Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1897-12-05
THREE KILLED IN 4 WRECK.
Two Trolley Cars Collided on a Detroit
Suburban Road.

1LS Operator w as OuOcT GIl0 LII
rection Of the Superintendent.
Sleet on the Rails Made the Car
| Unmanageable on a Steep Grade.
| Detroit, Mich, December 1.-Two
| suburban cars, carrying some twenty
| passengers, and both running at a
| speed of twenty five miles an hour. col
| lided on the Detroit and Oakland cleo
trio railroad at 1 o'clock this afternoon.
! The result was that three men were in
sta2ntly killed and score of persons in
jured, ken of them seriously.
The deata.,
JOHN SAVAGE, superintendent of
the road
CHARLES M. WHITEHEAD, mo-
torman.
JOHN A. KELLY, of Detroit, BOOK,
agent.
The injured:
Frank McHugh, motorman, leg brok-
en- and internally injured.
Louis Harneck, seriously bruised and
internally injured.
Mrs. John Doty, of Pontiac, two ribs
broken and otherwise injured.
Aged mother of Mrs. Doty, badly
crushed and leg broken.
John F. Madden, of Leonard, legs
and arms badly bruised.
Peter Hempel, of Detroit, hole cut in
leg and face
Mrs E. H. Smith, of Detroit, legs and
face badly bruised.
Mrs. Warner Goodale, face cut and
body badly bruised.
Warner Goodale, of La Peer, severely
bruised.
E. A. Robertson, of Walnut, Oakland
county leg badly cut, hand crushed and
shoulder bruised.
John Riegel, of Pontiac, compound
fracture of leg.
A half dozen others were more or less
cut by broken glass and bruised.
The exact cause of the accident is as yet
in doubt President Hendrie, of the De-
trOlt u OdkldilU railway, Sd!u tIls even
ing that the responsibility of the disaster
had not as yet been fixed. According to
the schedule a car leaves each end. De-
troit and Pontiac, every hour. and there
are thee sidings along the road. To-day
the cars were behind time. The one
bound southwark for Detroit had passed
an outbound car at the switch, two miles
from Pontiac, the crew apparently being
ignorant of the fact that another out
bound car was approaching them less than
two miles distant although it is claimed
that they should have known it from or
ders sent from Birmingham. The weather
was foggy and the rails slippery from the
sleet which had been falling.
The collision came mean a gravel pit,
about midway between Pontiac and Bir-
mingham, at the foot of two steep grades,
down which the fated cars ran at full
speed. The impact was terrific. The cars
were driven half through each other and
crushed to pieces.
Superintendent Savage was in the mo-
torman's vestibule, operating the out
bound car. Both his legs were cut off and
his dead body was fpightfully mangled.
Motorman McHugh, who stood behind
Savage, narrowly escaped a similar fate.
John Kelly was evidently the only pas
senger who saw the northbound car APP
preaching. He rushed for the vestibue
door and he and Motorman Whitehead
were struggling together TO get out of the
door when the crash came. Both were
killed. Kellys head and shoulders were
damned out of the window and his neck
broken. Wihitehead's head was cut open
and his chest crushed
Had it not been for the stout construc-
ton of the cars. both of which were new,
it is doubtful whether any of the occu-
pants would have escaped alive. AS it
was nearly all of the fourteen passengers
in the southbound car suffered some in
jury. Some of the injured were taken to
a farm house. others brought to city hos
pitfalls.
The company's officials are investigating
as to the responsibility of the disaster.
and a coroner's jury has already been i'm
paneed.
The Detroit. Birmingham & Pontiac
road is a separate suburban enterprise.
Its cars enter the city over the Woodward
avenue street car line.
FROSTED FEET LED TO DEATH.