Both Hands Blown Off

Like many of you, I received a donation request from the Hillsborough Rescue Squad this week. Thinking of taking a year off? Read this account from the New York Evening Telegram dated March 8, 1897.

BOTH HANDS BLOWN OFF

Remarkable Exhibition of Nerve Displayed
by a Wounded New
Jersey Sportsman.

SPECIAL DESPATCH TO THE EVENING TELEGRAM.

SOMERVILLE. N. J.. March 8.—B. S. Tollman, of Flagtown. who had both his hands shattered by the accidental discharge of a shotgun yesterday morning, is progressing favorably to-day and will recover. Meantime the entire district is discussing the extraordinary nerve displayed by the injured man after his terrible accident.

Mr. Tollman, who was formerly an inspector on the Central Railroad of New Jersey, now owns a large stock farm. He has already gained a reputation for bravery but his remarkable endurance of yesterday has stamped him as a man or iron nerve.

Stephen P. Tallman was an agent for the Burton Stock Car Company, and was an inventor who held many patents for stock car improvements. He later owned a large stock farm near Flagtown/Frankfort

When both hands were literally blown to pieces, he coolly walked into the bathroom and held his arms under a stream of water, without uttering a sound. James Painter, his manager, found him bathing his mutilated limbs, and was greeted with a smiling request that he would chop off four of his employer's fingers. This Painter did, and after the arteries had been bound up roughly Tollman and Painter drove seven miles to Somerville to secure medical assistance.

The blood Tollman lost on the journey was enough to kill any ordinary man. The trip lay across rough roads, and, with foaming horse and mud-covered wagon, the men eventually arrived at Dr. W. J. Swinton's office. More painful operations followed, which Tollman bore without wincing; and afterward was driven home smiling, minus one-half his usual complement of fingers
on each hand.

Tollman is a strong, powerful man, otherwise his constitution could not have withstood the shock.

[New York Evening Telegram, 8 March 1897]