LUCKY SOLDIER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 May 1942, Page 3

LUCKY SOLDIER

APPARENTLY UNINJURED IN JUMP FROM EXPRESS TRAIN. IDENTITY NOT ESTABLISHED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 21. The identity of a soldier who jumped from the south-bound express train near a Canterbury military camp late on Sunday night has not been established, and it is assumed that he escaped serious injury, though the train was travelling at 50 miles an hour. A search of the line was made in the belief that the man might have been killed or- injured; but no trace was found and no injured soldier was found in the camp. The guard of the train (Mr H. H. Hey) had a narrow escape. Coming on to the enclosed platform of a moderntype carriage just as the soldier jumped, he caught the man by the belt! but as he was himself in danger of being dragged off the train, he had to-'let go before another guard (Mr J. Ryan) could answer his call for help. “That soldier ought to buy a ticket in the Irish Sweep; he had enough luck to win it,” said Mr Hey, in'describing the incident. “He rolled over and over, head over heels, for about two chains beside the train. He must have been hurt. He was stirring up the dust from the ballast as he rolled. I thought he must have been killed.”

The express was a few miles from the station near the camp when Mr Hey, on his way through the train, found the man on the platform with the door open. When Mr Hey was forced to let the man go he pulled the emergency brake lever. By the time the train had come to *a stop it was well past the point where the man had jumped off.