FATHER SAW HIS
BOY GO TO DEATH.
CARL RUEHLE FALLS FROM RAP-
IDLY MOVING CAR.
CLOTHING CAUGHT IN FENCE.
UNFORTUNATE LAD DRAWN UN-
DER HEAVY WHEELS.
Parent Tried to Save Him, but the
Boy's Coat Gave Way and
His Life was Quickly
Crushed Out.
While returning with his father after an afternoon spent in Fairmount park, Carl Ruehle, a 16-year-old boy, was dragged from the front step of a crowded car by his coat catching in a picket fence beside the track at Twelfth street and Mersington avenue last evening about 7 o'clock, and thrown beneath the rear trucks, and instantly killed.
The approaching rain caused a rush to the incoming cars at the park, and young Ruehle and his father, G. C. Ruehle, a blacksmith at Twelfth street and Highland avenue, had been barely able to force their way on the car, the father standing upon the platform, and the boy gaining a foothold on the step. Irvin Menagerie, the motorman, put on full speed soon after he left the park, and the boy leaned far out to get the breeze full in his face, saying that he enjoyed it.
"Be careful, Carl," the father said when he leaned particularly far out. "You might hit your head against a post or fall off. Perhaps you'd better get up here on the platform with me."
"There's not room on the platform," the boy replied. "I'll be careful."
This conversation took place but a minute before the accident. Between Myrtle and Mersington avenues the street car track goes through a cut about four feet deep, and on each side is built a fence to deep persons from driving into it from the road. The car was going rapidly, and young Ruehle once more leaned out to catch the breeze, bystanders say, and before his father could again warn him the car had reached the cut.
The boy's coat was not buttoned, and the wind caught it in and bellied it out. Before young Ruehle could draw his coat back one of the pickets had caught in a fold of the cloth, and was dragging him from the step. He cried out, and clung to the rail with all his might but could not keep his hold.
At his son's cry the boy's father grasped at him, and succeeded in getting hold of part of his clothing. He clung until the cloth parted, the back of his right hand being deeply cut and bruised from striking against the sharp corners of the car in trying to hold on.
The boy was instantly killed. He was an employe of the Hallman Printing Company, and lived with his parents at 1313 Lydia avenue. The body was taken to Newcomer's morgue after an examination by the coroner.
The father was taken to D. V. Whitney's drug store, at Twelfth street and Cleveland avenue, and his wound dressed. Lynn Turpin was the conductor and Irvin Menagerie the motorman on the car, which is No. 234.
