The Moorefield Examiner

Child's Skull Fractured.

James Alvin Mitchell, five-year old son of Henry Mitchell, of the State Road Commission, engaged in the construction of the Northwestern pike near Gore, this county, was run down by an automobile at Gore about 9:30 o'clock this morning. The child sustained a fractured skull and was otherwise injured. His condition at Winchester Hospital where he was brought after the accident, was said to be serious.

Hooter Oates, of Rio, W. Va., was driving the Ford touring car which struck the child. He immediately stopped his car and rendered what assistance he could and later came on to Winchester to report the accident to the authorities. In a statement he made later Mr. Oates said:

"I was driving at a moderate speed while passing through Gore and saw a group of children playing at the roadside. I had slowed down when nearing a gasoline station but did not see the little Mitchell child at all. The first I knew of the accident or that I had struck someone was the screams of the child and of his companions at the roadside. The child must have darted suddenly directly in front of my car."

None of the wheels of the car passed over the child. It is believed he was struck and thrown beneath the car which passed over him without the wheels striking him.

He was picked up by bystanders and placed in the automobile of H. I. Clemons, the mail carrier of Toms Brook, and brought to Winchester, where he was taken to Memorial Hospital. Dr. R. A. Shaffer attended the child and found that he had sustained a severe fracture of the left side of his skull.

At the hospital it was said little could be forecast as to the outcome of the injuries. -Winchester Star