Just got this of a mailing list I’m on:
28 May 1895
ALMOST DEATH.
A Mail Clerk has an Awful Experience.
Postal Clerk Howard was the victim of a somewhat unusual accident Thursday morning. As the Monon train from Chicago, which was running six hours late, passed Smithville, 7 miles south of here, he threw off a sack of matter, and while leaning out and looking back to see if it landed all right, he was struck by the stationary part of the mail catching device. A jagged wound about two inches long and penetrating to the bone was torn on the left side of his face on a level with the eye. Howard was rendered partially unconscious, and hung over the rail of the car door for a mile or two before he was noticed by his fellow clerk. He narrowly escaped falling out. Howard was left at Bedford and his wound dressed by the railroad surgeon, and was taken to his home in Jeffersonville on the evening train. His injury is not dangerous, but it is painful and will leave a rough scar. The wonder is that he was not instantly killed.