Incident Date:
June 6, 1955
Department:
Waycross Fire Department (GA)
Number of Line-of-Duty Deaths:
2
Fire Chief Ralph Carpenter responded ahead of the engine. Firefighter I.D. Cornelius, who initially jumped on the engine, stayed behind with Houseman Fred Henderson to stand by for another alarm.
While they were responding to the fire, the engine crossed the intersection of Tebeau Street and Brunswick Avenue when their engine was struck by the Atlantic Coastline Passenger Train #17.
Chief Carpenter arrived at the house and extinguished a small fire behind the stove. The engines never arrived at the scene of the house fire. He called to find out why they had not arrived yet, only to learn that the engine had been struck by the train.
Firefighter Emmett J. Cook, who was riding on the rear of the fire engine was badly hurt and transported to Wake County Hospital, where he died two hours later.
Captain Edsel Taylor, who was riding on the right running board was also badly injured and was transported to the hospital. He succumbed to his injuries on the morning of Wednesday, June 8th.
No Time to Recover
A few days after the crash, Waycross found itself facing a large 300,000-acre forest fire. The National Guard Unit from Waycross was called out to help fight the blaze and keep it from spreading to the neighboring town of Fargo and the Okefenokee Swamp on the Florida/Georgia line.
