Willmar tribune., 1899-10-04
WHEN THE BLAST EXPLODED.
The Narrator Here Was In = Mime ma
the secondss Seemed Years
5s.L%: 81, IT, = to Him 5S 'r....- -...- -:

A man with an empty sleeve told .
curious story in one of the h.tel lob
bies the other night. ''In 1889 I was
prospecting in. the Joplin lead district"
ho said, "and with two partners had
sunk a shaft about 80 feet deep on q
promising claim. At the bottom of the
excavation we started to 'drift'-in
other words, to drive a tunnel at right
angles. One afternoon, when the tun-
mel had progressed some 12 feet, it be-
came necessary to put in blast. ]
was below at the time and my COM
panions were at the top, working the
windlass. drilled hole in the forma-
tion, which was very hard, put in a
dynamite cartridge, tamped it we'll with
broken rock, Lit the fuse, and stepped
into the bucket. At the first turn of
the windlass the rope broke at the top
and droppe'' down into the shaft. The
bucket fell only yard or so, but I
plunged head first against the side and
it was perhaps couple of minutes be-
fore could collect my senses. Then in
flash l realized my situation and
jumped back into the tunnel to ex-
tinguish the fuse, but it had already
burned down to the tamping, and all
l could see was a little smoke oozing
through the rocks. I could hear my
partners yelling to me from above, but
l knew there was no other rope in our
camp, and the only thing could think
of was to pick out the tamping and set
at the fuse before it reached the dyna-
mite. For all knew, the explosion
might take place at any instant, but
grabbed drill and began to claw at
the tight-packed rock. In a few Sec
onds / realized that it was hopeless
task, so I dropped the drill, and as
last resort ran back to the shaft and
crouched against the far wall
IF l live to be thousand" con,in-
ued the story teller, II will never Tor
get my agony while I waited for the
blast to go off, knowing full we'll that
my chances for escape were almost too
small for computation. It seemed us if
the explosion would never occur, and all
the while horrible panorama of death
and mutilation was rushing through my
| brain. 'Now!' 'Now!' 'Now!' I kept
saying out loud, thinking each time
| uttered the word that the roar would
follow, but it didn't. 1 could have
sworn that Is minutes elapsed, and I
was beginning to feel wild hope that
| the fuse had gone out, when an awful
thunderclap came and everything dis
appeared. My partners had secured
new rope and were pulling me out when
l recovered consciousness. Ny left
arm had been crushed, and I was pep
Pered all over by flying rock, but suf-
fered most from the poisonous gases of
the nitroglycerin in the dynamite. Next
day they took off my arm at the elbow,
and it was six months before got out
OF bed. Strange to say, my hearing
wasn't affected, and, you see, have no
scars On my face. So I may consider
myself very lucky on more counts than
one. By the way, there was one very
strange incident connected with the af-
fair. AS [ said before, it seemed to me
that l lay there an interminable time,
waiting for the blast to go off. After
ward, when [ was convalescent, men
toned the matter to one of my part
ners and he looked surprised. He told
me that he was at the shaft mouth when
l crouched down and that the explosion
occurred Immediately afterward. He
was intending to drop his coat over ne,
but didn't have time to take it off.'-N.
o. Times Democrat.