“That was a great nightmare,” said J.L. Wells, cigar salesman, who awoke from a peaceful slumber to find himself sprawling in the aisle of the smoker when the freight train sideswiped Southern train No. 31 near Salisbury Monday morning.
“I had fallen asleep in the smoker,” continued Mr. Wells, “and had my head and shoulders leaning up against the window. I had just waked up and was stretching my arms when—rip! rip! bang! bang—and something hit my shoulder and knocked me out into the aisle. Powdered glass and splinters flew everywhere, cutting my face in several places. It was all over before anybody had time to comprehend what had happened.”
It was a swinging door on the freight train that did the work, said Mr. Wells. Both his train and the freight train were traveling at great speed, which made the combined speed about 90 or 95 miles an hour. Quick as a flash, Mr. Wells said, practically every window on the east side of the car in which he was riding was jammed in by the swinging door. The steel guards on the outside placed to avoid cinders were bend inward and several persons wee bruised and cut. None seriously, however.
“The worst affected person in my train,” said Mr. Wells, “was a woman who was riding in a pullman with a baby. Thinking perhaps the baby was hurt by the glass and splinters, she went into hysterics, and nobody was able to ease her. She went completely out of her mind for the time being, and the doctors who attended her said she was in a mighty bad condition when I left her.
“I am always afraid of something is going to happen when a freight train is passing, and I should have moved over to the other side of the train. It is the easiest thing in the world for a piece of protruding lumber or a swinging door to cause a smash-up like that. I’ll certainly look out for that kind of thing hereafter, and sit on the side away from passing trains.
From The Charlotte News, April 18, 1921
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