The American Crowbar Case

 

 

As transcribed from Bill Russo’s Short Story Theater Podcast

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This is the strange, but true story of a man and his crowbar. He loved that crowbar. He was so attached to it that it became his constant companion even after it was driven completely through his brain.

Yes, that heavy, 43 inch, 13-pound crowbar was shot clean through his brain, leaving a gaping hole through his left eye, before continuing on, right through the back of his head, and landing 80 feet away from him.

Yes, it is true my friends, this is the real-life story of one Phineas P. Gage. As a construction foreman, part of his job was to use a long and heavy iron bar to push explosive materials into a hole, before setting off an explosion to remove parts of hillsides or mountains for road construction.

He used an iron bard that he had specially built to his specifications. That hulking iron bar was almost four feet long and weighed 13 pounds. Mr. Gage had great success and there was a high demand for his services - until one day the bomb blast, literally blew up in his face!

You might have an inkling that, that is the end of the story – over, ended, finished, just at it is beginning! But no! It is far from over.  Our tale today is indeed just beginning. Just beginning, even though that 13-pound crowbar was propelled from the blast site like a rocket, and like a speeding jet, it flew straight at young Phineas Gage.

The crow-bar entered his head at a point under his chin, and then the three-foot iron bar punched right through his brain, leaving a gaping exit hole in the back of his head. It temporarily split his head in half just as if it had a hinge in the middle.

After the explosion that sent the heavy crowbar rocketing through his head before landing 80 feet away from him Phineas Gage did not die. In point of fact, he never lost consciousness.  Later in the day, he was not in any particular great pain or distress when attended to, by a doctor. He informed the physician that he would be back at work with his trusty crowbar made specially for him in just two or three days

This eerie saga begins in New England in the green mountain state, Vermont. There's a tiny town there wedged in between the mountains called Cavendish. You could look it up on Wikipedia.

It's a small village, and since 1800 has always had about 1 300 residents. In 1848, 25 year-old Phineas Gage was a foreman on a construction crew assigned the job of blasting through a mountainous area, to pave the way for the railroad tracks.

Phineas P Gage was born in 1823, in Grafton County, New Hampshire. As a youth he began working with explosives on mines and quarries near his home. As he gained experience, he began working for the railroads in New England and New York State.

He became an expert at blasting out huge sections of hills and mountains, to make level paths for railroad tracks.

Young ‘Finn’ Gage was said to be a man of great strength. In height he was 5 foot 6 inches tall, that was about the average for men of the early 1840s. His strength however was far above average. He was a muscular individual and weighed a trim 150 pounds.

 It is said that he had an iron will as well as an iron frame. He also had that infamous iron bar, more than three feet long it was, and fabricated from 13 pounds of specially made steel. It was called a tamping bar. Finn used it to set vast quantities of explosive materials to blast away at hills and mountains.

A handsome young man, he was and much pursued by the ladies of Vermont even after the accident that closed one eye, and left a scar on his face, and a lump on the top of his head.

 

 When he was 25, he came to Cavendish, Vermont. Cavendish was then, and still is, a small village that is barely a tiny dot surrounded by mountains on all sides.

Finn Gage became the foreman of the blasting cruiser signed to clear the way for the railroad tracks that would open up the tiny settlement of Cavendish to the rest of the world.

Part of job job was to pack padding material into a hole around the explosives that would help direct the bomb blast into the mountain and not back upon the workers. For this task, he used that 43 inch long, iron bar, the tamping rod, that was specially made for him. He used it to push the padding material up against the dynamite, to act as a barrier that would direct the blast at the mountain and not back at the workers.

 

The morning of September 13, 1848 was cool and clear. At about 13 minutes past eight, Finn Gage was directing his crew at a work site about a half mile south of the center of Cavendish Village. They were making ready to blast the hillside, to prepare a level road bed for the tracks of the Rutland and Burlington railroad.

The first job of the day, was to bore a hole deep into an outcropping of rock. Once the hole was completed, the next step was to put in a quantity of blasting powder and a fuse.

When that was done. Finn Gage would pick up his trusty 13-pound iron bar, and use it as a tamping iron to pack sand clay or some other similar material into the hole above the powder in order to contain the energy of the blast and direct it into the surrounding rock.

 

The work went well that crisp autumn day. Much progress was made, but as the sun prepared to slide down behind the mountains, it was half past four, very near quitting time.

But before letting his crew go for the day, Finn gage wanted to get one more blast against the rugged mountain.

“Let's go for one more explosion boys!” he said.

Perhaps he was working a little too fast, trying to beat the clock. We don't know for certain, but one of the other workers later speculated that the usually efficient Mr. Gage, may have forgotten to completely tamp down the sand which would send the force of the blast into the mountain instead of back at the crew.

We can't say for sure what caused the problem, but here's what we do know. As Finn was finishing his work with his 13-pound iron bar, one of the men shouted to him. Perhaps it was a warning. Finn turned around to answer, and just as he opened his mouth, the tamping iron struck a rock, it caused a spark.

