, 1891-09-22
SOME SAD DETAILS.
Account of the Port heuf Accident
by an Eye Witness.
Some Horrible Sights Among the
Smoking Debris.
Lyons Escape Seemed Like an
Act of Providence.

A. Il. Shinn and F. L. McMillen, the
it collided with No. 2 Friday morning, ar
rived here yesterday morning, and from
Mr.. Shinn further particulars of the
wreck have been ascertalned. Shinn and
Wedemeyer were chums and MIR. ShInn
has many mementoes of his dead friend.
Shinn, McMillen and the engineer on No.
l did most of the work rescuing and
Shinn first found Wedemeyer. Digging
in the debris he found the naked arm OF
Wedemeyer, and feeling the pulse he ex-
claimed. He's dead Lyon, who was
deeper under the debris, thought he was
referred to. and said, No, I'm not,
Shinn, but m God. I'm in it, sure"
When asked how Wedemeyer was killed
Shinn said he must have been knocked
insensible by the shock and if not killed
was scalded to death before consciousness
returned. He lay with his right hand
back of his head as if he hal thrown it up
to ward off something. His shirt had
been torn from his right arm. but the
flesh was no more thsn scratched and
there was nothing to show that death re-
suited from any one particular thing.
Lyon was somewhat protected by the
lead man and the doctors said his clothes
being saturated with cold water before
the hot water struck him, made the
scalding less severe.
There is only one way to account for
his escape though" said Mr.. Shinu. land
that Is that his time had not come, and
the same may be said of the rest of us.
Old railroaders who had railroaded all
their lives said they had never seen O
man taken out alive from such a horribl,
wreck, and l do not believe any othe
clerk on the line would have survived.
The accident occurred in n lonely canol
on the Fort Hall reservation and Indian
seemed to rise up right out of the gras
and in a short time there were about lO'
of them. Every bone In the body o
some OF the Indians killed by the wrecl
was broken and their brains scattered
about. AS the unsightly remains were
brought out the w~hole-gang of Indians
set up one of their heart rending chants.
which is enough to chill the blood Of any
man under more favorable circumstance,
but to the workers in the wrecked car,
searching amongst the debris and Indian
remains for their dead comrade, it was
doubly horrible when added to the groans
of Lyon.
Mail car ITO, in which Lyon and
Wedemeyer we're riding has been reported
unsafe by every postal clerk on the road
and one clerk refused to ride in it. Shinn
thinks he and McMillen would have been
killed too had they not been IN ITO, one
Of the new patent cars.
Shinn's hip is lame and his neck a
little stiff. but otherwise he is unhurt.
Their car struck and demolished the
tender but the car was unframed. When
the first shock came ShInn was knocked
from his feet and got up just in time to
be knocked down again by the second
shock. 1t was different with the cars on
No. 2. The front mail car, ll76. was
about five or six feet longer than the rear
one, ll6l. No. 1851 was knocked right
, into ll76 and remained there, leaving a
space OF a few feet in the front end OF
1l76. Everything in lI76 was showed
into the small space OF five or six feet.
And not only everything in the car but
the dirt and coal from the tender, and
the Indians and tramps from the blind"
bagRage-everything was throw w into the
one center. Larson, a Butte and Ogden
clerk, was thrown from ll6l and was on
the top of the heap with two squaws and
a papoose near him. The roof and floors
were not torn out of either car and the
rescuers had to crawl in through n