The Republican journal., 1872-07-18
A Wonderful Escape.

one Of the most amazing instances o
esclpr iiom sudden and apparently in
eVitable death occurred n few nights ago
on tine Hudson River railroad A man
nam"d James Carter of lIurhsonviIe, was
walking up ihv rV5t'l uu TIN down tract: lay
night, about u mile south of the New
l1lmhnrg station. On his back he carried
a trunk. Suddenly Il train hove in sight
thnndtflng down the track on which Car
ter was walking. 1t was IN extra freight
tram, and moving very fast. 70 see the
req glare ana To hear the crashing advance
OF the engine was the work Of one mo-
ment; in the next Carter had leapcd for
safety upon the other track But it was
stumbling from Scylla upon Charybdis.
The startled man could not hear, for the
| roar of the freight train, a new enemy
that was close upon him. A he jumped
upon the up track, the Pacific express
came hurting along upon it at his back,
running forty miles an hour The en-
gineer saw Carter, SHUT off steam and
whistled down brakes" But il was too
late The speed of the locomotive was
hardly slackened when it struck the poor
twenty feet into the air.
Probably 1t was Il thousand to one at
the moment of collision that Carter would
never draw another breath. Yet he is
alive and well to-day The case proved
to be one OF those astonishing exceptions
tG ordinary experience that we insinctive-
ly call miraculous. When the ship Dun
bar was wrecked some Years AGO of Syd-
ney Heads, She ioundered near II sheer
precipice, almost absolutely smooth on its
surface and rising eight hundred feet from
the sea. On that smooth wall, far above
the reach OF any common waves is a sin
gle tiny creVice or shelf L few feet in
length 1t was n thousand TO one when
the Dunbar went down that no one on
board would be saved But the very fury
OF the tempest that destroyed the ship
was one poor mariners salvation. He
was tossed up INTO this crevice by a mon
strous wave as neatly as u billiard ball is
shot into pocket There he Law insensi-
BILE, but he was found in time to save him
and was hosted to the top Of the preci-
pice above. The chance Of his going in
to the crevice, when The Dunbar broke
up, was rather less then that OF throwing
q pea into nail hole in a wall twenty
feet off. The chance Of Carter being
saved when his body was struck by the
engine seems even less But when he
tell it was on the fore pant of the engine
His clothes caught in what is called the
"draw-bar,n his person not striking any
part of the locomotive at all. Thus, when
discovered, he was lying across the iron
bars of the 'scow catcher" with his head
down and his feet up-the head being
within two or three inches of the rails.
The train dashed turiously on, Carter
continuing to hang in his perilous position
until it reached New Hamburg Carter
had been seen by the iremen in the mean
time, and one of them had crawled down
the engine and seized his clothes, clasp
ing with the other arm the flagstaff AT
New Hamburg the train stopped and
Carter was taken off. He was insensibe,
but soon revived with simple remedies.
and was found to be absolutely lmhurt
There was not even Il scratch or abrasion
OF the skin, and Carter lived to tell an
experience doubtless unknown. with one
possible exception to any other living in
dvidual
We believe it is true that lady is alive
who has gone through something of this
kind. This was at Cold Spring station,
some years ago. She was crossing the |
track in wagon, and was in like manner |
struck by a locomotive. The horse was
killed and the wagon smashed |
to atoms. But the lady, strange to say,
after being thrown into the air, was
caught by the flag staff through her hoop
skirt as one plays the game
of "graces'-and carried on unhurt She
was rescued rs soon as the train could be |
stopped, and sustained no injury This |
case strongly resembles Carter's, and we
fancy there is no other recorded parallel |
and even the experience of this fortunate
lady is less surprising, not to say Incredi-
BILE, than the later one we have ust been |
enabled to chronicle. New York Times. |