The crush about the train, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, was tremendous. A huge crowd gathered in and near the station, which resounded with a cheer as the survivors filed on the platform. The latter experienced difficulty in passing through the portals to the waiting civic motor cars.
Some of the spectators endeavored to sing the Doxology, but it was a feeble effort. Heart-broken relatives sobbed, while others wandered aimlessly in and out of the crowd looking for an absent face. Three young girls were seen crying piteously for their parents who were drowned. They were taken in charge by a Salvation Army officer and conveyed to the Training Home.
Throngs surged forward and defied the policemen in an endeavor to snatch a glimpse of the saved ones. Leaning on the arm of a friend, a tall woman wearing huge bandages stepped first to the platform and her profound sigh of relief was heard by everyone in the hushed assemblage. Around her forehead was strapped a bandage. The chin bore a large zigzag of court-plaster and a heavy black welt under the eye showed what painful injuries she had received. She was Mrs. Eddy from Birmingham, England. At the crash she had rushed to the deck in night attire, and this action resulted in her rescue.
MANY INJURED
Then came the long row of stretchers with their inert occupants. Every man was alive, but in many cases that was all. In spite of arms and legs broken in the grinding of wreckage, many of these cripples had remained afloat long enough to be seen and gathered in.
Every one of the invalids was rushed in a special ambulance to the Jeffrey Hale Hospital, while the slightly injured were allotted to quarters in the Chateau Frontenac.
Touching in its pathos was the contingent of third-class passengers. In little groups they huddled about the stateroom of the ferry, gazing at each other in dumb thankfulness, and rarely expressing a syllable. There were nine Russians and two Poles bound for their homeland. In the hour of peril they had leaped from the reeling decks, in many instances grasping to the end the little carpet and bandana bundles which represented all their worldly effects.
EXPERIENCES OF SURVIVORS
The stories that were related by the survivors of the horrible disaster were dramatic, pathetic, and touched here and there with grim humor.