OCR Text |
Show SURVIVORS TELL 1 VIVID STORY OF CRASH PORTER. Ind.. Feb. 21. HSdwardl Fledrke, of Grand Rapids. Mich., who stood on tho platform of the day ! coach Just a few feet from the point where the New York Central engine hit it. and who saw the piuvsengers In I this coach trying to escape as tho I headlight bore down on thorn, told his story today . His story begins at the point where the Michigan Central truln struck the derail and came to a stop across the New York Ccntrul tracks, "The car swayed suddenly and left the tracks.'' he said "We bumped along the tle.s for a few feet at full speed. From one. side I heard a blast j of a whistle. I looked out. There was another train bearing down on us i at full speed. I S kBLiE TO MOVE. "I couldn't move. My tongle stuck up In tho roof of my mouth. I tried to open tho door into the day coach to shout to the people inside. My band refused to function. "It perhaps wasn't over thirty sec-pnds sec-pnds between the time I saw that train nd the moment It hit us. It was ten years to me. "The light from the headlight of the approaching train made everything as bright as day where I stood. I thought I was surely going to be killed. CLASPS HER 1MT.D. ''As I stood I could sec Into the day coach. On the side the New York '. ntrul train was approaching I could see that other passengers had seen It. A woman Jumped up from her seat. She held a little girl to her breast. Men Jumped up one started for the door. "Then suddenly the side of the car buckled In. I remember hearing a Scream thai III never forget. And then came darkness. "I was thrown from that platform nearly fifty feet I lit on the ground the breath knocked out of me. When I sat up. the whole middle of our train had gone. It was a little hell there for a few minutes. . . I I Ml I 1 1 N I I "I wish 1 COUld accurately describe the sensation of that moment thai I waited for death. When I could get to my knees, I stayed there and gave up a prayer. And I'm glad of it "I'll never forgot the expressions of tho faces of those poor people us they died. The staring eyes of one man looked directly Into mine that face Is going to come to me for the rest of my life " Fledrke, outside of numerous bruises, was not injured. Tho car platform on whlcji be stood was smashed into fragments. At eight o'clock this morning parts of what seemed to bo at leas' three bodies were taken from the heart of tho pile of debris, gathered in a basket bas-ket nnrl taken to the f " h r if ert o n morgue. Railroad officials and Coro-! ner Seipel. of Valparaiso, ot that time had almost given up hope of Identifying Identify-ing half a dozen of the bodies. IlNOTHKR iu B kiition H S. Kvans. of Dos Moines, was a passenger on the New York Central train. "I was riding in the parlor car. near the end of the train," he said. The crash threw me to the floor and for an unending minute I was dazed Tho engine of owr truln completely dcmol-Ished dcmol-Ished on.- . oach of the Michigan Central Cen-tral train. There was nothing left to indicate that a ar had been on tho rails. The number of dead depends upon the number of pei-sons In that coach. I am certain that no one es- i raped alive." |