Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

 1952, May 17 - Tot Killed While Playing on the Track at Deschenes, CPR

Ottawa Citizen, 19 May 1952 Tot Killed Playing On Rlv. Tracks Unaware of approaching danger as he played happily on the CPR tracks in the path of an oncoming train, a two-and-a-half-year-old boy was fatally injured when struck by a locomotive on Saturday afternoon a few hundred feet from his Deschenes, Que., home. The victim of the accident. Alec Johnston, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Johnston, was sitting between the rails of the tracks absorbed in his play and was either too busy or too young to be frightened by the CPR Ottawa - Waltham train ithat was bearing down on him. The child had left his home shortly before the accident unnoticed by his father who was in the house within calling dis tance. To the engineer of the approachlng train J. Eliot, of Montreal, the child on the track at first simply appeared to be a parcel that had been discarded along the rails. It was not until it was too late to pull the train to a stop that the engineer realized that it was a little boy in the path of the train. He brought the train to a quick stop, within 150 feet, but the youngster had been struck by the cowcatcher of the engine. He remained unconscious between the two rails suffering  a fracture of theskull, whlle the train passed over without further harming him before it came to a ful stop. From his house the boy's father heard the screech of the train's brakes, and ran outdoors to find the cause of the sudden stopping of the train. He was alarmed to see the trainmen rushing toward a still figure at the back of the train, and upon following them he found his son lying in the tracks. Died En Route To Hospital The boy was still alive when he was reached by his father. but he died a few minutes later while being rushed to Sacred Heart Hospital by Gauthier Ambuiance Coroner Dr. Gerald Brisson reported that no inquest will be ordered.

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Updated 4 October 2019