Cairo Visitor Gravely Injured

For the blog post I chose an article titled “Cairo Visitor Gravely Injured” from page 3 of the Thursday December 13 1906 issue. The article talks about an accident that occurred on the P. and O. express in France the Friday before where two passengers were injured, and I believe one of them died? It’s not very clear and is not actually stated, but is implied.

The two passengers injured were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hanna, who were visiting from Dublin. Mrs. Hanna was not seriously injured but it seems that Mr. Hanna was killed. The suspected death was caused by a piece of metal that crashed through the window. Apparently, they’re not sure how it really happened, either from a bridge or a part of the train which doesn’t really make sense because I would think if it came from the bridge it would cause more external damage versus internal like the part of the train would cause making it easier to pinpoint the cause.

This leads me to question just how in-depth incidents were investigated at this time. Did they just quickly glance at the scene and decide on the circumstances surrounding it, or did they thoroughly investigate and try to find the actual cause. Interestingly enough there is a similar article that was found in The London Times that follows up on the accident and says that Mr. Hanna was severely injured in the accident and died the next morning at the hospital. It gives a little bit more information about him saying he was 42 years old and was an engineer on an Indian Railway. It also says how his wife Mrs. Hannas condition has improved. While there isn’t a happy ending, at least we are able to find a little bit more information on the situation.