Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1912 — WOMAN'S MISTAKE CAUSED COLLISION [ARTICLE]

WOMAN'S MISTAKE CAUSED COLLISION

Tower Operator Erred in Taking Telephone Order. WRECK COST THIRTEEN LIVES Mrs. Julia A. Wilcox Tells Coroner’s Jury She Misunderstood Calf— Led Her to Hold Trains Unnecessarily. Chicago, July 19. —Mrs. Julia A. yvilcox, former inmate of the Cook county hospital for the Insane at Dunning and tower woman at Western Springs, the scene of the wreck of two Chicago, Burlington & Quincy trains early Sunday morning, admitted that she had misunderstood a telephone order and by stopping two trains, unnecessarily, had caused the confusion out of which the wreck occurred. Her admission was wrung from a mass of evasive and argumentative testimony given at the coroner’s Inquest held at La Grange, 111. Wreck Cost 13 Lives. The inquest was a fourfold investigation of the disaster in which thirteen lives were lost. Besides the coroner there were represented at the hearing the Interstate commerce commission, the Illinois railroad and warehouse commissioners and officials of the railroad. Representatives of each body were allowed the widest latitude in getting at the facts, of the affair by Coroner Hoffman, who personally directed the inquest. After the examination of Mrs. Wilcox and a few other witnesses, including Engineer George M. Eno of the wrecked passenger train, the coroner adjourned the hearing until Monday morning, when, it is probable, Mrs. Wilcox will be recalled. Woman Explains Mistake. In explaining the mistake which, according to her own admission, was responsible for the fatal collision, Mrs. Wilcox said that just prior to the wreck she received a telephone call from Congress Park, which she understood to instruct her to hold passenger train No. 4 until freight train No. 74 had finished switching ahead. It developed that the person who telephoned this call merely asked her to inform Congress Park when No. 4 arrived. She threw up the block signal for No. 4, which went past; then she decided she must stop No.'2, a passenger train. No. 2 ran by without seeing the signal and stopped SSO feet beyond the tower. Ten minutes later the mail train. No. S, shot by, crashed into the rear of No. 2, and the engineer was killed, leaving the question as to whether he saw the signal a matter of conjecture. If Mrs. Wilcox had not misunderstood the telephone call and stopped No. 4 she would not have found It necessary to stop No. 2 and the wreck would not have occurred, according to her own admission.