Desperate Attempt at Suicide.

Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 103, 29 October 1888, Page 3

Desperate Attempt at Suicide.

♦ A MAN JUMPS FROM A EAILWAY BRIDGE. A most determined attempt to commit auioido occurred at the Port Melbourno North railway station on the ovening of the 14th inst. The Melbourne Age thus describes the affair :— As the 7.45 down train from Flinders-street drew up to the platform, a man named Jeremiah Conole jumped from the elevated footbridge on to the line, right in front of the engine, which passed over him, cutting off his right arm at the elbow. Conole was sent as quickly as possible to the Melbourne Hospital, where it was found necessary to amputate the limb at the shoulder. The footbridge where the attempt ocourred is of the ordinary girder type, and besides connecting the np and down platforms at the Melbourne end of the station, serves as an elevated footway for pedestrians passing to and from Sandridgo and the Yarra. The height from the permanent way to the parapet is 20 feet. No one seems to have noticed when Conole first came on the bridge, but he was seen in the act of jumping by a> porter named James Blaok, who was standing at the tioket gate, some 20 yards away, watohing the approach of the train. When the engine was about 12 yards from the end of the platform a man dropped from the footbridge on to the centre of the line, and was orushed under tho wheels in on instant. The whole thing happened so quickly that Black was unable to call out, and tho train drew up at the platform as usual, neither the driver nor the fireman being aware that anything unusual had occurred. Blaok ran at once to the end of the train and found that all the oarriages, with the exception of the last, had passed over the man's right arm. severing it at the elbow ; but that there wero no injuries to any other portion of the body. Considering the height of the bridge, the speed at which the train was running, and the coolness with which the jump was oaloulated, Conole's escape was little short of miraculous. He was quite sensible when picked up, and was able to give his name and address, aa well as to admit that he had attempted to do away with himself. As soon as possible he was sent on to the Melbourne Hospital, where, as stated, the arm was removed at the shoulder. Conole improved wonderfully after the operation, and there is at present but little fear of a fatal result. Conole is a coal lumper by occupation, is 38 years of age, and lives with his brother and sister at 43, Evans-street, Port Melbourne. For several months he was bedridden with an attack of congestion of the liver, and, tbongh convalescent, the acute pain whioh he suffered during his illness seems to have greatly depressed his spirits. Still none of the family anticipated that he had any inclination towards suioide, and when yesterday evening he left the house for the first time for many months, and went out ostensibly for a walk, the unusual length of his absence oaused no alarm. It would Beem, however, that he must have been considering his project for some time, and that as soon as he was able to leave the house he went straight down to the railway bridge, waited until the train was close upon him and then threw himself under the wheels.