AGONY IN A TUNNEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19660, 11 June 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

AGONY IN A TUNNEL.

<*» FALL FROM A TRAIN. HELPLESS WITH BROKEN LEG. RESCUED JUST IN TIME. Not even in " The Pit and the Pendulum " did Edgar Allan Poo conceive a story of mental and physical torture more affecting than the true ordeal of Robert Treadway, a 75-years-old inmate of the City of London Infirmary. For two hours and a-half one evening last month Treadway, with a bfoken thigh, crouched against a District Railway tunnel wall. Scores of trains flashed by within a foot of his face. Electric cables behind him dared him to change his pitiful position. And in the thundering of the traffic his cries for help were unheard. Treadway, who was sent to the London Hospital, told his story as follows: — " I had boarded a District train at Stepney Green, intending to go back to St. Mary's ( Whitechapel) Station. Just before the tfain came to the tunnel I

noticed that one of the doors of my carriage was open. I tried to close it, but my strength was not equal to the job. I slipped and fell out of the train. 1 landed in an position. My first thought w. * that xuy only chance of escaping alive was to keep that standing position against the tui iiel wall. "'When the remaining . ■ nages of the train had passed me 1 toe., .stuck of my position. I felt a sharp pain in my thigh. It got worse, and I wanted to sit down; but I knew this would be fatal, for the metals were only about a foot away. Behind me was the electric cable rack, and I had to keep my legs bent at the knees to avoid contact withi them. " I had just realised the real 1 seriousness of my position when I heard a low rumbling sound. A train coming, of course. How could I attract attention ? I began to shout, but when the train was 50 yards away my voice was drowned. I could sec the passengers in the brightly-lit carriages, but passengers do not look out of the windows of tube trains as thoy do from the windows of ordinary trains. Shouting proving useless I began to think of another way of attracting attention. Another train came along. I leaned over sideways—a forward bend would have meant death—< and gripped a handful of gravel. I hurled it at the driver's window, but he evidently did not notice it. " I kept this up for a long time, losing count of the number of trains that passed mo going in both directions.

" Trains kept passing, and I was able to gauge how long 1 was there by the fact that the carriages • were gradually getting more crowded—business people going home, of course.' It was a nervy sort of experience. The tunnel looked a gloomy place, and I felt very lonely in the half-dai'k. And I got very frightened, too, I knew I couldn't stand on one leg much longer, and 1 began to feel faint. If I fell down I would be killed by the next train, or I might fall on the cables. " Then, just as I was giving up hope, I saw the driver of an approaching train lean out of his cabin. He had seen me! Then the train stopped and a group of porters came along and carried me into the train. At St, Mary's they lifted me out and brought me here. For houi's afterwards my ears sang with the roar of trains, and I can still see those big headlights bearing down upon me. I'm glad to be so well out of it. I shall leave door-closing to rail way men in future .I'.'.