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Show ADVENTURERS' CLUB iip HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES V OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI "Panic in the Dark" HELLO EVERYBODY: Here's the story of a cock-eyed railroad accident so cock-eyed that everything seems to work just the opposite from what it should. You know, when anyone mentions railroad rail-road accident to me I immediately think of a collision. But Marcella Timer of Clifton, N. J., was in one once that not only wasn't a collision, but as a matter of fact, was just the opposite of a collision. That sounds pretty doggone near impossible, and I know it. Two railroad cars coming together can cause a mighty serious accident. On the other hand, two cars getting farther and farther apart every minute well that ought to be just about the safest thing on tracks. But it was the ever-widening distance between two cars that threw Mrs. Timer right into the lap of Adventure and caused all the horror, and panic, and suffering that you're going to read about today. Marcella's husband is a traveling representative for a New York firm. In the summer of 1925 he was covering the New England territory. The Timer's home was then in Ridgefleld Park, N. J., but Marcella with her two children, a boy, six, and a baby girl not quite a year old,, was touring New England with her husband. It was about the middle of July and they were In Hartford, Conn., when the baby developed a colic and began running a high fever. Marcella Mar-cella decided to take the children home to Ridgefleld Park. They arrived in New York on a terrifically hot day, crossed to New Jersey and got on a West Shore tsain at Weehawken about four-thirty in the afternoon. Train Comes to Stop in Tunnel. "I don't know whether you're acquainted with the West Shore railroad at this point," Marcella writes, "but It has a long tunnel under the city of Weehawken which comes out on the Jersey meadows about seven miles from where It begins. I bad often Passengers began to show signs of uneasiness. been through this tunnel and had never given it a second thought." But many are the thoughts Marcella has given that doggone tunnel since. She boarded the train for Ridgefield Park and found seats in the next to the last coach. The train started, and entered the tunnel as usual. It was about half way through when it began to slow down and came to a gradual stop. That wasn't unusual. Trains often did that. Marcella paid no attention to it and neither did any of the other passengers. After a while the lights went out. That WAS unusual. The passengers passen-gers began to get restless. A conductor was running up and down outside out-side the coaches swinging a red lantern. A second conductor had stationed himself at the door. The day had been hot enough in the first place, but down there in the tunnel it was stifling. The windows of the cars were all closed to keep out the poisonous gases that filled the tunnel at all times, and what little air there was in the beginning was rapidly being used up. The baby, whose fever had mounted, began to scream at the top of her lungs. Several other passengers began to show signs of uneasiness. Some of the men got up and approached the door, but the conductor would not let them pass, nor would he give any satisfactory explanation why the train was standing still in a dark and gas-ridden tunnel. For a few minutes after that all was quiet. Then, suddenly, panic gripped the people in that dark, stifling car. One man leaped to a window and threw it open. "They can't keep us in here to suffocate like rats," he shouted. "I'm getting out!" He clambered through the window, and many others followed him. And almost immediately the coach was filled with the sulphurous, poisonous gases of the tunnel. "Then," says Marcella, "terror such as I had never known before gripped me. My baby stopped screaming suddenly and became very stilt. My little boy leaned with unnatural weight against my side. In the pitch darkness everyone was gasping for breath. Some man shouted to everyone to lie down on the floor. I couldn't get down with the two children. But I prayed and how I prayed! Coal Gas Fills Passenger Coaches. "Women were fainting and men's lungs were wracked with a hacking cough that only filled them with more coal gas. I felt as if a hand of steel were gripping at my throat. Then I began to sink down into a dark, black pit of nothingness that seemed to be coming up to meet me. I tried to fight it. off, but it seemed it was no use. Deeper and deeper into the gloom I sank. Subconsciously I felt the train jar and shake, but by that time it didn't mean anything. It is the last thing I remembered. remem-bered. Then I was unconscious." Now let's go back and tell the part of the story Marcella didn't know anything about. What had happened was that a coupling had broken, and the front part of the train had gone on, leaving the last two coaches behind in the middle of the tunnel. It was the exact opposite of a collision, but the conductors realized that it was serious, nevertheless. One of them went out into the ga,s-filled tunnel with a red lantern to make sure that the cars weren't hit by another train, while the other tried to keep the passengers from leaving the comparative safety of the car. When the front of the broken train reached the meadows, the loss of the two cars was discovered and an emergency engine was sent immediately. imme-diately. But it had taken 20 minutes to accomplish that, and in the meantime the passengers in those two stranded cars had breathed in a lot of coal gas. Ambulances were waiting when they reached the mouth of the tunnel, to give first aid. "And maybe you think we didn't need it," says Marcella. Mar-cella. "My little boy and I were revived almost immediately, but it was only with a terrific struggle that my little girl's life was saved." And if Marcella had to go through another railroad accident, I think she'd pick a good old-fashioned collision in preference to one of those trick accidents where the cars all go in different directions. Copyright. WNU Service. |