The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1920-06-23
BREAST|NG WATER AS
COLD AS HE'LL" RAIL-
WAY HERO SAVES TRAIN

Omaha, Neb.-In the recent South
Dakota floods John Williams, a Sec
ticn foreman, swan swollen creek
at night in a hailstorm to warn a
passenger train that a bridge had
gone out. He stripped himself and
tied the danger signel to his back.
After he had set them, he approached
nearby house, then remembered his
negligee, swan back across the 600
feet Of swirling current
The passenger train, it developed
later. was stopped farther up the
road at point where the railroad
men had little hope of halting it.
Williams heroism, however, was not
overlooked by the railroad officials.
The bridge was the Burlingtons
over Hat creek, near Ardmore, S. d.
The Hat creek flood tied up traffic
for eight days, cost seven lives, and
did s500,OOO damage to the one road.
Several days after the flood the
section foreman was looked up by a
newspaper man from the city. He
found him directing a gang of labor
tit WdSIOut.
Williams related how it had been
raining through the previous weeks
and the April blizzard had left the
ground soaked, so that when the last
storm came on it ran off as if from
ducks back land old Hat creek
started on a rampage"
Il kept watching the new bridge
over the creek all afternoon" Williams
told his visitor, water kept comm
up and comm up until it reached the
ties. Then / got worried for fear
the bridge would go out so I went
back to town and reported about it to
the operator. He told the dispatcher
at Alliance about it. The telephone
and telegraph wires runnin' west had
all gone down and we couldn't get
Edgemont or anyone west Of the
creek. Jack Welch, the dispatcher
at Alliance, talked to me over the
railroad phone and asked me If i
could get to the west end Of the
bridge across the creek. and put out
red light and some stop signals so
rs to hold the night passenger train,
No AZ, which was due at 8 o'clock.
I told him I'd try and went back to
the bridge.
when / got there again the water
was clear over the top Of the bridge
and 1t looked to me like one Of the
steel spans had gone out. Wed tried
to phone the government farm on the
other side to ask them to go out and
put out red light, but their phone
was gone and we couldn't reach any.
body.
well, ! just figured the chances
was probably against me gettin' across
but it was only my life against $50
passengers on No. 42, and I figgered
that the train would be runnin pretty
fast when they came up to the bridge,
and they might be into it before
they saw it, so 1 walked up the creek
a half mile, stripped off my clothes,
tied my red lanters, red flag and
torpedoes to my back and swum
across.
There wasn't so many trees out
there and she was only about 800
feet wide, but the water was full Of
hailstones and cold as hell. 1t was
rainin' to beat the band and dark as
blazes. I sure felt good when ! hit
that fence on the other side and drug
mystelf on the bank"
How did you get back to Ardmore,"
Williams was asked, after he had re-
lated how he placed the signals.
We'll 1 walked up to the govern
ment house, but when / got close to
the office and saw the bright lights
there 1 remembered l didn't have no
clothes on and thought I'd make
pretty lookin' sight Dustin in on 'em
like that, so i walked back up the
stream and swim back"