I remember waking up and I was head first down, blood pouring out of my leg onto my
chin, running up my face. I could hear people screaming and crying and yelling. I was sure
I'd died and gone to hell.
Not far out of Kokona, got a flat tyre. My dad was panicking, so I tailed it down the
road. Because the train was late, we were there on time. I was going to Dunedin that
day to stay with my aunt for the weekend. I was nearly 10. I walked across the railway
line and stood on the platform here. And we weren't there for very long. I don't remember
standing on the platform for any length of time before the train arrived.
We noticed pretty soon that the train was going very fast, that it was swaying madly
all the way down.
Luggage was falling. The carriage was rocking around quite severely. The first time I was
on the train, I didn't know whether that was natural or not. My father was getting
more concerned about where things were going.
I knew it was going far too fast. When we entered the cutting where the accident occurred,
I remember the carriage leaning over. The wheels must have left the rail.
I don't remember any crash or anything. I don't remember anything. It just went flat.
The next thing I remember is waking up under all this rubble, knowing that things were
not good.
Coal and wood were around me. Every time I kept to try and get myself out, the board
just packed more tightly around me.
When I was conscious for a long time, people moving around up above, knocking debris down
and standing in my face and in my eyes and in my mouth, pretty disturbing.
After a while, I don't know how long it was. I could feel the boards moving and I looked
up under my arm and I could see the sky.
So the next thing I remembered, I was lying on the bank with all the dead and the injured
all around me.
There was a man lying right beside me who was dead and badly mutilated. He covered an
army greatcoat.
I knew my brother and my father were dead. I couldn't see them, but I just knew.
Trains were meant to be very safe things that travelled on a rail and never went off.
And here was the smashed up thing that had been a train.
It just seems so unreal now to me. It was a terrible day for Central Otago.
