New Haven, CT Train Wreck, Sept 1913 - Eyewitness Account

BOY CAMP LEADER TELLS OF WRECK

Car in Which He Was Bringing Lads from Maine Was Upset in the Crash.

THEY AIDED THE INJURED

Applied Tourniquets and Bandages Made from Sheets---Tales of Other Survivors.

Harry Rich Mooney, who lives in the Elks Club in this city, was in charge of fifty-eight boys who were returning on the second section of the Bar Harbor Express from Camp Cobbassee in Maine. Mr. Mooney and most of his charges were in the Chisholm, the car third from the rear. A few, however, were in the car back of the Chisholm, and two of these, William Altschuler and Albert Green, were killed.

"The most heroic thing that I know of connected with the wreck," said Mr. Mooney, "was the work of Walter Schuster, a sixteen-year-old boy of Mount Vernon, in saving two of his companions. The three boys were on the platform in the rear of the third car in the wait before the crash came. They were looking back through the mist to see if they could find out what was delaying the train, when a brakeman who was standing on the ground near them shouted:

"Jump, or you'll be killed."

"Schuster acted instantly, shoving off both his companions, Joe Hennessey and E. Bauman. Then he jumped himself. All three boys were rolling down the embankment when the oncoming train struck. Another instant on the platform would have been sure death to them.

"The impact threw me out of my berth. The car pitched to one side. Then it seemed to start to right itself. I tried to scramble back on my feet, but for the second time the car turned to one side, and this time it fell on its side and came to a stop. Every one in the car was thrown into a panic. Some tried to find their baggage and climb out of the car to help the others.

"The car broke in two in the middle. The frame was torn out of one of the centre windows, giving us a big hole to crawl through. Some of the boys were already dressed and some were dressing when the other train hit us. Most of the boys climbed out as I did, though, dressed in pajamas and shoes.

"Once outside we saw the two cars behind us which the engine had rammed. At first it seemed as if no one could be alive in either of them. A strange silence followed the crash. It was only later, when we were at work on the wreckage, that groans could be heard underneath. The only explanation I could find for this was that the two cars were so terribly smashed that every one in the berths was killed instantly or injured too badly to cry out.

"I sent the boys back into our car and they brought out sheets and cushions. They tore up the sheets into bandages which were applied as fast as the injured were rescued, and the cushions were used in carrying the maimed to a street car which was near the tracks when the accident occurred.

"Thirty-five of these boys are registered members of the National Volunteer Life-Saving Corps at Cobbossee, of which I am the Captain. Every day we go through the regulation practice for saving the drowning, and only last Sunday we had a drill in applying bandages and splints.

Boys Apply Tourniquets.

"All this knowledge was valuable to-day. There was no physician on the train, and most of the tourniquets were applied by my boys. Men from all the cars began at once the work of rescuing the injured and removing the dead. This was not as difficult as it might seem, and the woodwork had nearly all been ground fine under the weight of the heavy engine. Most of the broken pieces could be pulled out by hand, and there was little use for the axe.

"While we were at work one of the boys called to me that he found Albert Green among the dead. Albert Green was a Columbia student, and was one of the instructors in our camp. Only one of his legs appeared, but his friend identified him by his blue socks and low-cut tan shoes. We were able to loosen the tangle of broken woodwork and life[sic] him out, but he was dead. A few minutes later we found William Altschuler, the second member of our party who was killed. He was alive when lifted him out of the wreck, but he died as some of his comrades were carrying him on a stretcher to the street car.

"One thing that showed the terrific force of the collision was the fact that the telegraph wires beside the tracks were filled with broken wood, suitcases, clothing, sheets and mattresses, which had been thrown upward when the engine plunged into the two cars. I heard that a man had been shot up there and had stayed entangled in the wires, but I did not see it.

"One thing that impressed me was the calmness with which the survivors went about the work of rescue. There was no wringing of hands and no confusion of any sort. Every man seemed to do when he found at hand. There were women on the forward cars who did their part. They filled buckets with water from the tanks in the Pullman sleepers and helped to bandage the injured and ease their suffering. The first physician that arrived to my knowledge was Dr. Waldron of Newark, who was at Wallingford at the time. It seemed to me and to others that the relief train was deplorably slow in arrival.

"Only one of the boys in my party lost his head. This was Bert Shrock. He jumped through one of the windows after the collision and cut an artery in his arm. Richard Frank, another boy, suffered a scalp wound when he was thrown out of his berth. They were cared for by their comrades."

In addition to the fifty-eight boys there were some twenty other passengers on the train, who were either guests or employes[sic] of the hotel and model farm conducted by Mr. Mooney in connection with his camp. Four women with the party were Mrs. B. P. Traitel, Miss B. Morgenthau, Miss Esther Herts, and Miss Catherine Sweeney. Miss Herts and Miss Sweeney were both hurt severely. George Koga and L. Arka, two Japanese boys employed at the Maine camp, were injured.

Priest Absolved the Dying.

One of the passengers on the fourth coach from the rear was the Rev. N. C. Wall, a Roman Catholic priest of Dansville, N. Y. He administered the last rites to the dying. So many were buried in the wreck that he gave a general absolution, which is usually bestowed only on the battlefield.

"I thank God I was there," said Father Wall, when he arrived yesterday morning at the Grand Central Terminal. "I did what I could. I am an old man, and I have used up my strength. I am not able to say any more."

W. A. Bowen, Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association for the State of Maine, was in the third car from the rear.

"We had waited so long," he said, "that I was beginning to wonder what was the trouble. I was just lifting the window to look around to see the cause of the delay. Before I had the window up, a brakeman shouted:

"Hold on tight, or you'll be killed."

"I gripped the window-sill and waited."

In a second the other train struck us. In spite of my grip on the window I was thrown to the floor. Nearly every one else on the car was thrown out there with me, and then there was a rush for the doors. The porter kept his head and helped the persons in the car to get out without confusion. The dead lay alongside the two smashed cars when we got there.

"The most wonderful thing to my mind in connection with the wreck was the coolness with which the uninjured passengers behaved."

Walter Schuster of Mount Vernon, the boy from the Cobbossee Camp, who saved two of his companions by pushing them from the platform just before the crash, said that he heard the two signal torpedoes explode, but only a second before the accident.

George C. Warren, a broker, with offices at 2 Wall Street, said that after the accident he saw a block signal some sixty feet in the rear of the engine and the smashed cars. The signal, he said, was set at danger.

The New York Times, New York, NY 3 Sept 1913