The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-09-13
SKULL WAS
SMASHED
Gibbs Met
With Horrible
Death.
HEAVY HAMMER
FELL ON HIS HEAD
Second Life Lost in Building the
New Docks Of Bishop
Estate.

Although warned over eight years
ago of the danger he ran of meeting
just such death and having once seen
a man just escape with his life under
similar conditions, Charles Gibbs, a
foreman in the employ of Cotton Bros.
threw caution to the winds yesterday
and met death by having his skull
cracked open by the almost two-ton
hammer of the pile driver on which he
was working. Dozers of other work
men witnessed the frightful killing of
Gibbs.
Gibbs was foreman in the employ of
Cotton Bros, in driving piles for the
new wharves at the Bishop Estate
docks. He has been working on this
particular job for about a week. The
piles have to be driven into the coral
bottom of the dock. Drilling machines
are used first to make holes in which
TO drive the piles, but shortly after
noon yesterday Gibbs found a place
where he had to put down a pile which
had not been drilled. The pile driver
carried a drill and he set about with
this to do the work himself. He placed
the drill in the water and later had
machine. While firing this machine
Gibbs stood directly under the chute
through which the big pile driver ham
mer comes down in driving piles. The
hammer had been anchored by the use
of one small timber at a distance of 80
feet up. On all other occasions there
have been two small timbers holding
the hammer but on this one some one
neglected to put the second one there.
The pile driver barge is usually towed
off short distance while a charge Of
powder is being fixed, but Gibbs
thought this charge so small that it
would not be necessary to remove the
barge.
When the explosion occurred in the
water Gibbs was standing under the
hammer peering into the water. The
jar of the explosion caused the barge
to rock and the big hammer to fall,
and as it crashed down 80 feet and hit
Gibbs his skull was cracked and he fell
backwards while the big hammer
crashed down through the water to the
bed of coral twenty feet below. A big
crowd collected and Gibbs being dead,
it was finally determined to send him
to Williams's undertaking rooms.
The dead man has been in the serv-
ice of Cotton Bros. for about eight
years doing pile driving work, about
two and half years of that time being
in the Islands, and that firm speak very
highly of him. Prior to coming 20 Ho
nolulu he was engaged in the same
work for a number of years on the
coast. On one occasion at Oakland,
while Gibbs was running d donkey en-
CINE on pile driver barge, the foreman
of the machine stood in about the same
position as Gibbs did at the time he
met his death yesterday. Gibbs cried
out: Bill, you fool, you'll get killed
if YOU don't keep out of the way of the
hammer Bill" carelessly stayed
where he was and moment later the
big hammer came down and took his
nose off. The Oakland man just man
aged to escape with his life, but Gibbs
was not so fortunate. For years he
has been using great care in his work
to prevent just such an accident, but in
a careless moment yesterday he found
his doom,
Gibbs was So years of age and ma
tive of Oakland, Cal. He leaves
mother and grandmother whom he has
been supporting. He had many friends
in Honolulu and was well liked by all
the men who worked with him.
Gibbs is the second to lose his life on
the work of constructing the new
wharves, the other man being killed on
one of the dredges some time ago.