If you see a person fall into the water and begin to drown, and you yourself are unable to swim, you must throw him a rope, or an oar, or plank right over him, so that when he comes up again he may clutch at it and hold it. If a person falls through ice, and is unable to get out again because of the edges breaking, throw him a rope, and tell him not to struggle. This may give him confidence until you can get a long ladder or pole which will enable him to crawl out, or will allow you to crawl out to catch hold of him.
RESCUE FROM RUNAWAY HORSES.
Accidents are continually recurring from runaway horses running over people. In fact, on an average, the number of runaway horses that are stopped by policemen during the year amounts to over two hundred; and it is well that everybody should know how to stop a runaway horse, and thus to save numerous accidents and injuries.
Private Davies, of the 16th Lancers, was awarded the Albert Medal, at Aldershot, for stopping the horses of an artillery wagon, which had become unmanageable and run away. The driver, who was riding one of them, had been thrown off, and the horses were careering down hill towards the married quarters of the cavalry barracks, where a number of children were at play, when Private Davies, seeing the danger to the children, ran to the horses, and seizing the off horse with his right hand, held on to the shaft with his left, and endeavoured to stop the waggon. He was dragged in that position for some yards when the chain fastening the shafts to the waggon gave way and let the shafts fall, bringing Davies also to the ground.
The waggon passed over his legs, and very severely injured him, and, though he did not actually succeed in stopping the horses, he so diverted them from their course that time was given for the children to be saved from being run over.
Not long ago a lady was being run away with by her horse in Hyde Park. The animal was tearing along quite mad with fright, and though she was a good rider and kept her head, she had no control over him whatever.
The danger was that the road on which he was galloping, though straight for a good distance, turned at the end very sharply, and was bounded by a high iron railing. Now a horse when he is thoroughly frightened seems to lose his sight as well as his wits; he will run over a cliff or into a wall without trying to stop, and on this occasion it seemed most likely that he would charge into the great iron railings at the end of the road, and the consequences to the girl on his back would have been too awful to think of.
In front of her as she came thundering along were two gentlemen riding quietly along talking together, heading in the same direction that she was going. One of them—it was the Hon. George Wyndham, at that time Chief Secretary for Ireland—turned his head to see what was happening behind him, and in one moment he grasped the whole situation, saw what to do, and did it. He saw that a girl was being rushed to her death by the maddened horse if something were not done to stop it, or to make it turn round the corner at the end of the road which was now not far away.
Now what would any of you have done had you been in Mr. Wyndham's place?
He saw that to put his horse across her path would be easy, but if he did so it would probably throw both horses down, and possibly kill both riders; so what he did was to put his own horse at once into a gallop, and for a moment it looked as if he were running away, with the lady chasing him at full speed. But it soon became evident what he was doing.