FALL IN CUTTING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23620, 2 April 1940, Page 4

FALL IN CUTTING

— ? • CAE AND OCCUPANTS ' !VRACKOOrl r A TRAIN SCRAMBLE CLEAR IN TIME [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT] f' SYDNEY. March 2? A motor-car crashed through a fence fell 125 feet and overturned on the linos directly in front of an approaching - train, near an overhead bridge at Linden, in the Blue Mountains. The three occupants barely had time to scramble clear before the train hit the car and wrecked it. Mr. John Gibson, aged 25, the driver of the car, was unhurt except f or shock. Mr. Ronald Neville Turner 'h • aged 36, suffered injuries to both legs ' and facial lacerations, and hi. l ! wife received lacerations to the hands and "> injuries to both legs. Turner, a bookmaker, afterward told the police that a bag containing £3OO, which ho had left in the car, was missing. The car left the road at a sharp turn just before the bridge. It mounted an '!! embankment -and hurtled through space. It almost completely hurdled the cutting, the wheels striking the top of the opposite bank. It finally fell back 25 ioet on to the track, coming to rest on i.ts hood, with its wheels in the air. The steel structure of the sedan body saved the lives of the occupants who, although dazed a:nd slightly injured in the first crash, were able to scramble out and throw themselves flat against the embankment while the train crashed into the car, which was smashed to pieces. The line was blocked for three hours while the wreckage of the car wasi being removed. Gibson said that as he struggled from the car he heard the' approaching S tra in. He saw that Turner had managed to get out Of the car and had pulled Mrs. Turner out. He saw the lights of the engine and then heard the crash of the engine against the sedan. The train creWi gave first aid after the accident, and the party was brought to hospital at Katoomba.