The dangers of walking along the railroad tracks were brought home for a family in Wiconisco, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, when their sixteen year-old daughter had her leg cut off when she was run over by a Reading Railroad engine in Lykens at a location not far from the Reading station there and at a point where there was an overpass of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The following article, from the West Schuylkill Herald, September 3, 1937, explains what happened:
WICONISCO GIRL, 16, LOSES LEG WHEN STRUCK BY TRAIN
Norma Hunter, 16 years, of Wiconico, had her left leg cut off between the ankle and knee by a Reading Company locomotive at Lykens on Wednesday afternoon, besides having several toes on the right foot crushed. The girl was walking from Lykens to her home at Wiconisco from the Lykens swimming pool, following a path along the railroad tracks. She had entered the underpass of the the Reading Railroad where the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks pass over the Reading, when the Reading passenger train due at Lykens at 12:45 P. M. bore down upon her. She attempted to turn and in doing so slipped and fell in front of the locomotive.
The left leg was so badly crushed by the wheel passing over it that it was removed by Dr. Bobb before he made an emergency dressing and rushed her to the Harrisburg Hospital in Helt’s ambulance. The train, traveling at reduced speed as it approached the Lykens depot, is said to have stopped at a distance of twenty-five feet. Members of the crew secured a cot and carried the girl to the former Fox factory, from which she was taken to the hospital. A Pennsylvania Railroad was shifting overhead, and it is thought that the noise of this train caused her to fail to note the approach of the Reading train.
The injured girl is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hunter of Wiconisco, and is a junior student in the Wiconisco High School. Thursday afternoon the hospital reported her condition as favorable.
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News article from Newspapers.com.
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