Obituary

Death Under The Wheels

Ephie Griffith, ten year old son of Mr. and Mrs. S. A. Griffith, was run over by the Missouri Pacific train last evening at 7 o'clock from the effects of which he died at 10 o'clock last night. Both limbs were horribly mutilated.

Ephie Griffith lived at the home of his parents at No. 415 East Broadway. He got up from the supper table last evening shortly before 7 o'clock, and went to the Missouri Pacific yards, not a hundred yards distant to the east, with a playmate, Oscar Streuli, also ten years old. The boys had been in the habit of riding on the train that arrives at Newton from the south at 5:50 o'clock. The train was about an hour late last evening, and it was about dark when it came in.

The two boys climbed on board a car of slack coal, young Streuli being on top of the slack and Griffith on the north platform of the flat car when the accident occurred. The train was "kicking off" several cars, and the cars had been uncoupled at the point where Griffith was standing. Griffith noticed this fact just as the cars began to part and yelled to his companion "They've uncoupled them" just as the brakes were applied by the engineer, stopping the cars with a jolt. So great was the jar that both boys went sprawling from the car. Streuli fell to one side and Griffith directly in front of the wheels. One foot was mashed and partially severed, so that amputation of the injured member would have been necessary. The other leg was horribly mangled, the bones and flesh being ground terribly. It would have been necessary to amputate this limb above the knee.

The boy was in great pain and his screaming immediately brought several to the scene, among them brakeman Fred Elliott and Harry Miller, uncle of the injured boy, who was at the family residence. He had succeeded in crawling from under the cars, about ten feet from the track, and was holding his mangled legs, crying and ejaculating, "Oh, will I die?"

He was carried to his home by his uncle and made as comfortable as possible. Physicians were called, and they discovered that it would be impossible to save his life. The boy died while preparations were being made to amputate the limbs.

S. A. Griffith, father of the boy, was at Potwin with his eldest son working when the accident occurred. Mrs. Griffith, with another son and a daughter, were at home and were nearly prostrated with grief. The funeral will be held tomorrow afternoon at 3 o'clock from the family home, 415 East Broadway.

This is entirely too sad a moment for the afflicted family, for us to commit the sacrilege of moralizing on this unfortunate accident. Let us hope, however, that the boys who have been playing about the railways will think deeply of this sad occurrence, and govern themselves accordingly.

The Newton Kansan, 13 May 1897. Page 2.