Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-28
FROM DEATHS JAWS.
Engineer Mahan Escapes and Tells
His Story of the Wreck.
CAN'T SEE HOW ANYONE Is ALIVE.
lie Says the Accident Was Not the Work Of
Train Wreckers.
INTERVIEWS WITH MEN OF MANY KINDS

Edward Mahau, the B. s. o. engineer
who was thrown with his engine, oyer a
precipice about 80 feet high, at the long
trestle work, near Whitehall station, on
the Wheeling division, last Saturday
night, who was horribly crushed and man.
gied by the fall, was yesterday taken from
the Homeopathic Hospital to his home in
Glenwood. He has improved rapidly
and his physicians say he has now
passed the danger line. Mahan was the
engineer who brought into Pittsburg the
first train over the Baltimore and Ohio
road. He had been in several accidents be-
fore, but he thinks his escape from horri-
BILE and awful death in the wild plunge of
his engine last Saturday night was simply
marvellous.
Before leaving the hospital yesterday
Mahan told for the first time his story of the
remarkable accident He said: "We were
rounding the curve to the approach of the
long trestle under fair head of steam and
at an ordinary rate of speed. My fireman
and myself both seemed to see the obstruc-
tion on the track at the same time and both
yelled Stop
Not the WORK OF WreckerSs
'The obstruction was huge stone that
think had of its own accord rolled down
from the embankment to the left
of the track coming north. take
no stock in the supposition that
the stone was placed on the track to wreck
us, although it was in the right place to do
the most damage. I reversed my engine
promptly, but before the reverse acted we
struck the large stone with full force.
There was a great crash, as though the cars
were piling up over US, and the engine
seemed to plunge into the air. In the
plunge it kicked up behind and struck the
embankment to the right of the track with
the cow-catcher pointed downward like
pillow. That is all remember about it.
:.When the engine struck the embank-
ment was lifted off my seat and was thrown
through my engine cab right over the en-
bankment and down Into the great gulch
below. have an indefinite recollection of
my flight through space, but I felt no pain
aud 1 have no recollection of stopping. I
fell as 1 understand it upon made ground
which had been carted around the first pier
of the trestle.
''Of course have not been out there
since, but know the place and from what
they tell me can see just where landed.
They tell me was picked up about 30 feet
from where the engine stopped after its
headlong plunge down into the ravine. I
was light, you see, and the sudden jolt
threw me out into the air while the engine
fell dead weight.
Peculiarities OF the Escape.
Gas I understand the accident, I can't
reason how "A single passenger es-
capped. By its own force the
train would have run down the
grade for miles, and T cannot understand
Just how the train kept the track when the
tender broke away and tumbled over the
trestle. The airbrakes operating, no doubt
threw the tender of, but it was certainly
miraculous that the train did not 60 with
it. Such an accident is not known to rail-
readers. 1 was the only one really hurt,
and here anu getting WELL While no one
who knows anything about the place
or who was on the train can under
stand how even one life was saved,
the greater wonder is how all escaped and
only one was hurt. 1t was the closest call
af engineer ever had. and no other train
load Of people are likely to ever again get
off without even a scratch in such an acci-
dent in such place.
SIT was an experience no one need court.
The awful shock, the shrill noise of escaping
steam, the flashing of fire from the tracks
and the crash of the ponderous machinery
and cars went out on the night air like
death rush, but we all escaped and We will
be all right in few DAYS"