Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1896-10-01
TRIES THE NERVES.
~ OLD FIREMAN ON THE EFFECT
OF A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.

The Thoughts That Flash Through the
Engineman's Brain just Before . Col
lision Occurs-A Smash Up Makes Man
Scary Ever Thereafter.
There is something attractive about
railroad life to the man who once en-
tiers it. The railroad companies rarely
give up reliable, faithful man. He
may become manned and unfit for the
most remuneratiye positions and be
forced to accept some humber place
with smaller salary attached to it,
but il is an unwritten law with INST Of
the great railroad companies that the
man who is injured in their service
shall be placed i'll some position where
he may obtain his livelihood.
Thus it may happen that when you
fall in conversation with the man who
occupies q humble switchhouse or q
fiagman's siianty you are talking with
one who has had his share Of excitement
and been through experiences that
would make the hair of the average man
stand upon end. A reporter met
switchman the other day the pathos of
whose life was expressed in the wooden
leg which he used. aud as the Empire
dashed by he looked up and said:
eyes, l like railrOading. l have been
in the business all my life and expect to
spend the rest Of my days over the rails,
but am quite content to remain here
in my little cottage and tend to my flag
gin2 rather than have the position of
the man who holds the throttle ON that
big engine which just whizzed by here
You may think il IL snap to sit there
and ride over the country ut the rate Of
q mile il minute, but tell you the man
carries u load of responsibility Oh his
shoulders which I would not want On
mine and which the average man knows
very little about. l know something of
| it. fer was fireman soine years ago on
one of the fast engines and lost my leg
in an accident between here and AL
bany. But if L had ccme out If that ac-
| cident as sound rs you are / never
should have been able 10 hold my nerve
for amy more fast trips. That finished
me for that work. -
| Then if a man has been hurt in a
| railroad accident it makes him scary
| of that kind Of work, does it?' asked
| the reporter.
"You bet it does" answered the
switchman with emphasis, land don t
let any one fool you that it doesn't. The
man who was running that engine the
day I was hurt escaped with hardly a
scratch, but he never could keep his
time up the way he did before that and
finally was put on q freight engine,
where the running was q great deal
slower.
II shall never forget the way he look
ed the afternoon the smash up occurred.
Just before the crash came 1 locked at
him. We were rounding a curve down
by Schenectady. His long gray hair
was flowing in the breeze, his face was
set and his eyes fixed on the track
ahead.
''All at once he jumped to his feet
and reversed the lever and exclaimed in
startled tone, My God, we are
caught!' 1t was probably not more than
half q minute after when l was lying
beneath the engine with my leg crush
ed, utterly unconscious Of the fact thai
Il great wreck had occurred, but every
movement and occurrence of that hall
minute is as wildly impressed upon my
mind as if it had taken weeks of time
to impress it there.
las he spoke I looked through the
cab window ahead of us, and there
within 20 rods, was a freight engine
coming straight at rs, and there was III
possible chance to escape a crash. Thu
engineer was doing his duty. knew
! that. He was reversing the lever. apply
| ing the brakes and doing his best Il
avert what he knew was inevitable, bu
had nothing to do. and it seemed as i
everything in my life was before me il
those few seconds. felt absolutely sur,
was going to die. Strange as it ma,
seem, the thought did not seem horribl,
! to me. A whole lot of the slang say
ings, such as, You are learning to fir'
here in this world so as to be prepared
for the next, and You won't mind |;
hot job over there and a number O
those stale things which q fireman ha
to take, came into my head, and evel
in that awful position it occurred to M
in a humorous sort of way that l hat
made a good start here below, or her
above, as might say. The next mo
ment was thinking of my wife an,
children-yes. and of mother, too, VIII
had been dead q number of years. !
. man always thinks of his mother at sucl
time. But don't think had par
ticle of fear of death. The last thin
that was on my mind was the question
Who was to blame for the accident
And that is the last remember.
when 1 came to my senses, wa
in a hospital and was minus leg
Since then have been constantly EN-
ployed one way and another by the rail
road company, but l never see one o
the fast trains 60 by without thinkin
of that wreck. The engineer miraculous
:: " escaped with scarcely bruise, but
i finished him for that kind of work. II
n was always seeing engines ahead of hir
d after that, and have heard that NOR
than once he has slowed up his train i
= order not to collide with an imaginar
engine, which have no doubt was a
: real to him as it was on the afternco
the wreck speak Of occurred. As I sal
L. /. fro, nI