad animal with his entrails protruding.”
The Tacoma Driving Park is long gone, but the question it raises — who pays when a bystander is hurt saving others — is as current as any emergency-room bill. Christer was an unidentified stranger, and the paper could not even give his next of kin.
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