C. E. Bullington Injures Eye

BULLINGTON

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 6/13/2009 at 20:09:55

C. E. Bullington Injures Eye in Freak Accident
Surgeon Gives Better Than 50-50 Chance to Save his Sight
Charles E. Bullington, 28, combination man of the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company injured his right eye seriously about 3 o’clock Friday afternoon in a freak accident which occurred as he was unloading some branches of trees from the company truck into a ravine between Prairie City and Colfax. He had picked up some of the branches, cut from a tree when helping K. C. Farrell run a line for a phone installation at Prairie City, and turned to throw them into the ravine. He doesn’t know what struck him or how it happened but suddenly he had a piercing pain in his right eye.
He was rushed to the Colfax Sanitarium by Mr. Farrell where after examination he was taken to the Methodist hospital where surgery was performed by an eye specialist. Two stitches were required to close the deep gash cut across the entire eye with a hook near the outer edge. Both eyes were bandaged following the operation and treatments given to prevent infection. It will be at least ten days before he can be released from the hospital but the surgeon gives him better than a fifty-fifty chance to save his sight.
Mr. Bullington is known as an especially careful workman and was abiding by all the rules of the company when the freak accident occurred. It was the first accident causing loss of time in the Des Moines district since December 24, 1943.
Source: The Colfax (IA) Tribune; Thursday, December 29, 1949; page 1, col. 1