Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1890 — WRECKED IN A TUNNEL. [ARTICLE]

WRECKED IN A TUNNEL.

- Two Cincinnati Southern trains collided, in a tunnel, the most hopeless place thall trainmen met death, near Sloans Valley Station, Ky., Wednesday. The wreck caught tire and six trainmen were either! ‘ killed or burned as follows: John Pimtott, engineer. Detroit. Mich. . Firemen Welsh, Somerset, j Fireman Gould, Ludlow, Ky. John E. Montgomery, brakeman, Albany, N.Y. C. L. Doegen, postal clerk, Cincinnati. ' Edward P. .Ruffner, express messenger. Cincinnati. | The heat from the burning wreckage made it almost impossible .to recover the injured. Here is a story of heroism that has not-' been told. The heroes name express messenger Brenner had forgotten, but he was until recently a sthtion agent of the railroad at Somerset, Ky. Well, this brave man heard the jcries of George Long in the baggage car. Seizing an ax he cut a whole in the side of the car and drew him out from under [a pile of trunks and boxes. In the compart ment of the same 'car the voice of E. P Ruffner, the express messenger of the United States • Express Company, was heard. Our hero, scorched jwith the approaching flames, cut a hole in the s de off the car. Ruffner was walking about there unscathed, but in a death prison. The brave rescuer; ready to sacrifice his own, life in the effort to save another, kept on! cutting away with his axe, his own clothing singed by the Are, the hotair consuming his strength and his blows growing, feebler at every stroke. Ruffner, doomed! in his prison, shouted to him to go away.' “Save yourself while you can,” he said. “I am Ed P. Ruffner, of Cincinnati. Jtfjn h6me is at No. 410 West Fourth street. Gw and tell my family good-bye. Tell them you did ali a man could do to save my life Go, or you will burn up with the rest of us.” The unnamed hero staggered out,, and reaching the open air fell down ex---haustedr^-^'--=-^ : -^=-~= k -——==---=4= Tbo escape of postal clerk J. G. Gayle was wonderfnlr He says: “I had waked Doegan at Burnside and it seemed to me that the crash came immediately afters ward. I was in the front end of the car. I never heard a word or a moan from Doegen. When I found myself on the front platform next to what I supposed, was the tender, I worked myself dowa under the car and crawled in the other 1 direction and kept on, now to the right j now to the left, now up and now down, til I saw light, and then I struggled for dear life and came to where assistance wasi rendered me. My escape is a mystery to myself. Rescuers went into the tunnel? and got brakeman J. E. Montgomery, and brought him to a safe place, laid him against the side of the tunnel while they went back aud got engineer Pat Taylor. They carried Taylor clear out of the tunnel, and then went back for Montgomery, but the flames cut them off and they had to retreat and Leave the poor fello w to a fiery death.”