Red Wing, MN Bus And Truck Collision, Aug 1928

FOUR DIE IN BURNING BUS.

VICTIMS TRAPPED IN CAR WERE VIRTUALLY CREMATED.

Red WIng, Minn., Aug. 21. -- (AP) -- Trapped in a burning bus, four men were burned to death and six other persons were injured, two so severely that they are expected to die, when a passenger bus and a truck collided on the highway near here Monday.
None of the dead was identified as their bodies were burned beyond recognition and their personal effects were destroyed as the coach, mired in the ditch, caught fire and was burned to its frame. The bus was bound from Chicago for Minneapolis.
Two of the six persons injured, W. J. GARDNER, Minneapolis, and WALTER E. MEYER, Wyzata, 26-year-old driver of the bus, were so badly burned that physicians expressed the belief that they would die.
The passengers were in the bus, operated by the Interstate Travel bureau with headquarters in Minneapolis, when it collided on a curve five miles north of here with a state fish hatchery truck, swerved from the road into the ditch and immediately caught fire.
Fed by fuel from a broken gas line, the flames enveloped the coach in an instant and frustrated all attempts to reach the hapless victims. Even chemical extinguishers, brought into play by firemen from Red Wing, were ineffective and the firemen were forced to stand helplessly by while the victims were virtually cremated.
WALTER PICKARD, a St. Louis pugilist, saved several passengers by pulling them through the window, although he himself suffered a broken arm in the crash. PICKARD also dragged MEYER from the driver's seat, but not before the latter had been badly burned.
MEYER, hysterical and with his clothing in flames, ran about the wreck wildly until PICKARD struck him down with a blow in order to roll him in the grass and beat out the blaze.

Ogden Standard Examiner Utah 1928-08-21
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!