New Britain herald., 1929-01-23
|l7 ARE KILLED IN BUS ACCIDENT
Interurban Car Hits Carrier,
 Cutting It in Half

oCllTtoCs o.s JlIls "'oCNSAS- teen persons were killed and 1b were seriously injured yesterday when 8 Grey Hound company bus bound for Pittsburgh was struck by 8 west bound Lake Shore electric in- terurban at a crossing a mile and { half east of here.
 A number of others lesA seriously injured were taken to Bellevue Hos- pital.
 A binding snow storm which en- gulfed the bus and the electric car was blamed for the crash. The bus, operated between Toledo and Pittsburgh, was struck squarely , in the center by the express car of the Lake Shore line, bound from Norwalk to Bellevue.
 Edward Butler of Cleveland, driv- CT of the bus, who was not seriously injured. said he pulled to . stop at the icy crossing, looked about but failed to see anything. He drove upon the crossing at the instant the interurban, travelling about 35 miles an hour, reached 1t.
 Cur Crashes on Top of Bus The interurban crashed on top of the bus and then fell across 1t in a ditch. smashing the machine into mass of twisted steel and splintered wood and pinning nearly all of the passengers underneath.
 Passengers and members of the crew of the electric car frantically dug into the wreckage to extricate the dead and injured. Passing mos torists made improvised ambulances of their machines and the four ann balances in Bellevue made repeated trips. Scores of volunteers worked in the snow. It reqrircd four hours to remove the bodies of the dead, four of them women.
 Belief that an eighteenth body remained under the wreckage was dispelled when the wrecking crew succeeded in removing major por- ton of the wreckage and officials of the Lake Shore railroad announce ed all bodies had been removed. The report that there was yet another body to be extricated was believed to have been due to the fact that a salesman aboard the bus had large mechanical doll with him which some passengers had thought was baby"
 Snow'storm Raging
 There were few coherent stories of the tragedy. but passengers on the electric car agreed that 1t was rolling along through the snowfall at fast clip when without warning there was a rending crash. The bus was torn nearly in two and the in- terurban hurtled into the air from the force of the impact. it's bulk settling down fairly atop the wreck ed bus.
 Passengers on the electric car es- capped with shocks and minor injur- ies but nearly all those on the bus were pinned in the debris. The ex- act number of passengers on the bus was not learned, but 1t was Le- lieved that there were few who were Tot accounted for in the list of dead and injured.
 Identification of the dead was slow, because of the mangled condi- tion of some of the bodies. The , injured, of whom two were in a critical condition. were taken to Bellevue hospital,
 The interurban left Norwalk at 12:40 p. m., and was due at Belle- vue at 1:1Q. The bus left Toledo at 11;45 a. m. for Cleveland.
 The crossing where the crash oc- cured is one of the most danger ous in northern Ohio. The interur- ban picked speed on the straight away which is twice crossed within a mile by state highway No. 20. Not only the electric line but two steam railroads enter the double crossing.
 Thomas Scheyler was the motor. man of the interurban and Fred Truman was the conductor. Both live at Fremont. Ohio.
 Snow Obscured vision
 Scheyler said he saw the bus on the tracks too late to avert | crash. The snow greatly obscured his vision as he was nearing the crossing, he said.
 "I saw that there was going to be a collision" Scheyler related. There was nothing that could do. We were travelling at good speed and ~WUUVV~UVUw"