DYING MAN’S PLEA

Taranaki Daily News, 5 June 1935, Page 9

DYING MAN’S PLEA

“FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE SHOOT ME.” TRAGEDY OF RAILWAY SMASH. The luxury train, Pyrenees-Cote d’Argent Express; hurtling through darkness at seventy miles an hour, plunged from the rails near Bordeaux, recently, and three men, including an Englishman, Captain C. H. Bailey, of Usk, Monmouthshire, were killed, says the Daily Mail. Among twelve passengers seriously hurt was Major Claude Martyn, a former sheriff of Monmouthshire, who had been on a fishing trip to Spain with Captain Bailey. A train following only a few minutes behind the express was stopped just m time. , , , It was in this train that the Duke and Duchess of Kent travelled to Paris on their way from Spain. The piteous repeal of a dying man trapped in a mass of twisted steel formed a tragic epilogue to the accident. “For Heaven’s sake, shoot me, he pleaded again and again to rescuers working to free him by cutting away the wreckage with oxy-acetylene blow-pipes. He was M. Rollin, an employee of the Paris-Orleans Railway. With both his legs crushed he lay fully conscious. He was given brandy, but hours before his body was freed he had died. The express, which was hauled by one of the latest electric locomotives of the Paris-Orleans Railway, consisted of thirteen all-metal coaches, the fourth o which left the rails as the train was flashing through Marchprime Station, fifteen miles from Bordeaux. . The coupling snapped and the electric locomotive and the first three coaches of the train ran on until the driver brought them to a standstill half a mile away. The fourth coach dashed into a concrete pylon supporting the power lines and knocked it down. The next half a dozen coaches crashed over on the side of the line. In heavy rain, aided by only one or two oil lamps, passengers who were unhurt

searched the darkness to helrj free those who were trapped. The body of Captain Bailey was found in a ditch .where ■ he had been thrown from the coach in which he was travelling. . . Major Martyn, who was sitting next to his friend, said:— “The carriage was smashed to smithereens. Captain Bailey and I were neigh-

hours at -home, .his estate being-next to mine in Monmouthshire. “We were chatting when suddenly w* were plunged into darkness and; there ;- followed a terrible crash?' • '•/< “The bottom of the compartment open- ; ed beneath my feet. Half-stunned,-!’fell ■' through.” . . Major Martyn is injured in the; right eye, apart from severe brakes. ? '