The powder exploded. it rocketed the tamping iron from the hole. All 43 inches of it entered the left side of gage's face in an upward direction just forward of the angle of the lower jaw, and continuing upward outside the upper jaw. It fractured the cheekbone, then it passed behind the left eye, and through the left side of the brain - then completely out the top of the skull, through the frontal bone!

After it came out the top of his head, the iron continued to fly through the air before landing point first in a grassy area 80 feet away from where it struck Phineas Gage.

Finn Gage was thrown onto his back and gave some brief convulsions of the arms and legs but spoke within a few minutes.  He told the boys in the crew he was all right.

In point of actual fact, he walked on his own with little assistance. One of the crew members sent for a vehicle so that they could transport Finn over the rugged three-quarters of a mile trail back to town.

When the ox-cart arrived, Finn was still conscious, still talking, and he even and sat upright in the ox-cart during the ride-back. He was taken to the hotel in the center of Cavendish where he and the other contract workers were staying during the construction.

 

 

When they got to the hotel, Finn got off the ox cart on his own power and instead of going to his room as everyone expected, he took a seat in a rocking chair on the front porch.

He rocked gently in that chair and chatted with the townspeople for almost 30 minutes before the arrival of the local doctor whose rounds included Cavendish and two other small villages named Proctorsville and Ascutney.

At this point in the story, it's five thirty in the afternoon, one hour after the unbelievable accident that saw Finn’s head being momentarily split in half like a hinged door before the elastic action of his skin brought it back in place. It was still light out, with evening twilight about a half hour away.

The scene is the front porch of the downtown hotel where Phineas Gage is sitting in a rocking chair talking with a large group of townspeople gathered around him.

“I'm all right boys. It takes more than a little blast of dynamite to put me down. I'll be back at work in one or two days you, wait and see. I'm fine. In a little bit, I'll go upstairs to my room and get some sleep. I'll see you all tomorrow night in the tavern, after you get off work.”

Here's what the attending physician, many years later, had to say about his patient, Finn gage.

“Yah, that boy was one for the record books! I'll tell you that! Yes. To survive that trauma, and never even lose consciousness was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, in five decades of medical practice. Back in 1848 when it happened. I was barely three years out of medical school and was the simple country saw bones of three little villages. When put together, they didn't even equal one downtown block of a big city like Providence. Rhode Island or Boston.

I never had seen very many head injuries other than a couple people getting kicked in the head by a horse. I was busy tending to Aunt Jenny Grover when I was contacted about the accident.  Aunt Jenny had a bad case of the vapors.

Two men from the railroad blasting crew came and they told me that their foreman was hurt.  They claimed that an iron bar rocketed right clean through his head but he never passed out, they said. They told me he was sitting on the front porch of the Cavendish Hotel telling everybody about it. I grabbed my medical bag and made a quick run from 2nd Street up to the hotel on Main Street.”

“When I got to the hotel, I instructed everybody to stand back so I could get a look at the patient.  Sure enough all I could see was young Finn Gage sitting in a rocking chair telling his story to a group of fascinated townspeople.

I spoke to Finn and said ‘What’s going on here Mr. Gage. Why do you have that big crowbar of yours sitting at the sitting in the front of that rocking chair?”

He replied calmly and slowly…..

“Well Doc, Doc Williams is it?  Thanks for coming. Well, you're all out of breath from runnin’. Why don't you sit down and rest up a minute because, I've got quite a bit of a case for you.  It might even make you famous.”

“Ah yes, Mr. Gage. We will see about that,” I replied, but right now,

I want everybody to go home now.  Go home you folks, this patient needs quiet now. No more stories for today.  You folks go home go and I'll let you know how Phineas Gage is after, I examine him. Get! go home!”

Then I spoke to the patient….

Yes Phineas.  I'm Doctor Williams, Edward Williams.  I graduated from Harvard Medical School in Boston three years ago.  I’ve come to have a look at you, but I've got a serious case right now. Old Mrs. Gover has a bad case of the vapors. She's passing out left and right… losing consciousness all the time,  but you Mister Gage you're the healthiest man in town! But I do see that you have been injured. Now tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well Doc,” Gage replied. “Well Doc, as you probably know I’m a contractor for the railroad company. I'm in charge of blasting away the rocks to make the ground level for the tracks.

“Jeesum Crow! I've got to take down half of the Green Mountains to get this job done. Godfrey Daniels, it's a tough job and now this accident I had today is going to slow me down. We had a misfire on the job just before quttin’ time.  That crowbar of mine that you see at my feet was in the hole I bored out, when the dynamite misfired and my 43 inch crowbar long got blasted clean through my head! Went in one side and came out the other!

Now I'm gonna have to take tomorrow off!  Godfrey Daniels I'm not happy about this. Please Doc, please excuse my swearing. I go to church every Sunday.  I never swear but JEESUM CROW!, right now i feel like swearing my aching head right off!”

“Okay. Okay Phineas. It’s all right,” I spoke slowly and quietly to Gate, who was becoming very agitated.  “Calm down now and I’ll take a look at that wound of yours. But do you really expect me to believe that big crowbar of yours went right through your head?

