Chillhowie, April 9, 1913 Incident

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On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 3:34 PM,
​abram
 wrote:

> A daily historical blog- titled Tortist Tattler, published by Candaian
> William Baird, today carried the following short piece.  Is anything
> further known about the incident, or about Fireman Johnson ?
>
> >>  APRIL 09 1913 - N&W Radford Division locomotive fireman J H Johnson
> saves 2 year old Henry Baker from being run over by a train at Chillhowie
> VA and is awarded Carnegie Medal of Heroism.  The train was originally
> moving at 30 MPH when Mr Johnson went along the running board to the pilot
> and used his feet to  push the child clear.  There were no serious
> injuries.  <<
>
Found it, via the Virginia Chronicle site of the Library of Virginia (
http://virginiachronicle.com), which has an extensive digital collection of
Virginia Newspapers.

Times-Dispatch, Wednesday, April 23, 1913, pg. 9

Fireman Hero Saves Child

[image]

JAMES H. JOHNSON, of Bristol.

Bristol, Va., April ?? -- For heroism in saving the life of a curly-haired
youth, Andrew Carnegie will be asked to award a special prize to James H.
Johnson, aged twenty-seven, residing at 322 Sixth Street, this city. When a
ponderous double-header freight train was rounding a curve near Chilhowie,
Smyth County, Va., on the Norfolk and Western Railway, the enginemen saw a
small child upon the track. Although both engines were reversed and the
airbrakes applied, it was too late to stop the train. Fireman Johnson, who
has a tot in his own home that is the idol of its parents, realizing that
only desperate chances might save the child upon the track sprang through a
window of the cab of the forward engine and sped along the running board to
the pilot. Clutching the pilot bars with both hands, he slipped his right
foot down to the level of the rails, intending to catch the child up and
hurl it from the track. But the weight of the child pulled his foot under
the pilot, the toe of the shoe being wedged under the upper part of the
rail. In this way he was unable to extricate his foot immediately, and the
engine ran the length of a rail, with his toe dragging in the groove and
the child balanced on his foot, its curly head sliding along on top of the
rail directly in front of the wheels of the pilot trucks. The slightest
unfortunate turn would have meant death to the child and either death or
serious injury to Fireman Johnson. But, in some unexplained way, the
fireman's toe was released from the rail, and with a sudden swing of the
foot, he hurled the child off the track and clear of the locomotive. Aside
from a few scratches, the child was not injured.

The little one proved to be the two-year-old son of the widow of Henry
Baker. The child's father was killed last fall by the bursting of an emery
wheel.

"I knew I had a slim chance to save the little boy," said Johnson, "but
when I I thought of my home and the little woman and bright little daughter
who make life pleasant for me, I was seized with an impulse that the
treasure upon the track in front of us was worth any risk. I did only what
I would do again and again under like circumstances. I am proud that I was
able to restore the little boy to his mother, but I must say that the way
it happened was little short of a miracle."


​
​Bruce in Blacksburg

Moderator:
http://www.nwhs.org/mailinglist/2017/20170410.FiremanHero--TimesDispatch.pdf
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