Air Force Nurse Became Known as the 'Angel of Platform Six'

Abbie Sweetwine didn't realize one day she'd earn fame and gratitude in the United Kingdom as the "Angel of Platform Six."

A native of Cocoa, Florida, Sweetwine became a nurse and joined the U.S. Army in 1942, serving in a number of stateside hospitals.

After World War II, she decided to remain in the military. When the Army Air Forces split away from the Army to become the Department of the Air Force in 1947, she was assigned to the Air Force.

On the morning of Oct. 8, 1952, the United Kingdom suffered the worst civilian train wreck in its history. Three trains collided in the Harrow and Wealdstone station in London, causing 112 deaths and injuring more than 300.

Among the nearly 100 U.S. Air Force personnel who responded to a call for help were seven doctors and one nurse, Sweetwine, from the nearby 494th Medical Group at Royal Air Force South Ruislip near London.

Sweetwine helped establish a triage area on the station's platform six, treating the wounded before they were taken to hospitals.

Using her own lipstick, Sweetwine marked the people who had been treated with an "X" and those treated with morphine an "M" on their forehead, letting the ambulance personnel know what the symbols meant so the patients would not receive a morphine overdose.

None of these triage concepts were new, but as writer John Bull from "London Reconnections" transport journal, wrote: "[This event] represented the first time that these concepts, baptized in the fire and horrors of World War II, were publicly used in full force in a civilian setting."

This lesson wasn't lost on Britain's health and emergency services. It marked the point at which the British medical establishment acknowledged that focusing solely on getting the victim to a hospital as quickly as possible wasn't the answer, Bull noted.

The lifesaving work of the American medical team served as clear and demonstrable proof that ambulances shouldn't just be about "scoop and run," Bull added.

Sweetwine, born on May 28, 1921, retired as a major in 1969. She died March 7, 2009, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Her marker notes that her service spanned World War II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam.