CAUGHT IN THE POINTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1009, 12 October 1912, Page 4

CAUGHT IN THE POINTS.

WAITING FOR A DREADFUL DEATH.

Cases have occurred in which men have been caught by the foot in railway points, but a still more extraordinary accident befell Thomas Birch, on the London and North-Western line near Crewe, on a recent Saturday night. He was trapped by the arm. Despite his struggles, he could not extricate himself, and a train severed the limb.

Birch had been spending a holiday at Earlstowu, and was returning to Willesden, where he lives. How he happened to be on the line is not known.

It is supposed that he tell at the electric crossing points just as a signalman turned the levers to switch on a train. The points closed with a snap, and his arm was tightly trapped.

He must have heard trains approaching him, and his frantic efforts to free himself may be imagined. Probably he feared that he would be killed by the first train passing on the rails to which he was pinned ; instead, after an age of agonising suspense, he escaped with the loss of part of his arm.

Even then he could not free himself, and he lay on the line groaning and shouting for help. His cries were heard by passengers in a passing train. They looked out of the carriage windows, but i! was so dark that they could see nothing. The train was stopped, and the line was searched.

When Birch was found he was so tightly held by the points that it took quite half an hour to extricate him. He was taken to the railway hospital, and Dr Lawrence, the company’s surgeon, amputated his left arm at the shoulder. In November, 1909, a railway porter was caught by the heel ol his boot in points at Peterborough, and killed by an express train. A boy of fifteen, named Bertie Brewster, who was caught by both feet at Ilford, in December, 1904, threw himself backwards to escape a train, but his feet were cut off.

A shunter, named Johu Jones, lost a leg at Birmingham in December, 1909, in a similar manner, and Walter Salisbury was killed while trapped at Holloway, in February, 1905. A carriage cleaner, named Jeffreys, could not extricate his foot when it was pinned at Dandore Viaduct in June, 1904, although he unlaced his boot, and a train injured his knee so seriously that his leg had to be amputated.