A Sudden Storm and a Frightened Team
A lightning strike and a team of horses lead to a harrowing accident for a mother and her young son.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mrs. Geo. Whistler met with a painful accident Tuesday evening. During the height of the storm she was driving home from town in company with her four-year-old son. The horses took fright at a sharp flash of lightning, starting forward suddenly with a jerk. Both Mrs. Whistler and the child were thrown violently to the ground. The lady had her left shoulder dislocated, and while the wheels of the vehicle passed over the child's legs, he seems to have escaped without injury.
“The horses took fright at a sharp flash of lightning, starting forward suddenly with a jerk.”
Travel by horse and buggy in the early days of Okanogan County was fraught with unpredictable hazards, from volatile weather to skittish animals. While modern cars have replaced the team, the peril of navigating the region's rugged roads during sudden mountain storms remains a persistent local experience.
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