Shipman, VA Train Wreck, Dec 1978

Six Die In Train Mishap

SHIPMAN, Va. (AP) -- "He was in tremendous pain, but never cried out," a rescue coordinator says of a cook pinned 11 hours under a stove in the crumpled dining car of the Southern Crescent passenger train that derailed near here, killing six persons.
Bound from Atlanta to Washington, the Southern Railway train jumped its tracks at Elma, an abandoned Nelson County rail stop in mountainous central Virginia, about 5:30 a. m., Sunday.

Seven cars and three locomotives lay scattered like kindling in and around a shallow ravine beside the track. Only the lead locomotive, which broke away, and the last car remained untouched.

The 37-year-old cook, NED HAYNES of Atlanta, became the focus of attention from as many as 125 volunteer rescue workers after some 60 other passengers and crew were taken to hospitals in Lynchburg and Charlottesville.

"HAYNES is very brave," said Capt. KIMBALL GLASS of the Lynchburg Rescue Squad.
"We fed him morphine with glucose to try to keep the pain down," GLASS said. "He understood what we were doing. He asked us to pray for him and we all prayed for him. We talked to him and joked some with him."

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman BOB BUCKHORN said an investigating team was sent to the scene to look for the probable cause of the derailment.

HAYNES and five other survivors were listed in critical condition at the University of Virginia hospital in Charlottesville. Twelve others were in satisfactory condition.
HAYNES suffered multiple trauma, burns and multiple fractures and was taken to the operating room and then admitted to the burn center, said WILLIAM L. LAMM, night hospital administrator.

Cleanup operations continued through the night. Southern Railway crews and a private contractor worked with cranes and bulldozers under portable lights to clear the single-track section of the railroad's main line.

The railroad said the train carried 75 passengers and 15 crewmen.

The dead were identified as:
HOWARD LEWIS JACKSON, 59, of Alexandria, Va., a flagman.
LEWIS PRICE of Atlanta, a cook.
JACKSON HOMER HUME and EDITH CARROL HUME, an elderly couple from Madison Heights, Va.
EDWARD FRANKLIN SHAW, 14, of Wilmington, Del., said hospital spokesman BILL FISHBACK.

The sixth body, wedged under the wheel of a railroad car and the last to be removed from the scene about 10:40 p. m., was not identified late Sunday night pending notification of relatives.

Rescuers arrived on the scene about 6:10 a. m. and help poured in throughout the day down the one-lane, unused rail bed that served as a road to the isolated wreck scene.
Some passengers helped others out of cars, breaking laminated windows and prising open doors.

DR. J. DESMOND COUGHLIN of Ashville, [sic] N. C., who was riding with his wife to Washington to visit their son, stayed at the train to help. He suffered a facial laceration.
"He refused to be taken away from the train until everybody was taken care of," said DR. KEN WALLENBORN of Charlottesville.

COUGHLIN is a Southern surgeon in Ashville.[sic]

He and his wife were riding with two railroad employees in the last car, a private coach often used by the railroad executives.

As medical technicians and a doctor huddled in the dining car kitchen with HAYNES, workers used bulldozers, cables and cutters to strip the stainless steel siding off the car so they could pull out the stove that pinned HAYNES.

"We used up 15 razor-type discs cutting the car," GLASS said.

"As far as damage is concerned and the problems of getting a man out, this is the worst I've seen," The veteran rescuer added.

Another cook lay dead in the compartment with HAYNES, GLASS said, and was removed several hours before HAYNES was brought out about 4:30 p. m.

"We had to get the dead man out," he said. "Him seeing this man there with massive head injuries would have had some affect on him."

About six survivors, including HAYNES, were trapped in various cars when rescuers arrived and all but HAYNES were gotten out quickly.

The News Frederick Maryland 1978-12-04

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