Seven students of Grimsby High School are in hospital, two in critical condition, while a Clinton Township man, Peter Goertzen, age 39, is dead as a result of injuries sustained in one of the worst traffic accidents in this district for a number of years. Also in West Lincoln Memorial Hospital is 34 year old Edward "Bus" Walsh, building contractor, of Beamsville, driver of the half-ton pickup truck, one of the two vehicles involved. Barry Bourne, age 16, of Grimsby, was the driver of the other auto.
The accident, which has had a profound effect on the people of this entire area, was the aftermath of an otherwise happy excursion to Welland, as the students were returning from a football game between Grimsby High and Notre Dame. The accident came suddenly, and apparently without warning, at the intersection of Highway 57 and the County Road at Bismark. While there were no eye witnesses to the accident, police said it is possible the driver of the auto carrying the high school students missed a wide sweeping curve on Highway 20, and proceeded straight ahead for several hundred feet to the intersection, where the car struck the left front of the truck which was proceeding in a northerly direction.
After striking the truck with tremendous impact, the car continued on across the intersection, snapped off a hydro pole, turned upside down and finally came to a grinding stop as it crashed into the corner of a frame house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Frank McCready.
Mr. McCready, in the house at the time, described the collision as "sounding like a big explosion". Alex Skrypnyk, Bismark garage operator, said that he heard a "terrific crash" then the lights went out. Rushing to the scene, he and another man described the scene as "awful". The two men helped release the boys and girls from the demolished auto. "Only two of the eight occupants were conscious," Skrypnyk said. Students in other cars returning from Welland also helped remove their friends from the wreckage. "It was just too terrible to describe," one of the students told reporters.
Five ambulances responded to the emergency call put out over the provincial police radio network, and these removed most of the injured to St. Joseph's Hospital, at Hamilton. A Smithville doctor's car was used to take two others to the same hospital. Throughout the long hours of Friday night, extra doctors and nurses battled to save the lives of the more seriously injured, while distraught parents and wives wandered aimlessly about the hospital's visitors' rooms, hoping and praying the life of a loved one would be spared.
Despite the heroic efforts of the doctors and nurses, and the wonders of medical science, the hospital announced shortly after 3 p.m., Saturday, the passing of Peter Goertzen, a passenger in the truck.
Police said that Goertzen had been thrown a distance of 75 feet by the force of the impact as the two vehicles collided. The accident victim sustained head and other injuries. He is survived by his widow and two daughters.
