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Show EVE WITNESSES TELL OF THE KILLING OF J, W. HUNT The body or J. W. Hunt, who was killed yesterday at Elko, Nev., arrived ar-rived In the ctty this morning. The body Is at the Llndqulst parlors. Tbn funeral announcements will be made later. Mr. Hunt was born in Ogden in 1866, and was an employe of Hi Southern Pacific company for nearly L'5 years. He is survived by hib wife, five chiidren, W. Ray. Jack, Myron Nellie and Norman Hunt; his father, V. A. Hunt, four sisters and a brotner. With the exception of two sisters, all reside in Ogden One sifter lives r.t Oakland. Cal., and one at Kellog, Ida. The Elko Free Press of yesicrda has the following account of the accident ac-cident : Eye Witnesses of Accident. "J. W, Hunt, Southern Pacific brake-man brake-man of Ogden, was crushed to death at 8:10 o'clock a. m. Monday beneath his engine, No. 3216, between the Fourth and Fifth street crossings in Elko. "It was purely an accident and Hunt under the circumstances could not escape death "Engineer Larson and Conductor Brown at the coroner's inquest both testified that the wreck was due to the frozen mud at the crossing, where tho flangos of the wheels of the engines en-gines should pass. "The crew of extra train No. 3216 left Ogden Saturday night and reached reach-ed Elko Monday morning. When they got here they had some switching to do and the train was stopped JUBt west of the Elko depot- "During the storm of Sunday morning morn-ing the crevices between the crossing cross-ing and the rails became full of water wa-ter and mud and with the Intense cold of Sunday night this fro7.e and left no places for the flanges of the engine wheels. The engine was backing back-ing up on the south track and Hunt was riding on the step at the rear of the tender When the engine, which was moving tender first, bit the Fourth street crossing the tender suddenly sud-denly lurched and left the rails and , went wild. Hunt. It is said, wsb jarred jar-red off from his footing but still clung by his arm and yelled at the top of his voice, but the rumble of the engine en-gine prevented the engineer or fireman fire-man from hearing him Hunt was dragged some distance and one of his feet was caught by tho wheels and he was dragged down under the tender ten-der His body wbb ground to pieces under th wheels. "The engine itself left tho tracks I when it reached the switch between Fourth and Fifth streets As soon as j it dropped between the rails Engineer F. A. Larson of Montello shut off steam. But the engine did not come to a standstill until it had squatted squarely between the tracks and the tender had landed across several tracks. A wrecker was immediately hurried east from Carlln as the traffic of the Southern Pacific was tied up until the disabled engine could be gotten back on the rails, which was accomplished at 11 o'clock. "The remains of Hunt were taken to the Keyser morgue. Coroner Castle summoned a jury and called an Inquest In-quest for 10 oclock. In giving lm ersion of the accident Engineer Larson Lar-son at the inquest said: "'We were going eastward, backing up, and there was only the engine and j tender. When nearing the crossing at the depot I slowed up for same and released tbe air while on the crossing and as I did so I felt something Vron about the engine. I looked for a signal sig-nal from the brakeman on the rear pnd of the tender, hut could not see him I did not look for any further signal, but immediately tried to stop. Having just released the brakes they were not recharged and so did not have any braking power to stop as soon as I should, but when I did stop and got down off the engine I discovered discov-ered the rear brakeman had fallen beneath the tender. I told the fireman that we could not move because we had killed the brakeman and proceeded proceed-ed to the office to report the same.' "Conductor L. R. Brown was in the S P depot at the time of the accident and looked out of the window and Just then saw Hunt fall under the wheels. He then went to where the engine stood and he Bays he 'found Hunt lying ly-ing cr8sway8 of the track under the front truck of the tank. He was unable un-able to speak. Couldn't say he was dead at that time, but he died shortly afterwards Ho was killed almost in 8tanllv." W. L. Paul, the local drayman, was an eye-witness to the tragedy. At the time he wns standing at the window in the Owl saloon and saw the engine backing up and the brakeman on the rear end of the tendor. Paul says that soon 'after passing the crossing Hunt stepped down from the rear end, and just as he did so the tender swerved to the opposite side from which he was getting down. This caused him to lose his footing He hung to the bar at the back of the tender for a short time; losing this hold he fell across the rail back of the rear truck of the tender and the trucks rollod his body for several feet before he went under.' "Paul's opinion was that the accident acci-dent was caused by frozen mud at the crossing. He found that It was filled with frozen mud "almost level with the top of the rail.'' " P Nelson of Elko was also an eye-witness. He told substantially the same story as the other witnesses, but with this added information that the brakeman was hanging onto tbe tender with his right hand white waving wav-ing his left band when the tender struck the switch stand just above Fourth street, and "it gave such an awful Jerk that the brakeman fell off ! the top or rather swung off from the step on which he was standing, fell underneath and was dragged almost the length of the tender. When I got there he gave one gasp and died.' "Austin Moulton of Montello, th fireman of the engine, said he did not know the brakeman had been killed until the engineer told him. The fireman fire-man said the cause of the wreck was frozen mud in the crossing and a lov joint. The engine was going about ten or twelve miles an hour when crossing the street, the fireman testified. testi-fied. W. L. Paul had previously testified tes-tified he had examined the crossing and did not observe a low Joint In the rails." |
