Danbury Times

Shocking Event.

We have seldom heard of a more extreme case of suffering than the following details will exhibit. On Monday morning last, about nine o'clock, as two men were walking along a lane which branches off from Passyunk road, just below the Moyamensing prison and runs in a Southeast direction, they were attracted by feeble moans, like to a human being in distress, and apparently proceeding from a trench near at hand partly full of water, about six feet deep and ten wide, with shelving sides. They hastened to the spot, and discovered, a man standing upright, and completely imbedded nearly to the middle, in frozen mud and ice!-- He was altogether insensible though still living. Finding it in vain to attempt to rescue him from his situation without additional means, they speedily procured assistance, and actually dug him out with a pickaxe! carrying him, with the frozen water and mud still adhering to him, to a tavern about two squares distant, where ardent spirits were administered to revive him, and his limbs bathed in warm water, &c. These appliances were attended with but little effect; the few words he uttered showed him to be evidently deranged, and insensible to every thing that was going on around him. At about 11 o'clock, he was conveyed to the hospital, where he now lies, and had, yesterday, under the skilful application of his medical attendants, recovered his senses, and was able to converse, though it cannot be doubted that he will lose both his lower limbs and his hands.

According to his own statement, he descended the bank of the ditch at about 5 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and slipped accidentally into the mud and water at the bottom, from whence he was unable to rescue himself, in consequence as he says, of a sudden, but partial derangement with which, it would seem, he is occasionally afflicted, though some have supposed it was the effect of intoxication.

Night came on, and still found him in the same situation; the weather changed from the mildness of 58 to the severity of 20 degrees above zero, and the wind veered around from the south, and blew strong from the north-west: the mud and ice commenced congealing around him; a most indescribable agony of suffering afflicted him. He was soon fast bound in ice, and rendered incapable of motion, had he been inclined: a deadly numbness came over him. At some time after midnight he became insensible; and he remembered nothing further until he found himself lying in the hospital. He was 28 hours in the ditch; the thermometer ranging during that time from 58 down to 11 above zero. The only wonder is, that under the circumstances he is now living at all! No person heard the cries he made while he was sensible, nor discovered him before, as the road near the ditch is but little travelled. The man's name is William McDuffie, a resident of this city for the last six years, and has been a waiter in private families.--[Phila. Ledger.