Train Accident

By Gerald Lynch

 Myron Thompson got hit by a train.  It was the winter of 1948 and I was working at the Amesdale general store for my uncle Gordon Ames.  I don’t know where Beatrice and Gordon were, but I was home alone.  There was a bit of a wind that night, and there was a train coming down the tracks.  It was being pushed, so it didn’t whistle at the rock cut because it didn’t see the rock cut.

Myron had been in Dryden, and the road was plowed as far as Dmytriw’s place, and that was entrance going over to Myron and Roy Thompson's homes were located.  So Myron had turned around and he was backing across the track toward their entrance when the train hit him and drove him right through the car.  He and his ’33 Chevy were thrown against the signals, and he got it right across the chest.  I think he had a fractured skull, a bad knee.

 

Anyway, Roy come running over to the house, and he said “Open up the gas pumps, Myron just got hit by the train.”   He had Joe Dmytriw’s  car.  He said “Go get a truck, and follow us”.  You see there was fresh snow.  So I got Mike Premack, and Mike and I followed them, and we didn’t go very far and we caught up to them.  They were driving so dog-gone slow, about 15-20 mile an hour, I couldn’t figure out if they were going so slow.  But when we got to the hospital I jumped out of the truck and went over to the car, and went to help lift Myron out, and I grabbed his legs and he just screamed – shock.  But he was a big fellow, they strapped him onto that table. 

I will never forget that sight.   It broke his heart losing that yellow ’33 Chevy.  Railroad had to pay him.