HERO WITH A NERVE OF IRON

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9165, 8 June 1908, Page 7

HERO WITH A NERVE OF IRON

♦ ■ TRAIN WRECK VICTIM’S PRESENCE OF MIND.; Isew York, April 3. A wonderful exhihition_ of nerve was given by J. A. McKittrick, a wealthy Missouri cattleman, who was pinned under an engine in a train wreck near St. Louis, Missouri, early this morning. Mr McKittrick was a passenger in ’the guard’s van of a goods train which was“standing in a siding when an express’ train ran into it and wrecked it. The ran _ was overturned, and McKittrick was pianeu under the engine of the express train, one of the wheels resting on his left log; below the knee. When the passengers on the express train reached him, McKittrick, who was fully conscious, called out: “I guess if you can push back the lo comotive I will drag myself‘out and live another few days. ’ ’

The passengers put all their strength into the task, but they could not move the engine. _ A telegram was sent to St. Louis for a wrecking crew, and McKittrick settled down to wait, but soon steam began to escape from the engine over his leg. At Kittrick’s suggestion the passengers tried to fan the steam away, "but this plan did not work, and the heat became unbearable.

Calling one of the passengers to him, McKittrick said: — “The bone is clean gone hslow the knee, isn’t it?’’ When he was told that it was lie drew a large knife from his pocket, and calling the Rev. A. Allen, one of the passengers, to him, he handed him the knife, saying: “Here, stranger, I see you have a parson’s coat on, and I am going to try your nerve. Take this knife and cut away the leg at the knee, and we will shosv this pesky steam that there is life in the old man yet. ’ ’ The clergyman unhesitatingly accepted the responsibility, and knelt down beside the injured man and applied the knife, while a dozen others continued their efforts to fan away the steam.

was blunt, and McKittrick’s tendons were tough, and as the,clergyman hacked away with the knife McKittrick appeared on the verge of fainting. Miss 1-lmma Renner, a trained-nurse, who was on the train, offered him some brandy. “I have not touched fire-water lor five 1 years,” he said, “but I will try a' drop now. Keep "on sawing, parson, or I am a deader.” When the last tendon was severed the clergyman, fainted. The other passengers picked up McKittrick and carried him to a passenger carriage, where Miss Renner improvised a tourniquet from her veil. He was taken to a hospital at St. Louis, where he died a few hours after his arrival.