The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-03-10
MAIL CLERK DIES
 FROM HIS INJURIES
West ScaIded in Wreck K
 pires at Hospital
BODY SENT TO NASHVILLE
Passenger on Louisville and Nashville Describes In Graphic Terms Excit- ing Experience of Sunday
 Night-A Heroic Deed.

 scalded in the wreck of express tran No. on the Louisville and Nashville at snuria Sunday night, died yestefoay morning at St. Vincents hospital, where he was carried several hours before III Lige Loy's ambulance He was the oiis person seriously hurt in the wreck anu he would have come out uninJurea hdu 1t not been for the escaping steam rom the engine when the mail car sno' past it.
 The remains of MT. West were sent 10 Nashville. where he lived. last night on the Louisville and Nashville train' which left here exactly twenty-four hours aiter the poor fellow was fatally injured. He was scheduled to leave here Sunday night on No. 4. and run through to Nashville. The wreckage was cleared away yester- day morning, and trains were able to | pass by noon.
 1 Among the passengers on the wrecked Louisville and Nashville express on Sun day night was James A. MacKnight whC had been spending Sunday at home in 1 South Calera.
 .sThe night started out ominously said Mir. MacKnight. T was walking leisurely towards Calera when a heavy freight train came from the north. After II hao passed me few hundred feet, the cyiin- der head of the locomotive was blown out, and the train lay dead on the main line.
 "It was nearly time then for No. l. the ill-fated express to come up from the south, and as I pushed on up the track to Calera, I began to speculate on the delay which the crippled freight would probably cause. The thorough-going meth ods and discipline of the Louisville and Nashville solved the trouble in few minutes. The freight was lowed to the nearest siding and No. came into Calera only twenty minutes late.
 "When I entered the chair car every seat except the one l secured was occu- pied. This was near the front end of the coach Ahead of this car were next to the engine, the mail car, then the bag gage car, then a smoker and negro car' and in the rear of the chair car the diner and two sleepers.
 "The train had been running at slow speed over some miles of new grade south of siluria. but was probably run ming thirty to forty miles an hour when the accident happened.
 The Emergency Air Brakes.
 "The first sign of danger was the sud- den throwing on of the emergency air brakes. This threw everybody forward, and I seized the irons of the chair and braced myself for the crash. The next instant there was an awful lunge for ward, a cracking of timbers, a sense of impending horror. vague. mysterious, DOT tentious, and then halt of the wrecked mass and a general stampede of the peo- pie in the car.
 "In the one instant of most cruel sus- pense there was time to say God pro- tect us' Some of the cooler passengers sought to calm the excited ones. but some started to climb from the broken windows and others rushed to the damned and battered doors.
 Desiring to get clear understanding of the situation. I finally got out by the front door of the chair car, the steps and platform of which were bent and crushed. The wheels and trucks of the car were
  into the embankment.
 '1 was on the left, or west side, of the cars. and found myself hemmed In by high barbed- wire fense. At last reached the head of the train and found the mail car lying on one side, and the baggage car also turned over
 'On the upper side of the mall car sat poor West. the mail clerk. who had climb ed out of the wrecked coach by a win dow, and had his feet dangling over the side He was mortally scalded about the head and body The flesh could be seen in the wierd moonlight hanging In strings from his hands.
 Heroic Deed.
 "A doctor was sent for and young wards learned was John Minnis, climbed up on the mail car and quietly. but hero ically lifted the injured man down from his dangerous position.
 "On passing to the east side of the train, I found that the front end of the mail car had been torn completely off. 1 and that the timbers comprising 1t still hung by the coupling to the rear end of the engine tender. The cars had been hurled forward three car lengths from where the engine lay on its side, and every car in the train was derailed ex- cept the rear sleeper.
 ''1'he fact that the cars shot past the wrecked engine saved the passengers from maiming and death in front and the derailing of the heavy coaches at the rear saved the day coaches from being telescoped For a great misfortune, 1t was a wonderfully fortunate disaster, as the mere changing of a little clrcum- stance attending it would have cost the lives of two or three hundred persons in an instant of time.
 The official report says that the cause was a defective switch Is It not possible to make switches so heavy, safe and strong that they cannot cause such ac-