4 KILLED BY AUTOS IN SUNDAY MISHAPS

The New York Times
December 18, 1922

Skid, Train and Taxi Which Fled After Hitting Young Woman Cause Deaths.

9-YEAR-OLD GIRL CRUSHED

Chauffeur Finds Her Body Wedged Between Mudguard and Rear Wheel.

Four persons were killed and several injured in automobile accidents in and about New York yesterday.

A young woman believed to be Janette Hughes of 1,806 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, a dancing teacher, was struck and killed instantly by a taxicab at Nineteenth Street and Third Avenue early this morning.  She had started to cross the street and had stepped out onto the car tracks from behind an elevated pillar when the tax, speeding north, struck her.  The driver instead of stopping his car put on more speed.  Patrolman Herz of the East Twenty-second Street Station called an ambulance and the injured girl was taken to Bellevue, where she lived only a few minutes.  A general alarm was sent from police headquarters for the taxi driver.

Frank Miller of 143 East Second Street, Brooklyn, chauffeur for James Katoski of 333 West Twenty-third Street, Manhattan, was driving along De Kalb Avenue, Brooklyn, late last night at a point near Marcy Avenue, when he felt the car jolt violently.  The street was under construction at that point and Miller thought that he might have broken a spring, so he got out to look at the car.  Between one of the rear mudguards and a wheel he found the body of a little girl tightly wedged.  Miller put the body in the car and started for a hospital. On the way he met Patrolman Andrew Tuohy of the Gates Avenue Station and the policeman accompanied him to Brooklyn Hospital, where it was said that the child was dead from a fractured skull.  Inquiry in the neighborhood disclosed that she was Helen Rush, 9 years old, of 644 De Kalb Avenue.  Miller was arrested on a charge of homicide.

John J. Bender of 927 Steinway Aevnue, Astoria, was instantly killed, and John Desoucey of 376 Potter Avenue, Long Island City, was seriously hurt when the car in w hich they were riding skidded on the trolley tracks at Astoria Avenue and Ramsen Street and crashed into a telegraph pole on the corner.  The driver, Thomas de Rosa, of 42 Isabella Place, Astoria, was arrested on a charge of homicide.

B. M. Griffith, a salesman, of Pleasantville, N. J., was killed instantly when he attempted to cross in front of a Camden Express on the Pholadelphia and Reading Railroad at New Road Crossing, near Pleasantville yesterday.  Griffith's body was tossed into a field more than thirty feet from the tracks.  He formerly lived at Bethlehem, Pa.  He is survived by a widow and five daughters.

Abe Atlas of 325 East Eighth Street was struck by an automobile in front of 214 Rivington Street.  He was taken to Gouverneur Hospital with a fractured shoulder.

Miss Martha Horne of 219 East Twenty-ninth Street was struck and knocked down by an automobile owned by Max Schwartz of 484 Amaterdam Avenue, at Fourth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street.  She was taken to Bellevue Hospital suffering from injuries to her right leg.

Michael Mahoney of 283 West 261st Street, the Bronx, was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, Yonkers, with a fractured skull after a car in which he was riding, driven by Joseph Byrne of the same address, collided with an automobile driven by Morris Kugler of 117 West Twenty-first Street early yesterday morning on Riverdale Avenue, Yonkers.  Both cars were wrecked.

Stephen Balish, 9, of 426 Twenty-third Street, West New York, while coasting on Boulevard Hill was struck and seriously injured by an automobile.  Christopher Sorge of 317 Nineteenth Street, West New York, who was driving the car, stopped and picked up the injured lad and rushed him to the North Hudson Hospital, where it was said that his condition was serious.

Two men were slightly injured and two others seriously when their car ran into a large truck standing in Merrick Road at Valley Stream, L. I., early yesterday morning.  Edward Bourjes of Richmond Hill, who was driving the car, was hurled through the windshield and his companions were stunned by the impact.  Fire started under the hood of their wrecked machine and Bourjes was severely burned before his companions recovered sufficiently to rescue him.  He was taken to Rockville Center Sanitarium.

Six persons were injured, three of them seriously, when an automobile driven by Walter Vatecek of North Roslyn, L. I., ran head on into a street car at Astoria and Nineteenth Avenues, Long Island City, late last night.

The trolley was taking a switch when the auto crashed into it.  The injured are Mrs. Rose Sallomito of North Roslyn, internal injuries, taken to Flushing Hospital; her 6-year-old son, Tony, internal injuries, St. John's Hospital, Long Island City; Walter Vatecek, injuries to skull, St. John's Hospital; Antonio Sallomito, cuts and bruises, Flushing Hospital; and two sons, Solomon and Michael, both severely injured in the legs, Flushing Hospital.