Photo courtesy of Vestman from Flickr
Tragedy befell a group of amateur ghost hunters in Statesville, North Carolina while investigating a haunted railroad bridge over the weekend.
On August 27, 1891 a train carrying passengers came off the tracks on the bridge, sending several rails cars and thirty people to their deaths. The town legend is that on the wreck's anniversary one can hear the sounds of screeching wheels and screaming passengers. Some also say a horrific crash can sometimes be heard.
On the night of the 119th anniversary between ten and twelve ghost were exploring the bridge around 3:00am when a real train, three engines and one car, turned the corner and approached the bridge. The ghost hunters, terrified, ran back away towards the town trying to make the 150 foot span to safety. All but two of the group made it. One woman was pushed out of the way by a Christopher Kaiser. She fell about thirty to fourty feet and at the time the article was written, her condition was unknown. Kaiser was struck and killed by the train. At the time of the incident the train was traveling at the regulation speed of 35-40mph and once the engineer saw the group sounded his horn and applied the brakes as quickly as he could.
As sad as this incident is, it seems to be a growing trend of people getting hurt or killed while searching for ghosts. There was a case in Toronto where a womman fell three stories to her death while exploring the building because she and a male friend had heard it was haunted and felt like exploring it at 2:00am. Others have gotten hurt when exploring a cemetery late at night (usually drunk), tripping and hitting their head on a tombstone.
I understand the curiousity that surrounds these legends and how people become interested in exploring them. Hell that's how I first started out when I would explore that haunted cemetery in Madera County when I was 17. But even then I had some common sense about me to be careful of where I was going and what I was doing. Hopefully others will learn from this tragedy and not put themselves into harms way.
Full Source: CNN News
Written by Phil Gast
No comments:
Post a Comment