AMAZING FORTITUDE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 292, 19 May 1915, Page 3

AMAZING FORTITUDE.

j INJURED MAN'S STECIGGLE. ! CRAWLS A MILE WITH SHATTERED ' LIMBS. j Waihi, May 15. • The. Waimana bush, five miles from Waihi was the scene of a terrible accident to-day. The victim, Charles Ludwig, had driven his cart and horse to the bush track, and had gone further in on foot to fell trees. ..He had put a scarf in one of the trees, and had charged a couple of holes with gelignite on the opposite side, and had lighted the attached fuses, when unexpectedly one of tlie charges exploded. Ludwig appears to have received the full force of the explosion, and sustained terrible wounds from his head to his feet. Amongst his wounds was a double fracture of his right leg below the knee, and his second and third fingers and the thumb of his right hand were broken; he had deep gashes on his forehead and right cheek, and his left eve was almost completely destroyed. His arms and tlie front part of his hody were also badly bruised and cut. Recovering somewhat from tlie immediate effect of his wounds be crawled or slmll'led along on the rough, broken ground till he came to his tethered horse. Here he secured a strap, and getting hold of some sticks he hound them to his broken leg, thus 'providing some kind of splint which partially kept the protruding splintered bone in its place. lie then started to shuffle backwards in the direction of the. open country. The accident happened ahout noon, and Ludwig was not found till 3 o'clock-. Meanwhile he had struggled painfully out of the hush and gained tlie open track, having covered in four hours a distance of a mile. The loss of blond had been enormous, and the man was in a state of collapse. He was ultimately conveyed on a. bed of fern in a trap to the Waihi hospital.