Photograph taken for a newspaper owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Caption: "The mother of four children, supporting her family while her husband is in the hospital, was killed Tuesday morning when the car in which she was riding with three other Tinker field workers smashed into a passenger train at Meridian. The others were seriously injured. The 33-year-old woman's death, and that of a 19-year-old Hooker youth Monday, raised the state traffic toll to 293 for the year--only five less than the same time last year. The dead: Mrs. Zelma Smith, 33, of 119 N Redman, Bethany. Eugene Kriger, 19, Hooker. Hurled Into Ditch, Mrs. Smith has been employed in the sheet metal department at Tinker air force base since her husband, Tom, has been a patient for
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STATE TRAFFIC DEATHS
1955 to date, 293; July, 29
1954 to date, 298: July, 23
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the last several months at Veterans administration hospital with a blood ailment. She was thrown from the car when it smashed into the passenger train and then was hurled into a 10-foot-deep bar ditch beside the tracks. The accident occurred at 6:20 a.m. The victim suffered a deep puncture wound in the right chest wall. She was dead on arrival at Mercy hospital. Mrs. Smith was riding with Pauline Blanche Hill, 38, of 207 1/2 S College, Bethany, and George Maupin, 47, of 5101 NW 23, in a 1950 model auto driven by G. Y. Posey, 24, of 3735 N Williams. Driver Still Dazed,
Posey and Mrs. Hill both were taken to Mercy hospital. He suffered a severe cut on his right side and a possible broken shoulder. Mrs. Hill, who works in the blueprint section at Tinker, suffered severe scalp lacerations. Maupin, who works in the mill section of the machine shot at (Related news, picture, Page 13) Tinker, suffered broken ribs and a cut on his arm. He was taken to St. Anthony hospital. Posey, an apprentice machinist, was still dazed an hour after the accident. He told a reporter: "I just don't remember ever seeing a train. No one yelled, or anything. I don't know how it happened." Skid Marks Laid Down, Troopers R. E. Fromme and Leo Maxwell said Posey's vision was not obscured as he approached the crossing from the north on Meridian. His car laid down 70 feet of skid marks on the pavement before it crashed between the first and second passenger cars behind the diesel engine. The motor was knocked out of the car when it was hurled into the deep ditch. The auto was demolished. Fromme said train crewmen estimated damage to the two passenger cars at "between $4,000 and $5,000." Cremen plan to "sidetrack" one car in Oklahoma City because of a damaged brake system. About 55 mph, When ambulance drivers arrived on the scene, just north of W Reno, Mrs. Smith's body was lying in front of the smashed auto. The other three had climbed from the car but were still dazed. The engineer, L. B. Maynard, Shawnee, and conductor, A.G. Osborn, Amarillo, Texas, estimated the speed of the train at the time of the accidnet at 55 miles and hour. There is a cross-arm railroad sign at the crossing, but no automatic signal light. The skid marks indicated Posey swerved to the left in a futile effort to avoid smashing into the train."
Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
