IN A WRECKED CARRIAGE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXI, Issue 4750, 15 March 1899, Page 3

IN A WRECKED CARRIAGE.

A LADY PASSENGER'S EXPERIENCES. Mrs Prank Sutherland, sister of Mrs D. Sutherland, of Islington, who was one of the injured, had a thrilling experience. Mrs F. Sutherland is one and the same with the " Mißß Austin," whose name appeared amongst those who were injured and hud stayed behind at Rakaia. "I was m the second carriage from the van," she said, "and was sitting m the corner. The first thing unusual I was aware of was the crashing of the next cimage into ours, and immediately I saw horrid, terrible looks on the people's faces. Almost at the same time a young woman was violently thrown on to my knee. She was firmly pinned to me by a beam, and ehe died on my knee. I did not know her, and she had been sitting some distance away from me. She was wearing a pink blouse, and may have been Miss Jones. In the meantime, my husband had broken the window of the carriage, and shortly afterwards a man came along with an axe, and began go cut the wood-work. At one time I thought he was going to cut me, and I called out to him not to kill me. At last some man got hold of me by the shoulders, and dragged me through the window. I was then taken to the waiting-room, and soon the dead and injured were brought m. I noticed the boy Harding—the bones of one of hia legs were sticking out of his trousers. If you tried to jnove about the room you were met almost everywhere you turned with appeals to '*? keep off my feet," and such like. After the trains collided I could just see my sister, Mrs D« Sutherland, lying on the bottom of the carriage, and I could see she was suffering very acutely. She asked me if I was hurt, and after a while a man came and tried fco pull her out, bufc was very rough.. My sister had two young children with her, and one, the younger, was thrown out of her bub both were brought out of the carriage without having received a scratch," Mra Sutherland concluded her statement with the information that she escaped greater injury owing to the faob that she waa wearing a cape made of very thick material', the sloth searing as a protection.