The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-02-04
TERRIBLE ACCIDENT ON THE
WATER FRONT.
Uulani's Fearful Twenty Minutes
Pinned Down BY Ponderous Weight
of Beams.

The lumber yard on Allen street was
the scene of a fearful accident at eight
o'clock this morning. A pile of ten
by-ten beams was toppled over by a
gust of wind, and a native workman
named Ululani was pinned under the
fallen lumber remaining there shrek
ing with pain while his companions
worked with frantic haste to rescue
him.
The lumber piles along the front have
often been criticised as dangerously
high and narrow. 1t is the custom to
pile the beams or planks all one way
putting in small cross pieces to hold
the piles together, but this is thought
by many to be an insufficient precau-
tion.
Ululani was working between two
piles when the accident happened. If
the wind had blown the pile of lumber
over few moments before it did, four
men would have been crushed beneath
the ponderous beams.
The men had just lifted one of the
beams and were preparing to lift an
other, when a sudden gust of wind from
the southeast made the shaky pile
toppe over. Ululani was the only man
who had not walked beyond the end of
the piles. The shaking of beams over
head made him start forward, but too
late. He was pinned Just at the end
of the pile, held by one arm that was
crushed fiat between two of the heavy
beams, with tons of weight above. His
left leg was bruised and a beam had
struck him in the mouth cutting it
severely
As he crouched in his terrible position
Ululani made a sight that brought eX-
carnations of horror from all who has
tened to the scene. Blood trickled from
his arm till his clothes were soaked and
the lumber was red.
ar a a hp ho1
roWly escaped Ululani's fate themselves
and number of others who ran to the
scene, could do nothing. They ran to
and fro shouting suggestions, while the
unlucky man in the lumber pile yelled
in pain. Several beams were employ
ed as levers for a time, but all the men
| on the scene could only just move the
pile, making the imprisoned mans pain
worse, and running the risk of causing
the pile to fall further and crush him
more.
The men at last started to take beams
| from the pile. They worked as lumber
| pliers seldom work and in amout tWen-
| ty minutes after the ACCIDENT they were
able to lift out Ululani, whose cries of
| pain did not cease until he was released.
| The police wagon was already at hand,
! and the injured man was at once taken
| to the Queens hospital.
There are several other piles of lum-
Der along the front that look exceed
| ingly dangerous, and the police are in
| VeStiSating the matter. Captain Par
ker is making an inquiry into the facts
| of the case, and a change in the me-
| thods of piling lumber may be order
| ed.
AT about half past eleven Ululani died
in the hospital. His death was not so
much due to the actual physical inju-
ries he sustained as to the effects of
| the 20 minutes of pain and horror, dur
! ing which he was pinned under several
! tons of lumber which at any moment
might have settled down further and
crushed the life out of him. Shock
is the cause of death given by the doc
| tors. Ululani had a broken arm and
| bruised legs and body and that was
all. But he never rallied after being
| taken from the lumber.
| High Sheriff Brown and a jury held
an inquest Immediately after the death
Of Ululani. This afternoon a verdict
was reached giving shock and hemor-
rhage as the causes of death and de-
manding more care in piling lumber.
The verdict states that the deceased
came to mis- death "at the lumber yards
| of Levers and Cooke and that much
| danger to thoes working in such lum-
/ Der yards exists on account of lumber
being piled too high and not sufficient
attention being given to refiling and
proper bracing such piles as may have
| become unsafe"