Shocking Muitilation.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 376, 23 April 1908, Page 4

Shocking Muitilation.

The Dreadful Tragedy of Identification. MKi.JiouuNK, April 21. There was great difficulty in identifying the bodies, almost inextricably mixed up as they were in the wreck of shattered carriages. Officials at Sunshine had to leave the work of identification to relatives when the fust mortuary train arrived at Spencer Street. Meantime an army of cabs arrived at the station and waggons were drawn up in readiness for the doctors, nurses and ambulance men, waiting to render _ aid. Anxious friends were patiently standing in groups, all making a weird picture in the dim moonlight. The bodies, as they lay ranged round the walls of Spencer Street station presented an awful spectacle, the majority being shockingly mutilated. In the course of identification some heartrending scenes were witnessed, and it was pitiful to see the grief-stricken relatives led away as their sad business ended. Soon identifications were completed, and bodies placed in coffins and removed for burial.

In some cases the injuries ol the wounded were so terrible that the doctors had to administer morphia and strychnine before the wounds could be dressed. In the majority of the cases the injuries were very serious, more than the usual percentage consisting of fractured limbs, shattered hips and thighs, and injuries to the spine, in addition to the inevitable shock. There were about 60 victims in the first relief train, eight of them dead; the second relief brought 31 dead and xi wourded. Verj' few of the sufferers were able to be sent to their homes.

One particularly bad case was that of a man with a fractured thigh, who had nearly bled to death. In some cases the eyes of the victims bad been put out. The sights which met the gaze of anxious spectators as the first relief began to discharge its freight were enough to touch the stoutest heart with their pathos and tragedy. The spectacle suggested a battlefield with its tale of victims.

' First aid had been rendered at Sunshine, and broken limbs were iti splints, and bruised beads in bandages. Some of the victims were apparently unconscious and some showed the livid pallor of death in their countenances. The faces of some were covered with blood and here and there a poor broken head showed through an extemporised handkerchief bandage. Pathetic groans broke from the lips of some of the worst cases as they were lifted into stretchers, evidencing intense pain.