Hopefully, the upstanding Mr. Marshall maintained such commendable thoughts over the ten minutes or so before he was rescued. His own recollection is that he spent the time enjoining his fellow victims to be patient and wait for help. His reminiscences adopted a rather tetchy tone, however, in describing his actual release — as if a little resentful of the intrusion into his virtuous soliloquy! First, the top of the car was smashed in, providing welcome light and air. Then, almost immediately, Marshall recalls his temple being grazed by a near glance from a well-intentioned crowbar. Not willing to be placed a second time in jeopardy of meeting his maker, he made a monumental effort to seize the instrument. Immediately a hand (which curiously he judged to be a woman’s hand) reached in and was clasped over his mouth, threatening, yet again, to suffocate him. Once more he made a mighty effort and dislodged the hand. Whether his would-be rescuer was so discouraged by all this resistance or whether the good Mr. Marshall simply took matters into his own hand, the balance of his escape he ascribes to his own initiative — at least up to the point where, having dragged himself out of the car and to the edge of the canal, he was hauled by chains to the top of the bank. From there he was carried to a nearby switchman’s hut and given medical attention. His condition immediately after the event was curiously described as “severely though not dangerously wounded.” He was without more ado taken to his brother-in-law’s residence not far away on Queen Street, where he recuperated.
Perhaps Marshall’s counsel to his fellow travellers that they remain seated was not entirely without merit. Although those who jumped were saved, at least one survivor believed that the failed effort to reach the door might have cost some their lives. W.W. Reed was seated in the fourth seat of the last car on the left-hand side. At the very front on that side, with his feet on the stove, sat Mr. H.M. Yerrington. Behind him was Samuel Zimmerman and behind him another wealthy contractor, Mr. Farr. When derailment appeared likely, Reed, who had been reading a newspaper, simply braced himself in his seat. He saw Farr and Zimmerman dash past him, making for the rear door, which they almost reached. When the car toppled, however, Farr and Zimmerman fell nearly the entire length of the car to be wedged up against the stove in all the rubble. Yerrington, already seated in front of the stove, collapsed on top of them — Farr and Zimmerman providing human insulation from the scorching heat. When he was extricated, Yerrington was soaked in blood, and therefore reported as in critical condition. By the following day, however, he was sufficiently recovered from his modest injuries to be going out for a walk. The blood, undoubtedly, was from his now-dead companions, who, in Reed’s opinion, might have survived had they stayed seated. Yerrington, on the other hand, seated in front of the stove, might have been the one to be crushed against it.
The scene at ice level was frantic and determined. Armed with only a few ineffective tools, rescuers tried desperately to break through the massive frames of the cars while others shone bright lanterns or attempted rudimentary first-aid.
Hamilton Public Library, Local History & Archives, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, April 4, 1857.
How much of the second car penetrated the ice is not known, but it certainly broke through. When Zimmerman’s body was eventually recovered it showed clear evidence of having been submerged for some hours. Yet, initially the stove situated in front of the first seats was at least partially above water. In the darkness, Reed could hear the anguished cries of a woman below him who was being burned to death. This raised the spectre of the too-common consequences of nineteenth century wrecks: fire. It occupied Reed’s thoughts for a time as he waited for the seemingly inevitable conflagration. Whether only the first few feet of the car were underwater (sufficient to account for the waterlogged bodies) or whether it settled further during the first few minutes, enough to extinguish the stove, is not known.
The story of another survivor, John Smith of Michigan, confirms that the last car penetrated the ice. He was seated on the right-hand side (opposite where the stove was located) in the third seat from the front. Like some of the others he made a dash for the door when he realized something was badly amiss. (The frantic rush to “abandon ship” perhaps says something of the lack of confidence GWR passengers of the era felt, as well as the often sluggish pace of travel that could make such an option possible.) Smith never made it to the door, but as the car began to slip he managed to grab hold of a hook and only lost control at the bottom of the plunge, when he found himself submersed in water. Only after swallowing a good deal was he able to twist his face sufficiently to breathe. Nearby, beneath the water, he could feel the head of an already dead victim. Bruised, cut, and suffering from hypothermia, Smith was eventually transported to the Anglo American Hotel, where it was many hours before he could stop shivering.
Of those in the first car only a handful survived, and those who did essentially extricated themselves from the wreckage. William Garrick, yet another Great Western employee, was seated four or five seats from the front of the ill-fated car, on the left-hand side. When the whistle blew and the train gave two sharp jerks he rose to his feet. Out of one of the front windows on the opposite side he could see the end of the masonry parapet appear. Unbeknownst to him the engine must already have been well on the way to its icy resting place, and the baggage car was flying across the gap. However, at the time he assumed that the engine must have been near the end of the bridge. As the car canted down he resumed his seat and held on while it somersaulted head-over-heels to the frozen canal. When he told his story to the Coroner’s Inquest, he matter-of-factly described finding himself in the frigid waters and crawling out “not much hurt.”
But it was not his near miraculous escape from so deadly a calamity that interested the jurors. By yet another of those quirks that dog this tale, Garrick was actually a carpenter employed by the railway on bridge and culvert repair. In fact, he had been repair foreman on the Desjardins Canal Bridge. The previous August he had supervised the placement of an additional twelve needle beams (beams that support the track in a similar manner to railway ties) to provide greater strength to the structure. Only a few months before the accident, he had been in charge of replacing seventeen broken and chipped beams in the same part that collapsed the night of the tragedy. The restoration had been made necessary by an earlier incident in which a freight car had derailed on the bridge.
The salvation of one of the few other survivors of the first car was touched with great tragedy. John Clare, a Hamilton merchant, seemed oblivious to impending disaster until the car actually began its decent. Next thing he knew he was trapped under the weight of the heavy stove, badly cut. He made no complaint of burns, so either the freezing water had quenched the fire or he was quickly able to extricate himself. With great difficulty he pulled himself from the middle of the upturned and partially submerged vehicle to a broken window at one end, which he crawled through onto the ice. He was quite certain that if anyone else availed themselves of the same exit it was not after he had done so — for he would not be budged from the spot. Only with great reluctance was he eventually enticed away to warmth and safety, but he did so without his two-year-old daughter, Mahaly, whom at the time of the accident was perched upon his knee. Her remains were recovered the following day.
If possible, the story of the Doyle family is even more tragic. At least seven of the Pickering, Ontario, area family were travelling in the leading car: Timothy, a shoemaker, his wife, Ann, and their three young children. Also in the party were Timothy’s brothers Patrick and Owen. Some early reports added two cousins, a cousin’s wife, and two of their daughters to the group. If so, the extended Doyle family would have accounted for about one-quarter of the travellers in the ill-fated first car. Mention of the cousins was dropped from later accounts, so most likely they were simply a manifestation of the immediate confusion.
What is certain is that Timothy and his wife perished, as did his two-year-old son, also called Timothy, along with one of his brothers. Timothy’s other brother, Owen, survived by breaking through a window and half swimming, half crawling onto the ice, before losing consciousness. Somehow or other he was able to push his eight-year-old niece ahead of him and to drag her nine-year-old brother to the window. As Diana House, the nearby resident, stumbled and rolled down the steep and frozen bank she came across the girl who, it is said, pleaded: