Muscatine County, Iowa FAMILY STORIES

Source of the following article was: "Muscatine Journal", Muscatine, Iowa, 12 August 1926, which was sent to me by June Brewer Welsch.

GIRL IS HURT AT
LUTHERAN HOME

DUMBWAITER FALLS, STRIKES
IRENE VAN HORN ON HEAD

Breaking Rope Blamed For Accident
Which Seriously Injuries Girl's
Head and Face

Miss Irene Van Horn, 18-year old resident at the Lutheran Home, sustained serious injuries to her face, yesterday morning, when a dumb-waiter fell almost two stories and crushed her head between it and the sill of the opening.

Miss Van Horn was sending the breakfast to the second floor by the dumbwaiter, and had looked up the shaft to see if it had reached the second floor when a rope broke. Before she was able to spring back, the carriage caught her head between it and the sill, tearing the skin from the entire left side of her face. The upper jaw was broken on both sides and her nose was crushed and splintered. Although her eye was torn badly, her vision has not been impaired thus far. During all the time following the accident she has remained conscious.

She was rushed immediately to the Bellevue hospital and treated by Dr. J. L. Klein and Dr. G. A. Sywassink, who reported that if infection did not develop, she would recover.

Miss Van Horn has been a resident of the home for more than 13 years and since she reached her eighteenth birthday has assisted in the kitchen of the Old Peoples building.

Notes from June Brewer Welsch: Irene was my mother and she was a orphan since she was five. As a result of this accident she could not open her eyelid.

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