The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1904-09-10
n11lueenbnr.
OVER EMBANKMEN'T'.
Telegraph Operator, Who Lost
His Wife, Hero Of Wreck.
'fRy Associated Press !

lsf .
CHARL,OTTE,N NJ. c., september 9.---'Tfe
wrecked train was running about forty
miles an hour when the trestlc, which
lis about three hundred feet long, span-3
Ming a meadow l,ear5th he Catawba River,
gave way. Tho engine and some OF the
cars passed over, but were drawn back 3;
ward into the abyss and upon the other,
cars, e a light engine and AZ caboose,
Fpiling In on top OF the train OF wreck.
age before 1t could be tagged.
CASTOR Mears, the engineer OF the pas
seneer train, escaped with some bruised
and a painful scalp wound. How no es-5
capcd death, Is beyond his own or any
ono elsos comprehension. I1e sale = hat
he was driving at the rate of forty miles
an hour as he crossed the bridge. Just
before the engine had swept entirely
clear OF the structure lie felt IT sinking,
but the impetus carried the eng ne anu
all the cars across, except the first class
passenger Cur and the Pullman. " hens
the bridge collapsed, the engine and cars
we're sweryed from their course to tho,
right, tearing the rail loose from It's
fasteni.igs and hurting the entire train,
upside down over an embankment to the
meadow, about thirty feet below, ,.4
Freight Plunges.
When the train went crashing over over the
embailkment;g every light went out, pas
sengers were thrown headlong against
tho sides 81 the coaches bleeding and
bruised. Mrs Black sitting with WI, her
husband gave n short cry, and when no
managed to strike matchgand find her
body. lie discovered that she was dead;
her neck having been broken. She was
the onlyspassenger killed, or even hurt
sa rio,slV
As tie scrambling and shouting went
on In tho dark, above the n u discs q
brakeman, with his head half way out
OF a window was heard to shout: 5
i,0'AIy God 1.-THE freight trali, Is coming
upon us A ~ IS y 8
u less than a mlnuteBthe freight, which
had left Monroe fifteen minutes behind
the passenge & came whizzing along the
tracks, struck the open space here the
bridge had fallen and plunged 4 is way
through tile passenger cars. The woman
whose identity could not Pc d "
then met her death, the freight engine
having crashed through the side of that
passenger car In which she q was 4 Her
bod was crushed Into a. apeless mass,
The engineer OF the freight train must
have met HIS death instant ly, He was
found, In the cab Of the overturned en-
CINE, rs WI til y HIS head crushed, but few
bruises upon, his body, & When his body
was dug solt5 OF the debris this morning
his, VIA tell, was still running on time, HIS
fireman escaped with q few minor In
turtles. p
Operator a Hero. s3l5
| Tho wreck developed at least one hero,
Mr. Black, whose wife was killed be-
side him, was the last man 10 leave the
coaches, and what he did the very first
thing. was to walk, with all his bruised
condition tn CatAwba junction, two
miles away, got into the telegraph office
and sent 70 Monroe for help. ne .is g
Norfolk and Western Railway, and was
going to Atlanta with his wife to testify
there Iii a railroad suit, He hardly real
ICES the blow lie has sustained, and sat
all day on the bank nearby, With mourn
Sui eyes and NUT teslnS to himself. fgaIy