FARM LAD, 7, DIES AFTER FIELD MISHAP

FALLS UNDER MOVING DISC; IS BADLY MANGLED AND DEATH RESULTS

WAS RIDING ON DISC WITH BROTHER

Ernest Lee Thomas, seven-year-old son of Mrs. John Collins died at the Methodist Hospital in Omaha on Wednesday morning, the victim of an accident which occurred the previous evening.

The children, Joan, Glen, Jerry and Ernest had come home from school and found their parents busy discing a field and the two younger boys mounted the disc for a ride. In some unaccountable manner, Ernest, seven years of age, lost his balance and fell in front of the disc and before the tractor could be stopped, the disc had passed over his body. He was badly lacerated about the neck and stomach and one leg was broken.

A physician was called immediately and rushed him to the Methodist Hospital in Omaha. But science could not save him and he died this morning.

Besides his mother and stepfather, he leaves one sister and two brothers, already mentioned, who will miss him greatly. He was the youngest of the four children.

Funeral rites will be held tomorrow (Friday) at 10 A.M. from the Campbell Mortuary with a minister from Omaha officiating and interment will be made in the Blair Cemetery.

# 2 - - from Pilot-Tribune, May 18, 1944

BLAIR LAD DIES OF HURTS

ERNEST THOMAS, 7, FATALLY INJURED IN FALL BENEATH FARM MACHINE

Omaha physicians worked over the small battered body of seven-year-old Ernest Thomas for more than 12 hours, Tuesday night, employing two blood transfusions and the newest wonder drug, penicillin, in their battle with death. Their attempts were without success, however, and Ernest died at six a.m. Wednesday morning.

His death was the result of shock, a broken leg and multiple lacerations on body , neck, arms, legs and feet, suffered when the child fell beneath a disc, late Tuesday afternoon.

With his two older brothers, Glenn and Jerry, Ernest had been riding on a tractor operated by his mother, Mrs. Lois Collins of Blair. The two older boys, although warned by their mother, had been jumping from the moving tractor, Ernest imitated them but was too small for the feat, and in an instant had been run over by the sharp wheels of the tractor-drawn disc.

Besides the grief-stricken mother, Ernest leaves the two brothers, Glenn 9, and Jerry 8; a sister, Joan 11; stepfather, John Collins of Blair; grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Salleng of Omaha, president of the MacArthur Mother’s Club of America; and two uncles, Lt. Leonard Salleng with the armed service in England, and Harvey Salleng of Blair.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been completed.