Some Details of the Rangiora Accident:

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5189, 20 December 1884, Page 3

Some Details of the Rangiora Accident:

• I EEMAEKABLE ESCAPES. j The more minute details of the Eangiora ; accident, so terribly fatal in its results, ; have never been circumstantially told. At : the. time, people were so startled by the catastrophe that only the generalities were stated. Our Eangiora representative, who was one of the ill-starred pleasure party, but happily escaped serious injury, has now supplied the following particulars, which will be read with deep interest. The engine struck the van on the front wheel, and threw, it bodily a distance of half a chain, the van falling on to the ; cattle trap. Four trucks, attached to the train, appear to have passed without touching the van, but the first carriage struck it, and completed the wreckage. The vehicle was literally smashed; the body was torn from the wheels, the springs were wrenched to pieces; three of the wheels had the whole of the spokes broken out close to the hubs and rims. The rims of two of the wheels were left whole, and almost intact. > The crash of the collision was heard by ; different people, at a distance of from j three to four miles, in the direction in ; which the wind was blowing ; and so, too, were the screams of the sufferers^ / j Some of the escapes from death wore absolutely marvellous. Thomas Keir, who i was standing on the step of the van, must have been thrown between two tracks ; for when found he was lying inside the rails, and apparently a piece of the wrecked van had swept his arm from under the wheels, breaking the limb just below the elbow. Fortunately a blow on his head had rendered him insensible, so that he j did not stir. Had he moved in the slightest, i his body must have been horribly mangled, i M'Kay and his rfife were thrown out J together. They must have been hurled through the fore part of the vehicle, for they were directly in front of the engine. Mrs M'Kay actually dropped partly on tho j metals, and her husband, who was beside | her, had presence of mind enough to drag her away before the wheels of the engine could pass over her. The narrowness of the escape will be better understood when it is stated that one of the wheels took the skin from the side of her hand, and slightly crushed the tip of the little finger. It is supposed that those who were most injured were all thrown out by the first shock. 'Hughe'.", the driver, was thrown some j dozen yards beyond the cattle trap, or about a chain from the spot where the van was first Bti'uck. Had the van been a yard further over j the metals when the crash occurred, in all j probability the engine would have been ! thrown off the line. As it was, the blow was on the front wheel; it twisted the van round, and thre.v it just clear of the metals.