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Chattanooga Daily Times, Tennessee, Thursday, 2 January 1925
Carrol Bass Meets Death Beneath Car
Pinned Under Machine in a Ditch Near Ringgold
Victim is Believed to have Drowned
Coroner of Catoosa Believes Young Man Had Released Sterring Wheel to Ligh Cigarette.
Carrol Bass, 26, widely known young man about town, and son of former Sheriff Robert P. Bass, was drowned in a ditch on the Dixie highway, two and one-half miles east of Ringgold, Ga., early yesterday afternoon when the automobile he was driving left the road, overturned and pinned him beneath it.
According to the opinions of the coroner of Catoosa county, who was called to the scene, and Lee Hancock, coroner of Hamilton county, who made the trip on Wann?s ambulance to return the body to Chattanooga, none of the several small bruises found on the body was sufficient to have caused death, and but for the fact that Bass was pinned face downward in the two inches of muddy water in the ditch he would not have suffered any great in jury as a result of the accident.
Just how the accident occurred is a matter of speculation. Although members of the family of Sam E. Denman, in front of whose home the machine left the road, saw the car slide off the embankment and turn over, none of the witnesses was able to explain why the machine left the roadway.
Bass was alone, driving south, and was traveling at a moderate rate of speed. He had just passed a heavier machine, necessarily pulling to one side to allow it to pass, but had not apparently lost control of his own machine, but was seemingly pulling back into the road when his car veered and following the side of the ditch for about ten feet, toppled over.
From the fact that there was found near the overturned car an open package of cigarettes the Georgia coroner formed the theory that Bass had removed his hands from the steering wheel to take a smoke and that he died not notice that his car was leaving the road until too late.
The machine turned completely over, the ditch being nearly twenty feet deep and very narrow at this point, throwing Bass out of the seat. He fell into the ditch and the running board of the machine crashed down across his shoulders and neck, pinning him securely with his face jammed deep into the muddy bottom of the trench, through which trickled a stream of water little more than two inches deep.
Coroner Hancock last night expressed the belief that Bass was probably dazed by his fall from the car and that death came before he regained control of his faculties. The first breath, the coroner believes, filled the lungs with the muddy water, and Bass died without a struggle.
Mr. Denman, who was at home at the time of the accident, made a vain attempt to extricate Bass from under the car, but was unable to do so alone. He called assistance, but was too late. It is Mr. Denman?s opinion that Bass was dead by the time he reached him.
Bass is survived by his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. R.P. Bass, three brothers, Orville, Robert and Roy, all of this city, Mrs. J.W. Eckerly, Spartansburg, S.C., is his sister and another sister resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. Mrs. Eckerly is already in Chattanooga, having spent the holidays here. Funeral services will be held from Wann?s Friday morning at 10:30, the Rev. Battle McLester officiating. Interment will be in Forest Hills cemetery. Pallbearers will be Joe Pariiadiso, James Harrington, hays Clark, Luke Pogue, Herman Pursley and Mike Costello.
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Bassett Family Association Database
d. 16 Dec 1945, Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee