Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1904-07-27

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accident TO Frank c. Barney appears
in the Joplin News Herald Of last sun
day morning. The Denver Post of
recent date publishers a sensational
and entirely improbable story to the
effect that the young man commit
ted suicide on account of approaching
marital difficulties. Mrs. Hutchinson
is convinced that there is absolutely
no ground for any such assertion. The
lady and the many friends of the
young man in this city as well are
fully satisfied that he did not contem-
plate any action that was not honor,
able and lawful.
The News Herald says:
Frank G. Barney, a night clerk at
the postoffice, was run oyer by Frisco
train No. 1923 about II o'clock Friday
night and received such injuries that
he died at 1903 Saturday morning.
Mr.. Barney left his boarding house,
at 200 East Seventh, at ten minutes
to eleven. according to his custom, for
the postoffiee, where he was to begin
work at IL o'clock. He had arrived
on the 1890 car from Carthage and
in a very amiable state of mind
when he babe his friends good night.
Ernest Boggs, the clerk who was to
have been relieved by Barney was un.
able to explain his non-appearance at
the office and. telephoned about 1870
to the Parker home on East Seventh,
where Barney was boarding, Mrs. Par
ker replied that he had left at the
usual hour and Immediately after
Boggs received a phone message from
the Frisco depot to the effect that
Barney had been run over and per
haps fatally injured.
The night Waterman at the Union
Iron works, on East Seventh street,
just west of the Frisco Y where west
bound trains proceed southwark be-
fore crossing Main and Fourteenth,
was the first to hear the cries of the
injured man, who probably was hurt
ten minutes before he was heard. The
Waterman Immediately gave the
alarm at the Frisco depot, two blocks
distant, whereupon a baggageman,
waiting for a train, notified the ticket
agent, but it was fully thirty minutes
before an ambulance arrived. 1t was
found that both legs were severed
close to where they join the body.
the head and body badly lacerated
and abdomen crushed, the wheels hav.
ing passed over him.
During the intervening thirty min
utes he was lying flat on his back, nat
urally losing a quantity Of blood and
suffering intensely. The scene was af'
fecting to the extreme to the large
crowd which quickly gathered. Barney
begged all who came near him to end
his life before the arrival OF the am
bulance, but when he realized that
strength was the one thing needful he
summoned all his reserve force to his
service. vowing that his determination
and constitution ought to win, even II
he had to go through life without his
lower limbs.
All this time he was suffering ex.
circulating agony, but no tears fell
from his eyes, while there was prob.
ably not a dry eye in the crowd stand,
ing helplessly watching his agony.
When the physicians arrived they
gave no hopes for his recovery.
Mr.. Barney was quite conscious,
talking freely until put under the In
~fluence Of opiates at the hospital. He
told Of trying to catch a train for
Carthage, where he was anxious to go
as soon as possible. Being sure Boggs
would work in his place he went
straight to the Frisco depot and
boarded a train which he supposed
went to Carthage When the train
turned and proceeded south at the Y
he attempted to get off and in SO do.
ing was not careful TO jump at the
right time and landed on a small
trestle. q few feet from where the
tracks turn south. then west, and was
dragged q distance Of about sixty OF
seventy feet. The wheels or one 81