(meteorobs) Sylacauga Meteorite in 1954 Struck Woman

[Thomas Ashcraft]

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/061130/meteorite.shtml 

A star fell on Sylacauga 
'54 meteorite struck home, woman, changed lives 
By M.J. Ellington 
The  Decatur Daily (Alabama) 
November 30, 2006 

[snip] 

On today's date in 1954, Sylacauga residents and others from as far away 
as Tuscaloosa saw a strange object streaking across the early afternoon 
sky and heard noises they described as explosions or loud booms. 

That afternoon, a Sylacauga-area woman who was not feeling well was 
asleep on her living room sofa. She woke up when an 8½-pound object 
crashed through her living room ceiling, bounced off a console radio, 
struck her left hip and bruised her left hand. 

The incident put 34-year-old Ann Elizabeth Hodges in the history books 
as the only documented case of a human struck by a meteorite. It also 
added former Decatur physician Moody Jacobs to the history books as the 
only doctor who ever treated a person struck by a meteorite. 

Ann Hodges never fully recovered from the incident that put a 
grapefruit-sized bruise on her left hip and left permanent emotional 
scars. She died of kidney failure in 1972 at a Sylacauga nursing home. 
The 52-year-old woman's family buried her in Charity Baptist Church 
cemetery in Hazel Green. 

Dr. Jacobs was only a year out of medical school when he treated Hodges 
that day. Within a few years, he moved his medical practice to Decatur 
and lived in the city until his death in 2001. 

[snip] 

 
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