Doctor heard cries of rail crash victims

THE 'WHIMPERING' of injured passengers guided rescuers to a train crash in the pitch darkness of the Severn Tunnel, an accident inquiry was told yesterday.

Roger Morgan, a lecturer in surgery at the Charing Cross and and Westminster Medical School, London, told how he and two nurses threaded their way through the tunnel to aid the injured on board a two-coach sprinter train after it hit the rear of the InterCity express on which they were travelling.

'All one could hear was a whimpering, and one realised this was people inside moaning, groaning and crying,' he told the opening day of the Bristol inquiry.

More than 150 people were injured when the sprinter from Portsmouth collided with the Paddington 125 service to Cardiff 100ft (30.5m) below the Severn estuary on 7 December last year.

The inquiry by the Government's Health and Safety Executive is investigating the cause of the accident. British Rail has admitted responsibility but despite an internal investigation, the exact cause is not known.

The inquiry continues today.