A WOMAN'S BRAVE DEED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 79

A WOMAN'S BRAVE DEED.

TWO TRAINS SAVED PROM DISASTER. To the quick wit and ready courage of Mrs Elmer St. Clair 200 passengers on the Columbia and JP-ort Deposit branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad owe their escape from certain injury and probable death, in a gigantic landslide on December 24. .The scene t>f -tbe<dnona was Fashing Creek, few .miles below H'Call's ITerry, on the Busquehanna river; tbe time was 10 o'clock in the morning, and Jhe heroine was the wife oi the track foreman at the Fishing -OeelE .station. Mrs- St. •Olarr w«e alone in her home ,with her six young children, when a Toar shook the 'house and rattled the panes. Running to the porch, <she K>bserved a cloud of dust rising tfwwn one of the steepest -hills along I§ie river, "half a mile distant, and a. moment later saw thousands of tons of earth and j»ck, loosened by the recent rains, sliding down upon the railroad track below. As the -wife of a, railroader, Mrs St. Clair at once .realised the peril of the situation. She knew that two passenger trains were due to pass that point within the next half hour, one from the north ~n 15 minutes, anfl another from the south only a little later. More than, that, she knew that this particular sta*etch of track was so situated as to be out of an engineer's sight rartil his engine "was almost upon it, and that no track-walker would pass it tor almost an 3icror te- come. There -were a© near neighbours to call upon ior assistance, so *the woman decided **> race ±o tihe qpot herself. Without further hesitation, she locked her children in the lionse and .set, off running across country, through muddy roads and over nmgh fields mad. «now-iUJed gullies, until, ' -almost «aehnwted, «be resobed the soene-of the -disaster as the -southbound train 'came into sight, only /a few hundred yards away. Then, rippxaff Off her skirt and flourishing it franebicauy over her head, Mrs St. Clair dashed -clown the middle of the track towards the oncoming locomotive, •the engineer of which saw her signal just in time to bring his train to a stop at the .very threshold -of death. While several members of the crew ran. ti\ the south end «sf the slide to warn the northbound, train, their comrades helped the -woman to her home. Mrs St. Clair •was badly cut and bruised by her run across country and in need of medical attention, but not seriously injured. The two trains which «he saved from probab'e wreck carried 200 passengers. The landslide is regarded as one of the worst in the troubled history of the road.