Death Train

We don’t know why high school student Albert A. Benavides of 1139 East 55th Street was saving car fare by clinging to the outside of the rail car rather than buying a ticket. Maybe he had a date and wanted to buy her a cream soda, or was obsessively collecting pulp magazines, or simply couldn’t afford the fare. What we do know is that at Santa Barbara Street and Vermont Avenue, his skull connected with a telephone pole and he fell beneath the car, where his legs were neatly severed. It was a horror for the passengers, one of whom leapt from the window and extricated the youth. Taken to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, his smashed limbs were amputated. They think he’ll live.