Richard Murry's son's miraculous survival after falling through ice
Published October 12, 2026 at 4:56 AM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
On March 4, the son of Richard Murry of Vernal was getting a bucket of water from a canal when he dropped the bucket into a hole in the ice. While attempting to retrieve it, the boy slipped and fell headfirst into the hole. The ice was thick and the opening small, making it impossible for him to escape on his own. When he was finally rescued, it was with great difficulty that he was brought back to life.
Fuller account of this event (the complete account as preserved in The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, 7 May 1894 (Vol. 56, No. 19), p. 304):
On March 4, the son of Richard Murry of Vernal was getting a bucket of water from a canal when he dropped the bucket into a hole in the ice. While attempting to retrieve it, the boy slipped and fell headfirst into the hole. The ice was thick and the opening small, making it impossible for him to escape on his own. When he was finally rescued, it was with great difficulty that he was brought back to life.
In Their Own Words
“On Sunday, March 4, the son of Richard Murry of Vernal met with a peculiar accident which very nearly cost him his life. He went to the canal to get a bucket of water and dropped the bucket in the hole in the ice, and in trying to recover the bucket slipped and fell into the hole head first. The ice, which was quite thick, had a hole in it only big enough to get a bucket through and he could not get out, and when rescued it was with difficulty that he was brought back to life. — Millennial Star 56:19”
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), 7 May 1894 (Vol. 56, No. 19). https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1894-05-07_56_19 (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high) Complete account: The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, 7 May 1894 (Vol. 56, No. 19), p. 304 https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1894-05-07_56_19
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