Man Sleeping By Tracks Declared Dead

Middletown, New York, 1914

"CHRISTY" WASN'T DEAD

But Everybody Thought He Was, and He Just Missed the Morgue

Christy Fisher, a well known resident of this city, felt tired this afternoon, and lay down alongside the Erie tracks and went to sleep. A little girl saw him and told her mother. The latter investigated and decided the man was dead. She notified police headquarters. Motorcycle Policeman Dopson investigated, and also pronounced the man dead.

Chief of Police McCoach, Coroner Harding, and an undertaker were called and the coroner was about to hold an inquest preparatory to taking the man to the morgue when Fisher opened his eyes and wanted to know "what in thunder was going on." He was informed that he was dead at which he scrambled to his feet and ran down the tracks, narrowly escaping being hit by a train as he got away. — Dispatch to New York Times.