FUNERAL TRAGEDY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1922, Page 10

FUNERAL TRAGEDY.

TRAIN WRECK'S MOTOR. ELEVEN PERSONS KILLED. COLLISION IN AMERICA.' Eleven persons were killed, another was so seriously injured that he may die, and another, a woman, had a miraculous escape from death on November 19, when a speeding Chicago-bound passenger train on the Santa Fe crashed into a funeral automobile near Summit, says a New York paper. The large touring car was one of a funeral cortege on the way from the cemetefry after the burial of a two-year, old girl. Two of the victims were uncles and two were brothers of the dead child.

The dead were Peter Zimianan, Jonas Jonas Zimianan, Walter Zimianan, Stanley Chybicky, John E. Pettkoske (undertaker). John Gralewsik. Andrew Gralewsi'k, Mrs. Mary Bojacz, John Chrustek and Leo Chrustek.

Joseph Chrustek, four-year-old son of John, was so seriously injured that his death is expected.

The funeral cortege, under the direction of Pettkoske. was on the way home from the cemetery. The hearse had crossed the tracks and the touring car, driven by Pettkoske, was directly in the centre of the tracks when the California Limited of the Santa Fe, driven by two engines and speeding more than GO miles an hour, bore down upon it from round a curve. The automobile was demolished and bodies of victims

end parts of the car were strewn along the right of way for hundreds of yards. So violent was the crash that the largest part of the machine that could be found by volunteers, who flocked to the aid of the victims from the surrounding towns of Summit, Argo, and Lyons, was a rear tyre.

Undertakers and physicians from the three towns were rushed to the scene, and mangled and mutilated bodies of th&

10 victims who had been instantly kill- ’ ed were gathered up and taken to the morgue. Of the 13 occupants of the automobile, three were found to be still alive, and these were rushed to hospitals, where one of them died a short time later. While the Chrustek boy is In a serious condition, an examination of his mother showed she had escaped with barely a scratch. When she had revived she was allowed to go to her home, and a short time later she returned to the scene of the accident to claim the bodies of her husband and another son. Blinded by the whirling snow, drivers in the funeral cortege were unable to see the approaching train. The cra«h occurred so suddenly that occupants of the next car 100 ft behind had no knowledge anything was wrong.

The driver heard a crash, but because of the snow saw nothing, and when the train had passed continued on his way home. The accident occurred at Lawrence Crossing, known among residents of the surrounding towns as “death crossing. The crossing is on a lonely road near a number of abandoned stone quarries, ami a view of approaching east-bound trains is obstructed by piles of crushed stone.