RESCUERS ABUSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 June 1938, Page 7

RESCUERS ABUSED

MAN SAVED FROM DEATH. FALL IN FRONT OF TRAIN. Instead of receiving thanks, two railway porters were abused and attacked by Michael Fitzgerald, aged 60, whom they had saved from death at the Wynyard city under ground railway station. Fitzgerald had been dazed when he fell in the track of an electric train, and he had no recollection of what had happened when he came to on a stretcher. Leading-porter William Ansell saw a man on the line, straddled lengthwise across one rail. “I could hear the train roaring through the tunnel,’ said Ansell. “I thought there might be time to get him clear, and I’ve never acted quicker in my life. I jumped to the line and began hauling at the unconscious man. He weighed about 15 stone, and I could only move him a few inches at a time. I did not look back at the tunnel, but in all my experience I don’t think a train has roared so loudly as this one seemed to do. As I pulled the man into a cavity under the platform, I heard the train grind to a standstill. It was a half carriage-length away.”

George Cowie; a porter, had raced to the tunnel mouth and shouted to the driver as the train flashed past. He said he had never run so fast. It took four men to raise Fitzgerald to the platform and lay him on a stretcher. He was bruised and scratched on the face from his fall. “When he recovered he started to abuse us for holding him,” said Ansell. “Obviously he was suffering from the effects of the fall. He threatened to report us to the Railways Commissioner, and I don't know what.”

At the hospital, Fitzgerald tried to escape through a window, and also struck Cowie on the head with his walking stick. When he had recovered Fitzgerald was allowed to go home.