Mrs. Bradley who, with her nurse and child, was in the rear state-room near the section where Mr. White was sitting, speaks of this same silence. She called repeatedly but heard no sound except that of her own voice. She looked below her for her child and nurse. All she could see was that they were underneath the wreck. She vainly tried to lift them but their bodies seemed to sink lower and lower in the debris. Not a sound proceeded from that direction, and the only conclusion she could arrive at was that their bodies had been crushed.
The personal incidents which occurred were numerous. Many of these have been brought to public attention through the press, yet there are others which have not been narrated. Every one had his own story, but in the confusion of the scene no one is really supposed to have a clear view of the whole event.
These incidents are told by the different passengers who escaped and by the citizens who hastened to the rescue. The following are given as showing the experiences of the women who were on the train. There were many who perished, and it is affecting to read the story of their sufferings while so helpless in the wreck. But the heroism manifested by those who escaped, is especially worthy of note.
The “Cleveland Leader” contains the following:
“At the time of the disaster a man rushed down to the scene ready to help; he saw a woman struggling for life and went to her assistance; he carried her by main force to the solid ice, and then, urged by the cries of the mother, went back to the rescue of a sweet child of three or four years of age; the treacherous wood in splintering, had caught the child in its grasp, and the fire completed the terrible work. The man was compelled to see the child enveloped in flames, and to hear her cries of ‘Help me, Mother!’ ringing out in the agony of death and on the ears of the cruel night. In a moment she was lost, swept up by the sharp tongues of fire, while her mother in helpless agony fell to the earth in a deadly swoon.”
Mr. Reid, one of the passengers, saw a woman held in the ruins and burning. She was calling out amid her groans, “Shoot me, and get me out of this misery.” The saddest sight he saw was a woman looking at her burning child.