From the Philadelphia Inquirer
June 25, 1923

11 PICKNICKERS CRUSHED UNDER RUNAWAY TRUCK

One Woman May Die as Result of Crash on Steep Incline Near Spring Mill

Twenty-five Philadelphians Carried Over Embankment and Through Fences Into Creek

What had been planned by a group of Philadelphians as a picnic party to Spring Mill nearly ended in tragedy yesterday when the motor truck in which they were riding became uncontrollable on Joshua Road, near there, and after crashing through two fences plunged over an embankment into a creek.
     Eleven of the party were injured, and one, a woman, may die.  Four other women were among those hurt.
     Coincidnce alone is believed to have saved a number of small children, ranging in age from one to four years, from death by drowning in the Spring Mill accident.  Ordinarily the creek bed holds a six-foot depth of water, from which power is derived by a paper mill at Miquon, a village near Spring Mill.
     To prevent stagnation from heat while the mill was idle yesterday, employees had opened the retaining gates half an hour before the accident happened, thus reducing the creek's depth to two feet.  Those in the party who escaped injury said the children, who in some inexplicable manner got off with superficial cuts and bruises, probably would have been drowned if the creek had been at normal depth.
     Ignoring their own injuries, the eleven picnickers held prisoner in the wreckage of the big machine pleaded with those who had escaped unhurt to carry the children to safety on the creek banks before trying to extricate them.  Three of the children were floundering helplessly about in the water when their rescuers reached them.

List of Injured Victims

The injured are:

MRS. ELIZABETH LEVINSKI (sic), 56, of 3483 East Thompson street, fractured skull, not expected to live.
GEORGE GETZ, 22, of 3214 Cedar street, driver of the truck, possible fracture of the skull, condition critical.
ANNA GETZ, 20, same address, lacerations of the head.
JACOB GETZ, 18, same address, lacerations of the face and body bruises.
MARTHA GETZ, 16, same address, injuries of the arm.
MRS. PETER KAMPS, of 3020 Agate Street, lacerations of the arms.
MRS. J. C. SHEPPARD, of 3119 Ann Streeet, fracture of the right forearm
J. T. CASEY, of 2143 Haggert street, lacerations of the head and right ear.
WILLIAM J. DICKERSON, same address, fracture of the left arm.
MRS. ADA O'CONNELL, same address, injuries of the back.
THOMAS O'CONNELL, her husband, same address, fractured leg.

     Motorists who saw the accident from Joshua road rushed across the intervening field to aid the injured.  The nine first named in the list of injured were taken by several motorists to the Montgomery County Hospital at Norristown.  Mrs. O'Connell was taken the Bryn Mawr Hospital and her husband to the Chestnut Hill Hospital.
     Mrs. Levinski(sic) and George Getz still are in the Montgomery County Hospital, but the others taken there were discharged after treatment.  Mrs. O'Connell was allowed to go home after treatment at Bryn Mawr Hospital, but her husband was held at the Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Defective Brakes Blamed

     Getz, who regained consciousness several hours after admittance to the Mongomery County Hospital, told physicians there that defective brakes had caused the accident.
     The heavy truck, filled with twenty-five men, women and children, had been difficult to control from the time the party had left Philadelphia, he said.  To safeguard against a possible accident, Getz said, he had driven slowly throughout the trip.
      When the machine started down a steep grade on Joshua road, just outside Spring Mill.  Getz's efforts to apply the brakes proved futile, and at the foot of the incline the big vehicle, gaining in impetus with every turn of the wheels, crashed through a rail fence, careened across a field, tore its way through a stone wall and plunged over an embankment into the creek.
      The hood of the big machine crumpled against the wall, crushing Getz and Mrs. Levinski(sic) between it and the driver's seat, on which she had been riding with him.  Those in the body of the truck were thrown violently forward against the rear of the driver's seat and several were rendered temporarily unconscious.
    
Victims Submerged in Creek

     Virtually unimpeded by its contact with the stone wall, the truck toppled into the creek bed and overturned.  Several of the injured were partially submerged in the shallow water when rescuers, with difficulty, removed them from the wreckage.
     Those in the party of picnickers who escaped with minor cuts and bruises proceeded to the home of George Hoffman, a farmer whose land skirts the creek, after the more severely injured had been removed to the various hospitals.  The picnickers had planned to spend the day in a strip of woodland near Hoffman's farmhouse, to escape the steadily increasing heat.
     The accident occurred at about 10:30 o'clock yesterday morning.  The small stream into which the truck plunged is known as Bubbling Springs creek.