Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1906-11-03
seENE AT rHE WREcK.

undertaking establi shmeAts is forty
four, and seven bodies remain UNI
claimed.
There were ninety-one persons on the
train, fifteen rebate passes and seventy
six paying fares. Twenty five of this.
number have been accounted for,
which, with the bodies recovered, bring
the total to seventy-six. This leaves
fifteen persons not accounted for and
who are supposed to have been drown
ed. 1t Is possible that some of these
may never be found, as it is the belief
of the divers that the bodies floated
through the broken windows out into
the th3roughfare and were carried by
the swift current ont into the Atlantic
When the ears struck the bottom of
the waterway they stood almost ON
End. and the first man to descend re-
ported that the victims were packed
In the lower ends of the submerged
ears so tightly that 1t was difficult to
move them. He said that the bodies
Of men. womensand children, many of
them badly cut and bruised, bore grim
proof of the terrible sufferings of the
victims. Faces were distorted and
clothes torn during the brief agonies
which the victims must have endured.
One by one the bodies were carried
to a waiting train and laid side by
side. later to be borne to this city and
placed in the old Empire theater, which
was pressed into service as a morgue.
At the morgue the scenes We're pa
thetic. Persons who had friends on the
III fatel cars crowded about the en-
trance AMI Were with. difficulty re-
strained from forcing their way into
the building One. of the most heart
rending incidents was furnished by
Frederick Benokert, who lost his en-
tire family. wife and two children
Benc&ert was not Informed of the ac
cident until too late to catch train
ana he hurried here in an automobile
When he saw the bodies of his wife
and two little boys lying side by side
on the floor Benckert collapsed and
had TO be,earlied from the building
A woman, Mrs. Mcdonald, of Phila-
delrha, who does not even remember
how she broke a window in the car in
which She was seated and y pped up
to the surface of the water, is the
heroine Of the disaster. She is an ex-
pert swimmer AMI. knowing her hus~
! band who sat beside her, WAS still in
the submerged wreck, made heroic en-
deavors to set at him.
She dived ana clutched a man, whom
she brought to the surface and ashore.
He wars a stranger. and the brave wo-
man dived again and again. each time
re scuing man nearly drowned
The fourth time she brought her hus-
band up nearly dead, He was resus-
citated by hospital physicians.
| Wrecking cars, with derreks. sue
ceeded in bringing one n the two sub
| MERGED cars 10 the surface, and divers
WORKING in relays brought up bodies
until their fearful task was completed
and they reported that no more dead
! remained either inside the second car
or in the water and mud anywhere Ia
the vicinity.
| Interest now eeaters in the work of
the coroner's jury, Of which State Sen
a'oA inNdfd .. Lee II loieIuah' \ ivy
have made a careful inspection of the
scene of the wre k and the drawbridge
at which the train left the rails.
| Coroner f. c. Gaskill said.
Il am certain of criminal careless
ness, and shall place the blame where
| it belongs"
1t is sad that the puzzle prosecutor
Is in possession of testimony given by
Daniel Stewart, the tender and flag
man at the drawhridge, to the effect