A ten year old boy practicing a rope game he and his brothers had been playing, was accidently hanged in a cow stable at his home on Mt. Aetna Rd Sat afternoon. The boy, David Herbert Revell, was found hanging in a rope noose tied to a rafter. He was found by a five year old brother. The deputy sheriff said three brothers in recent weeks had been playing a sort of endurance game with a heavy rope used to hold cows in the bar. The rope was tied to a rafter, and the boys – one at a time – would tie a noose around their necks and see who could hold himself up the longest by the hand. David Revell had been trying this by himself when he died. He climbed onto a stool, fastened the rope over a rafter, put a burlap sack around his neck to avoid brush burns, and then put the noose Under his chin over the burlap. Just as he completed the job a calf running loose in the barn apparently ran into the stool the boy was standing on, knocking the stool over and causing the boy to plunge to his death. He died of strangulation.
Young David left the house to go to the barn about 3 Sat afternoon. He was found dead at 5:30pm.
The attended the Assemblies of God Sunday School.
Surviving are his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carlton C. Revell; sisters, Elizabeth Aillen, Haggerstown; Sarah Irene, at home; brothers, James and Joseph, Hagerstown; Robert, Norfolk, VA; P. Benjamin, Alfred V., and Daniel R. at home; maternal grandfather, Mathias Johnson.
Private funeral services for members of the immediate families was held at the AK Coffman Funeral Home; interment was in Rose Hill Cemetery.
Morning Herald (Hagerstown, MD) – 2 Apr 1951