The Phineas Gage Incident
In Episode 272, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger walk along the railroad tracks just south of Cavendish, Vermont, in search of the location of a horrible 1848 accident that launched an iron rod through the skull of railroad worker Phineas Gage. Gage became a medical miracle surviving the incident and becoming the subject of medical studies as well as a temporary living exhibit in P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. Today a monument in Cavendish commemorates the event and the doctor who saved Gage’s life.