HEROIC FIRST AID

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 8 November 1935, Page 12

HEROIC FIRST AID

DOCTOR AND ASSISTANT WOMAN STRUCK BY TRAIN SYDNEY, Oct. 30. AA’itli their bodies pressed close to the sleepers, a doctor and an ambulance officer lay beside a critically injured woman at Regent’s Park station, near Sydney, last Friday night while a train which had knocked her down was shunted over them. The victim was Mrs Eleanor McKenzie, aged 68. Her right leg was severed below tho knee and her right arm at the shoulder. The police were unable to discover how she came to be struck by the train, although they ascertained * that the front carriage had swept her to the permanent way. The driver, David Lewis, applied the brakes of the train and stopped it in a remarkably short distance. Two wheels passed over Mrs McKenzie, and she was unconeious when the Parramatta, ambulance and Dr. J. Manion, of Auburn, arrived. It was practically impossible to reach the injured woman, as the top of the platform projected outward. Dr. Manion and an ambulance officer slid down between the carriages and crawled along the permanent way to where the woman was lying in agony. They dressed her injuries as best they could in the cramped position, and prepared to lift her to the platform, Imt it was not possible to move her in the narrow space. A hasty consultation with railway officials was held. Mrs McKenzie was in great pain, and Dr. Manion and the ambulance officer decided to hold her tightly while the train drew ahead. They crouched in a cramped position while the wheels of the carriages ground past them a. few inches away. They were beneath the carriage with the injured woman for about a quarter of an hour. Their heroic efforts were in vain. Mrs McKenzie died a few hours later iu hospital.