The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1872-07-10
wonderful Escape. I

81 One nf the niGek nazing instances OF es-
/ a be from stfddea and apparently inevitable
death occurred q few nights ago on the
Hudson River railroad man mined
James Carter, OF Hughsonville, was walk
ing Iip the road on the down track by night,
about ID mile south OF the New Hamburg
station. On his back he carried q trunk.
Suddenly train hove In sight, laundering
down the track on which Carter was walk
ing, It was an extra freight-train, and
moving very fast. To see the red glare
and to hear the crashing advance OF the
engine was the work Of one moment; ID the
next Carter had leaped for safety upon the
other track. But il was stumbling from
scvlla upon Charybdis. The startled man
could not hear for the roar OF the freight
train, new enemy that was close upon him.
AS 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 of steam, and WIS
tied "down brakes" But it was too late.
The speed of the locomotive was hardly
slackened when it struck the poor fellow, and
he and his trunk were flung twenty feet into
| the air.
Probably it was 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 to ordinary eX-
| pcrience that we instinctively call miracu-
ious. When the ship Dunbar was wrecked
some wears ago off Sydney Heads she foun-
dered near sheer precipice, almost abso-
lutely 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 single tiny crevicc. or shelf, q
few feet in length. 1t was q thousand to ono
when the Dunbar went down that no one on
| board would be saved. But the very fury of
the tempest that destroyed his ship was one
| Door mariners salvation. He was tossed up
| into this crevice by INDUSTRIOUS wave as
neatly as a biliard-ball is shot into pocket.
| There he lay insensible, but he was found IN
time to save him, and was hoisted to the top
| of the precipice above. The chance of his
going into the crevice when the Dunbar
broke UP was rather less than that of throw
ing a pea into nail-lOle in wall twenty
feet of. The chance Of Carter being saved
when his body was struck by the engine
seems even less. But when he fell!
it was on the fore part of the en-
gine. His clothes caught in what is called
the "drslw-bar," his person not striking
any part of the locomotive at all. Thus,
when discovered he was lying across the iron
lars of the cow-catcher," with his head
down and his feet up-the head being within
| two or three inches of the rails. The train
dashed furio,lsly OH, Carter continuing to
| hang in his perious position until it reached
New Hamburg. Carter had been seen by
| the tiremen in the mean time, and one of them
had crawed down the engine and seized his
clothes, clasping with the other arm the flag
| staff. At New Hamburg the train stopped
and Carter was taken OFT. He was insensl-
| BILE, but soon revived with simple RENE
| dies, and was found to be absolutely unhurt.
| There was not even a scratch or abrasion OF
| the skin. and Carter lived to tell an cNpe-
rience doubtless unknown, with one possible
| exception, to any other living individual.
We believe it is true that lady IL alive
who has gone through something of this
kind. This was at Cold Spring station, some
years ago. She was crossing the track III
wagon, and was in like manner struck by q
locomotive. The horse was instantly killed
| and the wagon was smashed to atoms. But
| the lady, strange to say, after being thrown
| into the air, was caught by the flagstaff
| through her Notwithstanding as one
plays the game of grassland carried
| on unhurt She was rescued as soon rs the
train could be stopped, and sustained no i'll
Jury. This case strongly resembles Carriers
and we fancy there is no other recorded par
| aleI; and even the experience of this for
tllnate lady is less surprising, not to say i'll.
credible, than the later one we have Just been
enabled TO chronicle.--Ney York Times.