Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-08-16
HELD IN DEATH TRAP
New York Workmen Crushed
 In Elevator Wreck.
HUGE WEIGHTS FELL TEN STORIES
Eighteen suffered, One Dead, One Fatally Hurt and sixteen Serious Ky Injured In Elevator Cage.
 Two Arrests Followed.

NEW YORK, Aug. 16.-One man was killed, one fatally hurt and six. teen persons seriously injured in an elevator accident shortly after noon in the ten story office building at TOT T09 Broadway. The dead man is Will jam Becker of Brownsville, who was horribly mangled and crushed, The man who was fatally injured has not yet been identified His skull was crushed, and the doctors at St. Vim cent hospital, where he was taken, say he cannot possibly live.
 The accident was caused by two heavy counterbalance weights break ing from their fastenings on the tenth floor and crashing down through a large freight elevator on the first floor. The elevator was filled with people at the time, all of whom were more or less severely injured.
 Leonard Schmidt, the elevator man, and Francis E. Ward, the agent and superintendent of the building, were arrested Most of those injured re- ceived severe scalp wounds caused by debris from the breaking of the roof of the car.
 The building is one of the largest in Manhattan. During the noon hour hundreds of employees in the various tailoring and millinery firms, which make up most of the firms in the build ing, went out to luncheon in the neigh borhood. It was found, while they were out, that the large passenger ele- vators in the front of the building were out of order. In the rear are large freight elevators, more slow in move ment, but larger than those of the passenger variety. It was decided that the freight elevators would have to be used to carry the employees back to their rooms on the various floors. Shortly before 1 o'clock the corri- dors in the rear of the building were crowded with employees waiting to ascend. One of the cars was quickly filled with score of passengers The elevator ascended as far as the fourth floor and, finding something was the matter with the elevator, Leonard | Schmidt, the elevator man, decided to 1 descend and have the passengers leave until the cause of the trouble could be ascertained
 Accordingly the descent was made, and the ground floor was reached in l safety. Before the doors could be opened, however, there was a grinding and crashing sound far above as if not ;, only wood but steel and iron were be- ing bent and broken. Looking up through the openings in the roof of the car, the caged-in passengers saw the immense counterbalance weights coming down the ten stories with great rapidity. Before any of them had an opportunity to get out of the car the weights, with frigbtful force, crashed through the roof of the car The passengers were penned in like cattle and could not escape an inch. The weights tore the car to atoms I and crashed down on the luclzless pas sengers, pinning them all to the floor ing of the car in one indescribable mass. The crash of the weights hit ing the car and the shrieks of the in jured and dying were heard for blocks. Nearly every one was injured about f the head and shoulders, the passengers all standing when the weights crash ed through the cars roof.
 Schmidt, the elevator man, escaped without a. scratch He was too far toward one side to be struck
 President Roosevelt Is Sure.