The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-09-08
4 STORY or A DIVER.

l IN SsSNs VI ~ AIV6Os v
| - tA.~1 --
esrifess AavsAtsrss u . Man whose
Daily work h UnAer Nivsr or seq.
Diver Robert q. Case Of Portland.
IN the course Of his ton years. employ
ment a. q diver has had many interest
Ing experiences and close calls from
Heath.
Chase is about s. years Of age, stands
about feet 10 inches and weighs over
l6o pounds. and IL one Of the PLEASANT
est men that one would care to meet.
he Is very rnodest-seldom talking
about bis own work, but q while
ago the writer succeeded In getting him
to tell few Of his experiences.
Probably one Of the most important
Jobs upon which he ever worked, and
certainly one Of the longest, was the
laying Of the water pipes across the
Kennsbec River at Bath. This Job re-
quired the laying Of 5000 feet Of big
waterpipe, with ball and socket Join
In water, the average depth Of which
was fifty feet. Sometimes the depth was
over seventy and at times down to
about thirty. The conditions that pre-
vailed at that point were such that the
divers could only work upon the tide,
and so 1t took from August until the
following April to complete the Job.
A few years ago Mr.. Chase nearly
lost his life while at work raising a
sloop which had sunk In Boothbay
Harbor. He got fouled with the cable
of buoy which marked the location
Of the wreck, and was hung up for
forty minutes. His air hose was
caught in such way that but very lit
lie air could get through it with the
pump working to its best advantage,
but tho pump was an old one and did
not work well. When he was finally
cleared and hauled to the surface he
was unconscious and black in the face
from the want Of air. 1t was feared
that he would die, but he recovered,
and on the next day went down and
finished the work Of raising the sloop.
Probably the closest call that Chase
ever had was while using dynamite to
blow out the pilings of an old bridge
which had been torn down. His ten
der was new one, who had never e.
worked for diver before. Chase went
down ard placed the stick Of dynamite
In position and started to come back to
where he would be hauled to the sur
face. He had covered part Of the dis
lance when he discovered pile that
would not have to be blown, but which
could readily be hosted to the surface
with a rope, and signalled the tender
70 send him down a rope.
The tender misunderstood the signal,
md, turning to the man who was look
ng after the battery, called out:
ITS all right, fro the charged"
Now it happened that the man who !
vas looking after the battery was an
I'D and experienced tender and knew
hat it wasn't all right to fire the
barge while the man was under water.
lie went to the side of the float and
ook hold of the lifeline just in time to
eceive the second signal for a rope |,
rom Chase. The rope was sent down, !
ut it was night before Chase knew of
is narrow escape The tender who
anne near ending Chases experience
S diver only worked one more day
nd then qut-he never came around
fter his pay, either.
It was while at work on this job
nat Chase, together with his tender
nd helpers, was blown up by a dyna-
lite explosion. He had been down
nd placed the charge, but the tide,
hich was setting out strong, washed
down almost under the float. Chase
ad just reached the top and leaned
YER the side of the float III the usual
tttude of divers when resting, when
le charge was exploded. The shock
rev the float and all the men into the
If, and Chase must surely have been
lrown into the water but for the
essence of mind of the same man who
wed him the other time, who caught
i'm and held him on the float.
The wonder of this accident was that
~ one came out of it alive, for upon
e float was case of 100 sticks of
which, fortunately, was not
;ploded by the shock.
Chase says the most dsagreeabls
lrt of his work is diving for dead
,dies. He has made several quick re-
veries Of bodies during his career as
diver. One of these was in Lewiston
,out two years ago, when he recover
the body of Bates College student
med Wells. In just nineteen min
es from the time he dove he had the
dy out of the water upon the bank.
The deepest water in which he ever
)rked was off Egg Rock, near Bar
arbor. Here he was down 100 feet at
,rk upon the wreck of a Gloucester
nt,