Givens, Levi Oscar

Imprisoned in the blazing wreckage of his truck for five minutes after a collision with a Northeast Oklahoma Railroad passenger car north of Commerce Oklahoma at 8 o'clock this morning, Levi Givens, 55 year old employee of the Commerce Mining and Royalty Company, was fatally burned and died en route to Miami Baptist hospital. Examinations revealed that Givens escaped serious injury in the crash, but died from burns received when the gasoline tank of the truck ignited. Mr. Givens is survived by his wife and two sons.

H. B. Cobban, general manager of the railroad, was riding on the front vestibule of the electric car with B. D. Gorman of Miami, the motor man. Mr. Cobban said that neither he nor Gorman saw the truck until it was on the tracks and that Givens apparently did not see the electric car. Givens was going to the Blue Goose Mine from the Commerce Mining and Royalty Company's warehouse at Cardin Oklahoma and had just turned off U.S. Highway 66 at the Blue Goose Mine crossing. The railway car was northbound to Columbus Kansas and had left Miami at 7:40 o'clock. Tom Crawford was conductor.

The electric car was said to have slowed slightly for the crossing, but caught the cab of the truck a full blow, crushing it beneath the front of the vestibule. Flames immediately enveloped truck and street car, demolishing the smaller vehicle and badly damaging the electric car. None of the N.E.O. passengers were injured. A work car of the N.E.O. happened to be following Gorman's car to the mining field and came to the scene of the wreck in time to pull the passenger car backward off the track and permit an attempt to rescue Givens, hopelessly entangled in the wreckage.

Workmen from the Blue Goose Mine aided in putting out the fire on the street with chemical apparatus from the mine. Givens was rushed to Miami Baptist hospital in an ambulance but was pronounced dead when he reached there. He was not dead when extricated from the wreckage. Mr. Givens had worked for the C. M. & R. Company for 18 years, officials of that concern said today. He lived one mile north of Commerce Oklahoma. Mr. Givens is survived by his wife and two grown sons, who live near him north of Commerce. They are Clinton Givens and Walter"Bud" Givens.

Funeral services will be held at 2 o'clock Saturday afternoon at the North Miami Oklahoma Pentecostal church by the Rev. John Lynn and the Rev. Mrs. Rose Rickner. Burial will be in G.A.R. cemetery at Miami, under the direction of the Mitchelson undertaking company of Commerce Oklahoma.