If that happened young fella, we'd be planting you right now out there in the Cavendish Cemetery not collaborating here on the porch of the Cavendish Hotel.”

 “Well, it happened Doc,” he quickly replied. “It happened just like I said and if you don't believe me ask any one of the guys on the crew. JEESUM CROW! GODFREY DANIELS!  Doc, everybody at the job site saw it happen.”

There being no hospital within a hundred miles, I used the patient's hotel room for the examination and I quickly found that beyond belief, what young Finn Gage said happened to him, really did happen!

A huge, gaping hole was deeply indented in the left side of his face in an upward direction. That's where the iron bar entered. The crowbar then moved upwards fracturing his cheekbone. Ater that it passed just behind the left eye causing much damage in the area and rendering the eye useless. It continued on from there, piercing through the left side of his brain. Finally, it went completely through the top of his skull before continuing on for some 30 yards before landing point first in a patch of grass.

At about seven p.m., two-and-one-half hours after the accident, Gage's head began to swell. The top of his head looked like an inverted funnel. He was rapidly losing blood. I'm not going to describe graphically to you the details of his condition.

Let's just say the bed was covered in gore, and Mister Gage began to suffer. He vomited and when he did about one cup-full of his brain was forced out through the hole in the top of his head. Enough of the details

About 7:30, another doctor arrived, Doctor J. H. Harlow.  He was a few years older than I and he had more experience with head wounds. We shaved the scalp around the region where the crowbar exited, then we removed coagulated blood, small bone fragments, and a few ounces of protruding brain.

After probing for foreign bodies, and replacing two large detached pieces of bone, we closed the wound with adhesive straps, leaving it partly open for drainage.

The entrance wound in the cheek we bandaged loosely for the same reason. A wet compress was applied, then we used a night cap as a further bandage around his head.

His arms and hands were badly burned from the blast. We also bandaged them. Later that evening I made a note in my notebook that his mind was clear. But he began to be agitated and he kept moving his legs - alternately retracting and extending them.

 He told me not to allow any visitors, but continued to insist he would be back to work in a few days. He said he doesn't really care to see his friends right now, but asked us to tell them he'll be back at work in a couple days.

He did not return to work the next day or even the next week, or the week after that. Beginning 12 days after the accident Gage was still our patient still, in his hotel room, and going downhill. He was in a coma, drifting in and out sometimes semi-comatose. Occasionally he was not in the coma, but seldom speaking unless spoken to, and answering only in monosyllables. On the 13th day his strength failed and he went into a full coma.

There were weird, bizarre growths of fungus growing out of the hole in his head, as well as from his damaged eye. He would not eat. His friends expected death within hours and they had already made his coffin.

On the 14th day after the accident, it seemed there was no hope for Phineas P Gage.

 Fungus growths as big as stalks of broccoli were sprouting from his eye and from the hole in his head. The ingenious Doctor Harlow came up with a solution. He cut off the fungus sprouts and poured a caustic solution over the infected areas.

It was silver nitrate, and this was four decades before any other doctor used it! Out of desperation, he poured the substance on the infected areas, and almost immediately the patient turned the corner.

Just 10 days later, 24 days after the explosion, Finn Gage was conscious and able to sit up in bed and take nourishment. After one month he was taking short walks, and talking about going back to work.

He was not able to return to his railroad blasting work, but he went to his mother's house in New Hampshire and made a full recovery.

He could not go back to his former job, so for a time he decided to capitalize on his fame by joining Phineas T Barnum’s Museum in New York City. For 12 and a half cents you could see the man who survived being speared by a 13-pound, iron bar.

 

Later on, Phineas went to South America and he became a one-eyed stagecoach driver in Chile, leading a team of six horses over long-distance routes.

He was a bit of a bit of a sensation in Chile. The departure of the stagecoach was always a big event at Valparaiso. A crowd of ever astonished chilenos, assembled every day to witness the phenomenon of the one-eyed man driving six horses.

 

It was a demanding job but Phineas did it for six or seven years until his health began to fail in 1859.

He returned to the United States where problems from his old injuries began to worsen.  He died in 1860, some 12 years after becoming famous as the only man to survive having a 13-pound crowbar rocketed through his head.

Oddly enough all through those last 12 years of his life he carried that 43-inch long, crowbar with him wherever he went, like a little kid carrying a teddy bear. For some inexplicable reason, he loved that crowbar - that crowbar that nearly killed him - that crowbar that made him famous.

In life it was his constant companion. In death, he gave it to the Warren Museum which is part of Harvard University in Boston. You can see it there still, and be in awe of the 43-inch, 13-pound bar that split the head of Phineas P. Gage in two. Phineas, P. Gage, who was only 22 inches longer than his beloved iron bar.

That's it for this edition of Bill Russo's Short Story Theater. Listen to us on any podcast site. Watch us on YouTube.  Like us on Facebook. Share us. Do anything - except ignore us. Come back again real soon --- won't you?