A THRILLING SPIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3294, 12 August 1911, Page 10

A THRILLING SPIN.

MAN STRUCK BY AN EXPRESS TRAIN. ESCAPES WITH A MERE BRUISE. It is not. given to many men to be knocked down by a railway express train and escape with very little more inconvenience than the shock of the thing. Yet this was the experience of a resident of Victoria, Mr. Robert Kennedy, the other day. At midday he was standing near the rails at the Williams Road crossing, alongside the Hawsburn static n. He saw a goods train coming up and waited a moment till it had passed. Thinking the line clear, he started forward, looking straight ahead. He was just on the rails when he heard the roar and rattle of the express. He failed to altogether clear the track, and the train struck him on the shoulder, sending him, in spinning fashion, off the line. No one actually witnessed the occurrence, and it is the man’s own opinion than he was struck by the step of the first carriage. Had it been the engine itself he must have gone down beneath

it. Several workmen who were near by picked him up, and he was hurried off to the Melbourne Hospital in the belief that he must of necessity be badly injured. No bones were found, however, to be broken, and the announcement of the fact surprised the man himself as much as anyone else. A large bruise was upon his shoulders, and back felt sore. He was palpably feeling the effects of the shock, and was detained for that reason. He chatted away to the examining doctor, displaying a lively interest in the search for broken hones.

“I’m sure I was struck, doctor,” he said, almost it seemed with a disappointed tone in his voice when the verdict vias announced, “for nothing else but an express train could send a man through space like that. As I was whirling through the air my one though was, ‘One of my legs is going under the wheels.’ I believe I doubled them up instinctively in order to save them.”