Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — A Brakeman Saves a Careless Girl’s Life. [ARTICLE]

A Brakeman Saves a Careless Girl’s Life.

Charles Crandall, a brakeman on the New York & New Haven Railroad, saved the life of Mary E. Jones, in Portchester, recently, at the imminent risk of his own. Miss Jones was crossing the track, when she recognized an acquaintance in a little boy and stopped to talk with him. He was not on the road-bed, but Miss Jones stood on the track, which was trembling with the approach of a Boston express at full speed. A freight train stood on the other track and the men were busy switching cars on a side track. Crandall was on a freight car that was moving and, hearing the express, shouted to Miss Jones to get out of the way. She seemed not to hear and continued" her conversation. Crandall jumped from the moving car and ran toward the woman, who, too late to save herself, saw her danger. “I thought all of a sudden that I’d try,” said he afterw’ard, in relating the story to his friends, “ and I knew that it must be an awful quick try. She didn’t see me coming, but just looked over her shoulder quick-like, anti then shrunk altogether with a sort of shudder, and whispered: ‘l’m gone.’ I heard that whisper, and it seemed as if the engine might have heard it, too. It was about as near as I was. It was which and ’tother between me and the express. The girl put her hand to her face and tottered backward. I just caught her around the waist and lugged her off the track as the whole train scurried past. I looked down at the little woman, and she was as pale as a ghost and hardly breathed. Then I was afraid she would faint, and I wouldn’t have known what to do then. To pull a woman outfof danger is easier tor me than to bring them to when they faint. But she opened her eyes and stared into my face in a wondering way, just as one does on waking from a sleep after being sick and light-headed. I think the scare itself came near killing her. She found out where she was quick enough, and bounded away. * Don’t you ever come around this “track” again,’ said I. Then site” laughed and started for her home, as she remarked: ‘ I thiuk I shall remember this forever.’”