Medicine: Night & the River

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It was midnight when the Ray Munsells' family car, heading from Amorita, Okla. for the hospital at Hardtner, Kans., crossed the state line. In the back seat, Mrs. Ray Munsell Jr., 21, braced herself against sharpening labor pains, and reached out now & then to steady her three-year-old daughter Roberta, who was dozing beside her in a blanket.

Nearing Kiowa the car went out of control, crashed through the guard rail of a bridge over the Medicine Lodge River, and landed upside down in the water. Neither the driver, Ray Munsell Sr. (who apparently had had a heart attack), nor his wife survived; their daughter-in-law was knocked unconscious.

The first thing that young Mrs. Munsell was aware of when she revived was that Roberta was crying. The top of the car had caved in, and the river had risen two to three feet in the car, leaving little more than a foot of air space between the water and the car floor, now a prison roof. Somehow, Mrs. Munsell made Roberta comfortable in the air space. Then she sat, neck-deep in water, worried about her pains, but afraid to get out of the car because the water might be too deep.

A full five hours passed before it got light enough for Mrs. Munsell to see that the water was shallow enough to wade. She kicked and shoved one of the doors open about 18 inches, and squeezed through. Then she reached in, pulled Roberta out. carried her through waist-deep water to the river bank, 15 feet away, and started walking. At 5:50, dripping wet and covered with mud, she reached Farmer Reuben Schupbach's dooryard. The farmer drove her to Hardtner at top speed, but Mrs. Munsell was too near her time for doctors to get her ready for the delivery room. At 6:40, still mud-spattered, she was delivered of a healthy, six-pound son.

Mrs. Munsell's only injuries were minor cuts. Normally, the shock of the crash might have been expected to hasten labor. But, said Dr. Horace L. Galloway, the cold water in which Mrs. Munsell sat during those five hours with death beside her must have prevented an earlier birth by contracting her muscles.