The Girl Who Fell From The Train

It made the newspapers nation-wide when a teenage girl fell from the train and lay unconscious overnight right by the tracks.

The Daily News (Perth), 23.05.1952, Page 2


HURT GIRL LIES 7hr. BESIDE RAILWAY LINE


MELBOURNE, Fri: Dazed, numb, and sobbing, a 16-year-old girl who had fallen out of a train lay helpless near the track at Heidelberg for seven hours during the night while trains passed only 2ft. from her.


She was not seen until dawn today, when the guard of a passing train found her unconscious and almost frozen.


The girl, Shirley McGrady, of West Heidelberg, was taken to hospital suffering from exposure, slight concussion and abrasions to the head.


Miss McGrady believes she knocked herself out while she was struggling to open the carriage door near the Ivanhoe station.


She was carried past Ivanhoe and Eaglemont and fell out before the train reached Heidelberg.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Saturday 24 May 1952, page 5

They thought she had died

This is last night's picture of Shirley McGrady, 16, of Waterdale rd., Ivanhoe.

She's the girl who fell from a train late on Thursday night.

She lay unconscious for five and a half hours by the railway line at Heidelberg.

Rescuers had to force her frost-stiffened legs straight.

Porter Jack Dunstan said: "We thought she was dead for a while."

During the night five trains had thundered by within an inch of her legs.

Shirley went to a dance in the city on Thursday night and caught the 11.30 train from Princes Bridge station.

"I tried to open the door to get out at Ivanhoe," she said.

"The door was stuck . . . I tried to push it open and bumped my head. I must have fallen on the floor and rolled out of the train after it left Eaglemont."

The details of young Miss Shirley McGrady's mis-adventure changed a bit between the WA & Victorian news reports, but the lass came up smiling, with no injuries.

Let's hope she had sympathetic railway staff ignoring her ticket was only valid to Ivanhoe.

Did she give a false address first up just in case she was deemed a fare-dodger?

7 hours or 5 and a half hours lying helpless by the track? Was Miss McGrady breaking her Mum's curfew. Poor girl must have been dazed and confused by the knock on the scone.

How was her luck rolling out of a door that was stuck closed?

Yes, I have had teenage children to interview re whereabouts, times, activities.