The following story comes from the front page of the Elizabethville Echo, August 7, 1903, about a young farm hand in Jackson Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who was shot by the six-year old daughter of his boss, while playing with a rifle in the upstairs bedroom of a farmhouse. The farm-hand, Adam Schwenk, survived the shooting after being taken to the Harrisburg Hospital for treatment.
ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING AGAIN
As a result of careless handling of firearms young Adam Schwenk, of Jackson Township, is lying at the point of death at the Harrisburg Hospital.
Last Friday, Schwenk, who was employed as a farm hand by John C. Harman, a few miles north of Elizabethville, in company with the children of Mr. Harman, went to the second floor of the farm house, and there, procuring a Flobert rifle, playfully pointed it at each other. Helen Harman, the seven-year-old daughter of farmer Harman says she had the gun, when Schwenk siezed [sic] the muzzle and looked into it, at the same time snapping the trigger. Schwenk’s story is that the girl pointed the gun at him and that she herself pulled the trigger, not knowing, however, that the gun was loaded.
The ball entered the head almost directly between the eyes and a little above the nose, taking a downward course. Schwentk came to town on horseback, and it was not supposed that his condition was serious. Dr. N. W. Stroup sent him to the Harrisburg Hospital to have the ball extracted, and it is since he is there that the seriousness of his condition has become apparent. At last reports he was in very critical condition.
From the Elizabethville Echo, August 14, 1903:
Young Adam Schwenk, who was sent to the Harrisburg Hospital, last week, with a bullet-hole in his head, is improving, and his recovery is now confidently expected.
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From the Elizabethville Echo, August 7, 1903 and August 14, 1903, via Newspapers.com.
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