The Rangiora Accident.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 24, 29 December 1884, Page 2

The Rangiora Accident.

The more minute details (says the Lyttelton Times) of the Rangiora accident, so terribly fatal m its results, have never been circumstantially told." At the time, people were so startled by the catastrophe that only generalities were stated. Our Rangioia representative,who was oue 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, th<> van falling on to the cattle trap. Four trucks, attachedt o 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 oat close to the hubs and rims. The rims of two of the wheels were left whole, aud almost intact The crash of the collision was heard by different people, at a distance of from three to four miljes, m the direction m. which the wind was blowing ; and so, too,, were the. screams of the sufferers. : Some of the escapes from death were absolutely marvellos. Thomas Keir, who was standing on the step of the van, roust have been thrown ' between two trucks ; 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 the head had rendered him insensible, so that he did not stir. Had he moved m the slightest, his body must have been horribly mangled. McKay and his wife were thrown out together. They must have been hurled through the fore part of the vehicle, , f or they were direotly m front of the engine. Mrs MoKay actually dropped partly on the 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, slightly crushing the tig of her little* finger. It is supposed that those whp were most injured wern all thrown out by the first shock. Hughey, the driver, was thrown some dozen yards beyond the cattle trap, or about a chain from the' spot where the van was first struck. Had the van been a yard further over the metals when the crash occurred m all 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 threw it just clear of the metals.