Liam Johnston MBE

Woman of the Day nurse and US Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Abbie Sweetwine born OTD 1921 in Florida. Known as The Angel of Platform 6, she saved many lives in the aftermath of the Harrow & Wealdstone Rail Crash, the worst peacetime railway crash in Britain. On the morning of 8 October 1952 at 8.20am - we know the time because the station clock was in the wreckage - three trains collided at Harrow and Wealdstone station. A twisted mess of broken and crushed carriages were wedged on top of each other with the wounded and dead trapped inside. Ninety people were already dead and more would die; the final toll was 112 dead and 340 injured. This is the most shocking bit - all but four of the dead were aged 15 to 22. The emergency services from surrounding areas arrived to find rail workers and locals trying to help survivors but the scale of the disaster was greater than anyone had imagined and there was no one in overall control of the rescue and recovery efforts. It was chaos. The first ambulances to respond had evacuated everyone who got to them first, mainly the “walking wounded”, which left the more seriously injured at the scene. A call went out for more help and nearly 100 USAF personnel responded, including eight medics from the nearby 494th Medical Group RAF South Ruslip: seven doctors and one nurse, Abbie Sweetwine. They packed everything of conceivable use into their ambulance before leaving base, including life-saving plasma, and on arrival, set up a triage station on an undamaged platform working along British doctors, including some from RAF Fighter Command, to stabilise and treat the injured until they could be evacuated. The packed ambulance paid dividends. The American medics were able to administer intravenous fluid and carry out plasma transfusions at the station, undoubtedly saving lines. Abbie was on the frontline, managing the triage process and working rapidly to identify those most in need of immediate treatment. She used her initiative, using her lipstick to mark an “MS” for morphine sulphate on the foreheads of the injured, or an “X” to indicate that initial treatment had already been rendered. She also handed out cigarettes, tea, and soothing words of encouragement to the injured and traumatised victims. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet this very effective system of labelling meant that ambulances and hospital staff could distinguish between those who had received treatment and those who hadn’t, avoid fatal overdoses of morphine, and expedite care for the most serious cases. Triage like this was not a new concept on the battlefield - indeed, it had long been a crucial element of warzone medical care - but it had never been used in peacetime Britain in a civilian setting. A survivor said, “Among the heroes was the incredible nurse lieutenant Abigail Sweetwine, an air force nurse. With terrific bravery and little care for her own wellbeing, she climbed and crawled among the wreckage, much of it smouldering. She injected morphine into the injured and applied MS letters in lipstick to their foreheads to show they’d had morphine sulphate, a second dose of which would have been fatal.” Abbie gave that most precious of things to receiving hospitals – information. They were quickly able to build up a basic medical history of every victim triaged by 494th Medical Group, giving them a headstart in identifying and treating the most critically injured. The Daily Mirror reported, “[Lt Sweetwine] was the heroine of the U.S. doctors and medical staff who moved in as a slick, highly efficient battle unit to the scene of their ally's peacetime disaster.” It named her “The Angel of Platform 6”. It was a lesson not lost on the NHS and the UK’s emergency services. The disaster spurred the development and regular testing of Civil Disaster Plans by local councils. It also provided proof - if proof was needed - that ambulance staff really needed to be combat medics just as much as they needed to be drivers. The concept of the paramedic was born. As for the railways, Harrow & Wealdstone marked the end of any remaining resistance to the nationwide installation of Automatic Warning Systems. By the time Abbie retired from the US Air Force in 1969, she had reached the rank of major. She died in 2009 at the age of 87 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.