The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-07-12
AND THE SEARCH GOES ON
A Day of Heroic Rescues in the Cam
bria Mine.
STUMBLING OVER PILES OF THE DEAD
Greeted by the Maniac Laugh Of One Maddened
by Imprisonment in Those RayIess
Depths $50 Low Estimate
of the Dead.
of the Dead.
(By the Associated Press.)

Johnstown, Pa, July 11.-This has been
a day of heroic rescues at the rolling
mill mine of the Cambria Steel Com
pany. Thrilling experiences attended
the efforts of the forty brave and daring
fellows who went down into the bowels
of the earth with very faint hope to
spur them that still they might be in
time to restore to life some of those who
are entombed. Death lurked every
where around them but indaunted they
surged forward, swayed with the noblest
of human purpues.
The reward of their efforts was the
saving of lives of fourteen of their fell
low men and bringing them again into
the sunlight and back to loving families.
Dead and manned bodies were located
but no effort was made to bring them
out of the vast theatre of death until
every human energy was put forward to-
wards seeing that no living soul might
escape their aid That done, the dead
were attended to and put in tram cars,
brought up and exposed to morbid gaze
while being transferred to wagons =
which to be taken to the morgue Eighty
seven dead bodies were recovered from
the mine between daylight and night
fall Still party of officials and min
ers battled on, three miles inside the
mine. Occasionally word would come to
the surface by some mysterious means
that another group of remains had been
exposed to the view of the searchers.
There remains dangerous headings in
the Klondike section of the mine yet to
be explored. No one knows how many
more dead will be found there The
mine officials refrain from guess work
on the subject
A feeling prevails that $50 is a low
estimate of the causalty list. Jobnstown
spent the day horror struck. From
dawn to dusk flying ambulances coursed
the streets bearing gruesome burdens
from mine to morgue, from morgue to
homes
Great throngs surged about the pit
mouth, the improvised morgue at the
Armory, and last, the stricken homes of
tne dead. Bulletin boards were eager
ly scanned for news from the scene of
the disaster. Exaggerated rumors of all
kinds prevailed. One report gained cir
culation that disaster has overtaken the
rescuing party which entered the mine
shortly after o'clock. This proved
one of the entertaining yarns that had
It's origin among the crowd at the nit
mouth. Returning rescuers substantial
ed. the details of the report by officials
IL is difficult to picture with any de-
gree approaching it's full worth tho
work OF rescue and the attending
scenes and incidents of the dav at the
center of interest. How brave men
went into the avs of death in its most
horrible form, encountered their fellows
transformed into raving maniacs bv
hours of waiting in the pitch darkness
OF the earth's interior, lifted them moan
ing from their beds of fallen rock and
then bending and crawling on all fours
carryln them quarter of a mile under
ground to where cars could be reached
to take them outside
Along in the early part of the after
noon cheering word came from the inner
most recesses of the mine that life vet
fingered in some of the bodies found
Ihe rescuers made first for No. loft
heading, which they had been unable to
reach the night before. Desolate even
Tor the scene of mine interior was the
heading that stretched out before tben
Falls of roof almost opened the heading
but through and over the debris tho
brave men pushed theirj way. In tho
front young Patrick Martin, his brother
Peter, Philip White and several cousins
of the Martins made their way. Sud
denly in an open space they were startled
by the maniac laugh which emanatad
fran blackened form that rushed at
them out Of the darkness The man
grasped firmly a pick handle and triod in
his freuzy to beat down his rescuers
He was over-powered and dragged hack
to the main heading to the cars Tbir
teen other living men were found in this
chamber and physicians were quickly
taken to the spot.
At 3 p. m. the train of mine cars came
to the pit mouth where waiting ambu-
lances stood. Eight men were lifted over
the sides of the cars and half carried
wended their way to the ambulancns.
They were all Poles. One big stranping
fellow among them COLLAPSED as he
reached the ambulance and doctors spent
several minutes resuscitating him. AS
the men were driven hurriedIy to tho
Cambria Hotel, the train of coal cars-
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