THE OAKLAND DISASTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 865, 14 July 1910, Page 3

THE OAKLAND DISASTER.

CROWDED TROLLEYS COLLIDE. HOSPITALS FILLED WITH INJURED. (By Mail.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 30. Forty shrieking, moaning, mangled victims wore piled in a mass of wreckage near Leona Heights, East Oakland, at 10.30 o’clock thus morning as the result ol a head-on-collision ol two crowded cars ol the Oakland Traction Company. A majority ol the victims were women and children, who, a moment beiore, were laughing merrily on their way to picnic grounds in the hills. A merry party, in honour of a bride and groom to-be, was caught in the crash on the way to a recreation grounds near Mills College, in a second, the mere hash ol time that it took the cars to round a curve and to como into view ol each other, they all were looking straight into the jaws of death. The laughter on their lips gave place to shrieks, they were paralysed with fear, and betoro any one ol the more than a hundred aboard the doomed cars could stir hand or loot, the crash came. The collision occurred at Belleview and Cortland-avennes, near Verona station, in .Melrose, on a curve in a deep cut. it was between a car, outbound from Sather station, for Teona Heights, winch is about nine miles from the centre of Oakland, and an incoming car from the heights. Both were crowded to the utmost, so much so that the passengers were hanging on to the rails and the stanchions. Both cars were going at a high rate of speed, but they were hidden from view of each other by the bend of the road, and w r ere bowling merrily along, without the slightest thought or danger to mar the joy of the passengers in the beautiful day. The grade down which the inbound car was speeding is very steep, that on which the outbound car was going not so steep. According to the story of Ray Olson, who was on the platform of the outbound car with Motorman Christensen, ho was the first to see the danger. As the car rounded the curve ho noticed the inbound car

speeding down the grade at a terrific dip. Ho called to the raotorman to do something, hut, for the reason, as he afterwards explained, that the air brake refused to work, Christensen was unable to do anything to avert the collision.

For one full second, while the cars were rushing upon each other, the passengers were palsied with fear. The next instant, chaos and agony. It was fully ten minutes before the first few victims wore released from the wreck to await the coming of ambulances and the surgeons. Five women with legs and arms cut off were among the first to bo rescued. Badly as they were hurt, probably fatally, they screamed not so much for themselves as for their children, caught under the splintered cars. While they were being cared for, ambulances and doctors from Oakland and Alameda arrived on the scene, and the work of rescue was hurried, and in a short time all of the wounded were taken from the wreck and on their way to the hospitals. One passenger was killed, four fatally injured, and 40 sustained minor hurts."