He Walked to the Doctor With His Arm Hanging by a Thread

Last Friday night the train coming west cut the left arm off an Indian near Sand Point. It seems that two Indians were on a railroad trestle near that place when the train came in sight. They ran for firm ground, and just as they reached it one of them fell with his arm across the track. The train was so close upon them that before he could get out of the way one wheel passed over the arm near the shoulder, mangling it in a most frightful manner, the arm hanging by a narrow shred of flesh. The wounded man and his companion were taken on board and brought to this place. Here the unfortunate man sat up until morning, when he walked to Dr. Morgan's office. Drs. Morgan and Whitehouse consulted together and decided upon taking the arm off at the shoulder. The operation is a dangerous one under any circumstance, and in this case, when there was little or no flesh with which to make a flap, it was more than ordinarily delicate. The man was put under the influence of chloroform, the shattered bones together with the shoulder joint removed, and the mangled flesh cut away. It was a horrible sight, and only a man of extraordinary endurance could have survived the operation, the great loss of blood and the terrible shock. His friends procured a competent nurse, and everything was done to bring him out of the scrape, but the injury was too severe. Up to Tuesday morning there were hopes of his weathering the terrible shock, but that morning Dr. Morgan pronounced the case hopeless. He died Tuesday evening, mortification having set in. The man was a Pend d'Oreille Indian, and he bore the injury with remarkable stoicism. In fact he became tired of waiting for the doctors and asked for a knife that he might remove the injured and useless arm; when this was refused he became angry and attempted to leave the office. He was unconscious for 48 hours before he died.