100 years ago in Spokane: Motorcyclist drives self 15 miles to hospital after accident slashes throat

A Spokane motorcyclist’s throat was nearly cut open when he skidded into a barbed wire fence – and then he got back on his motorcycle and rode 15 miles to the hospital, where 26 stitches were required to close the wound.

“It is one of the most remarkable injury cases that has been brought to my attention in years,” the doctor who sewed him up said.

If the wire had “sawed his throat one-half inch lower, the windpipe would have been severed.”

Alex Olseky, 30, said he was zipping along at 25 or 30 mph when his motorcycle skidded into a ditch.

“I was thrown off sprawled out and landed on my throat squarely on the top wire and slid along for 2 or 3 feet before I stopped,” he said.

He tied up the wound with a handkerchief as best he could.

Then he hopped back on his cycle and headed for the emergency room.

From the crime beat: A thug jumped in front of Mrs. Clara Koehler shortly after she stepped off of a Manito area streetcar.

He poked a gun in her face, gestured to her purse and said, “Give me that or I’ll shoot.”

“Shoot me, but you don’t get my purse,” Koehler replied.

She clutched her purse tightly and hollered for her husband – “Pa! Pa!” – who was in their nearby house. He raced out of the front door.

The holdup man took to his heels and ran away.

She said it was a “genuine alligator” purse that her husband had given her for Christmas.

“I would just as soon have been shot as to have lost that purse,” she said.