Grace Darknell

4 Mar 1910

Miss Grace Darknell narrowly escaped drowning, Tuesday noon, in Rattler's Run, about 1.5 miles north of Fairfield.

Miss Darknell was on her way home from town, driving a single horse to a top buggy. Finding the water had risen and was running around the first bridge north of the Doepke place, she attempted to drive through, thinking she could keep the road and reach the bridge without difficulty. The horse struck the corner of the bridge on the upper side and at once the buggy tipped over, throwing Miss Darknell into the stream, which had a current like a mill-race.

She was carried under or over three bridges and went through or over the barbed wire fences, before she was rescued by Charles Loeffler at a point about a quarter of a mile below the bridge.

During part of the time she was conscious, though she does not remember much about her thrilling watery trip, she made an effort to keep her lungs inflated, to float face upwards, and to avoid swallowing the muddy water. The presence of mind probably saved her life.

The swiftness of the current was also in her favor, but the whole affair seems almost miraculous. After Mr. Loeffler had taken her out, he called for help, and his brother Otto and Carl Glorfield, and young Hays, who were at the house, came and helped him carry her to the Loeffler home. She was unconscious and chilled, that some difficulty was experienced in restoring the normal warmth to her body.

At last reports she was doing well, and it is not thought any serious results will follow her long immersion in ice cold water.

The horse was drowned, probably before it go loose from the buggy, and was found in a shallow cove a few rods below the bridge....