AMBULANCES RACE FOR
A "DEAD" MAN.
Floater Taken From River
Turns Out to Be Alive.
A real "live" floater caused a neck and neck race along the river front yesterday afternoon between the emergency hospital ambulance and an undertaker's "dead wagon." The race attracted a great deal of attention and caused no end of excitement in the North End. The ambulance is painted gray and the dead wagon, of course, was black. It brought to mind the famous race between the "bob-tailed horse and the gray", but this time the "gray ambulance" won by a hame string.
The cause of the race was John Reich, 45 years old, a laborer of 1011 Cherry street. Reich was taken out of the river for dead. The emergency hospital was notified. Secretary Ebert called Coroner Thompson and the coroner detailed an undertaker to get the "dead man."
In about 20 minutes the telephone at the emergency rang again, and a trembling voice said, "Say feller, that floater ain't no floater 'tall. He's come to. That is, he's turned over onct. Better send the avalance and a doctor 'stead 'o the coroner."
It was then that the ambulance was dispatched and it was too late to call off the undertaker. That was the reason both vehicles met on the way to the river. The first one noticed of the other's presence. They were neck and neck on the river's sands and were "going some" to the east.
Undertakers have been known to race before and it may have been that this one thought a rival was after the body. The driver of the police amulance took up the race in a spirit of fun.
First one would forge ahead, then the other would come up fast and pass at a gallop. The police had the better team, however as it does nothing but run, and the driver was sport enough to win only by a hame string, when he could easily have outdistanced the dead wagon.
Lying on the bank, blue and cold, was Reich. When the undertaker's man saw the "floater" squirm and kick, he said things in "dead languages," reversed his team and slowly drove back home.
Reich was taken to the emergency hospital, where he was pumped out and artificial respiration used to get his lungs into working order. He was put to bed amid a bevy of hot water bottles and bags. In a couple of hours the "dead one" was in a condition to talk.
Reich recalled taking a drink a place down near the Winner piers. After that he said that he just "passed on" He did not know where he got into the water, how he got there, how long he was in, who got him out or where he was taken out.
"All I know is that I can't swim no more than a rock, and I got the derndest coldest duckin' a man ever got -- at least that I ever got. When I get out of this I'm goin' down there to look that ground -- or water -- over."
While Reich appears to be recuperating rapidly, Dr. W. L. Gist, who resuscitated him at the emergency hospital, said that the great danger now was pneumonia.
