Bio: Yoker, Bernard (Fatal accident - 1911)

Contact: Ann Stevens

Email:  sdann88@yahoo.com 
 

Surnames: Yoker, Holverson, Wagner, Bachmann, Bradbury, Matheson, Wasserburger 
 

----Source:  Neillsville Times (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.)  Nov 16, 1911 
 

Yoker, Bernard (Fatal accident - Nov 11, 1911) 
 

Saturday night the long predicted accident at one of the railroad crossings in the city occurred, when Bernard Yoker received injuries that resulted in his death Monday.  Saturday evening Mr. Yoker and his son, Paul, were struck by a freight car as they were driving across the track at Grand Ave.  They had been at Ed. Holverson’s house and secured a buggy which they had tied onto the back end of their wagon and had then started for their home at Sidney.  Just as the wagon got well onto the track, Paul Yoker glanced up and saw the freight car approaching, a flying switch having been made.  The son jumped, making an effort to pull his aged father with him, and escaped injury.  The freight car struck the wagon, burying Mr. Yoker beneath the debris, and splintering the vehicle into innumerable pieces.  After considerable labor, Mr. Yoker was extricated from the wreck and carried into the Herman Wagner saloon nearby and the services of a physician secured.  It was found that one of his legs had been crushed and that he had received other minor injuries.  Mr. Yoker was taken to the Neillsville hotel, and Monday afternoon, Drs. Bachmann, Bradbury and Matheson amputated the leg.  Mr. Yoker, who is an old man of nearly 72 years of age, did not have the vitality to recover from the operation, and he died before he had come out of the anesthetic. 
 

The attention of the city council and the railroad company had been called to the danger of fatal accidents at the crossings in this city, and it possibly needed an accident of this nature to awaken the railroad company to the necessity of guarding foot passengers from injury from switching and passing trains.  There are three very bad crossings in this city, those at Grand Ave. at the rear of Herman Wagner’s saloon, the one at the rear of Wasserburger’s store and the one at Hewett street.  There have been many narrow escapes from injuries at all these crossings, and it would seem that now the city council has very evident reason for insisting that the railroad company safeguard these crossings.