CRITICAL TASK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22723, 8 November 1935, Page 20

CRITICAL TASK

DOCTOR AND AMBULANCE MAN FIRST AID GIVEN UNDER TRAIN (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, October 29. With 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 M'Kenzie, aged 08. Her right leg was severed below the knee and her right arm at the shoulder. The police were unable to discover how she came to be hit by the train, though 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 M'Kenzie, and she was unconscious 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 outwards. Dr Manion and an ambulance officer slid down between two 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, but it was impossible to move her in the narrow space. A hasty consultation with railway officials was held. Mrs M'Kenzie 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 M'Kenzie died a few hours later in hospital.