These incidents are told by the different passengers who escaped and
by the citizens who hastened to the rescue. The following are given
as showing the experiences of the women who were on the train. There
were many who perished, and it is affecting to read the story of their
sufferings while so helpless in the wreck. But the heroism manifested
by those who escaped, is especially worthy of note.
The “Cleveland Leader” contains the following:
“At the time of the disaster a man rushed down to the scene ready
to help; he saw a woman struggling for life and went to her
assistance; he carried her by main force to the solid ice, and
then, urged by the cries of the mother, went back to the rescue of
a sweet child of three or four years of age; the treacherous wood
in splintering, had caught the child in its grasp, and the fire
completed the terrible work. The man was compelled to see the child
enveloped in flames, and to hear her cries of ‘Help me, Mother!’
ringing out in the agony of death and on the ears of the cruel
night. In a moment she was lost, swept up by the sharp tongues of
fire, while her mother in helpless agony fell to the earth in a
deadly swoon.”
Mr. Reid, one of the passengers, saw a woman held in the ruins and
burning. She was calling out amid her groans, “Shoot me, and get me
out of this misery.” The saddest sight he saw was a woman looking
at her burning child.
Mrs. Lew says when the crash came she was lying down with her head
near the open window. The next thing she knew was that her head was
out in the open air, and her body inside of the car. As soon as she
got her head out, she saw the newsboy who had a few minutes before
supplied her with reading matter. She begged of him to help her.
He said, “I would be glad to, but my old mother is dependent on
me for her entire support. If I am killed what will she do?” Mrs.
Lew again entreated him to assist her. He then came so near to her
as to be able to take hold of her hand by extending his arms full
length. As they joined hands the newsboy pulled and Mrs. Lew threw
herself forward, coming out of the car. She then walked on the ice
to the bank, where she was helped up the embankment by men and
taken to an eating-house, where her wounds were dressed.
A villager saw a woman caught, back of the platform railing, and
attempted to pull her out. It was only by superhuman effort he
succeeded, then only to find them both up to the waist in the
water. “Can you save me?” she asked him, in tones that went to his
heart. “Yes, if you hold on,” he said. She did hold on to him with
all her strength, and he got her safely to the shore, although in
the water several times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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