Hufferd
HUFFERD, Ralph M., From the Iola Register, 17 JUN 1919
Submitted by Ilene Serl Jones
RALPH HUFFERD SHOT BY ACCIDENT
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Fatal Bullet Fired by Melvern Prentis Last Evening
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DEATH WAS IMMEDIATE
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Careless Use of Weapon Results in Shocking Tragedy.
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Both Families Are Prostrated With Grief In Which They Have The Sympathy of Their Friends
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At about 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, June 16, Melvern Prentis, age 14 years, living in East Iola, fired a shot from a 22 rifle at a tin can as a target, resting halfway across the trestle of the Missouri Pacific Cement Plant spur. The shot missed the can and glanced from the eight inch stringer that runs along the ends of the ties, down onto a tie and up again, striking Ralph Hufferd, age 12, in the neck. The bullet cut the carotid artery and ranged upward into the brain, lodging in the medula oblongata. With the single word, "Oh!" the stricken boy fell and within a few minutes he was dead. His little brother endeavored to staunch the flow of blood by binding a handkerchief around the neck of the dying boy, but in vain. Death, however, resulted from the injury to the brain before it could have been caused by the loss of blood.
Neither of the principals to the tragedy was alone. The Prentis boy was with his younger brother, age 10, and Floyd Baker, and the Hufferd boy was with one of his brothers and another boy named Conover. As soon as the accident occurred, the boys of course gave the alarm and in a few moments the parents of both boys and a number of the neighbors had reached the spot, while a physician was hastily summoned. Efforts at first were made to bring the boy to consciousness, but it was soon discovered that the shot had been almost immediately fatal, and the little body was then taken up and tenderly conveyed to the home.
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Dewey, Oklahoma