Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 4, 1993 TAG: 9306040194
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CARL MANNING ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: JOPLIN, MO. LENGTH: Medium
Hand-in-hand they try to flee, scrambling over rough-hewn railroad ties and the 6-inch gaps between them as their stepfather, frantic on the creek bank below, screams for them to run faster.
They almost made it.
"They would have been better off if they had jumped," said police Lt. Ed Brown. "But they all joined hands and ran."
They had reached the end of the 102-foot, one-track trestle but were still 20 feet from level ground and safety when the locomotive, braking but unable to stop 112 rolling cars laden with coal, ran them down.
Melissa Seay, 12, and her 9-year-old brother, William, known as "Bud," died there Sunday. The youngest, 5-year-old Austin, held on until Monday.
The Seay siblings were buried Thursday. Six hundred people gathered for their funeral at the Central Christian Center, in an ornate old downtown Joplin movie theater.
Austin's coffin was flanked by those of his sister and brother, mirroring their places as they raced across the trestle. Mementos were tucked in beside them: a teddy bear for Melissa, toy cars for the boys.
The tragic poignancy of their joint funeral echoed the very closeness that may have contributed to their deaths.
"They all stuck together. They had the youngest by the hand and Bud's leg slipped through the space between the ties. The other two went back to get him," said Larry Sherman, a family friend and pallbearer. "They almost made it."
At North Middle School, where Melissa was finishing sixth grade, classes ended Wednesday. Departing classmates had pasted signs around Melissa's locker. "Love you always," read one, and, "She was one of my best friends." A third stood out: "This locker is declared retired by all of her friends."
Principal Jim Coburn said some classmates had suggested the locker be set aside and never used again, as with the uniform numbers of sports heroes.
"There will be some type of memorial for her," Coburn said.
At McKinley Elementary School, family members came by Wednesday to collect one of third-grader Bud's art projects, now an irreplaceable treasure. In a discarded shoebox, Bud had created a diorama, a scene of clay trees and the dinosaurs that fascinated him.
"You look at some people and they have a pleasant look on their face and he was like that," said his principal, Doris Conyers.
Sherman, the family friend, said the children had just come home Sunday afternoon from a weekend nearby with their father, Tom Seay, when their stepfather, Gregory McPherson, packed them off to Turkey Creek, a popular spot to catch catfish and perch.
As the sunshine gave way to slanting evening shadows, the children left McPherson and climbed up the loose rocks on a steep incline to the rusty trestle, which runs north to south about 24 feet above the creek. An old sign posted near the track warns against trespassing on railroad property.
"We don't know why they were up there, probably exploring and playing like kids do," said police Sgt. John Jensen.
Jensen said the children were about a quarter of the way across when a Kansas City Southern Railway Co. train rounded a curve about 825 feet behind them - the first glimpse engineer Martin R. Wade would have of the children.
"The engineer had only a few seconds to see the children, about 18 seconds before reaching the trestle," said Jensen.
The train was traveling no more than 30 mph up a gradual grade, and Wade braked immediately, Jensen said. It still took the train 1,469 feet to stop after it hit the children.
"We are talking about in excess of 30 million pounds coming down the track, and you need a lot of room to stop with that kind of mass," Jensen said.
Wade, reached at his home in Heavener, Okla., declined to talk.
Anthony Reynolds, 11, who was fishing nearby, said he had heard McPherson warn the children not to stray too far. "All of a sudden, I heard the beep of the train," the boy said. "Their dad said, `Run! Run!' "
Jensen said the children's only other route to safety was to jump, a choice that might have seemed even more frightening.
"Their only thought was to run away from danger. To them that would have been less scary than jumping," he said.
Wednesday night at a funeral home, the children's mother, Monica McPherson, spoke privately with friends and family.
"All the could-be's and would-be's don't count after the accident. All that counts is that there's a great loss," the stepfather, Gregory McPherson, said.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB