The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-30
FELL 1875 FEET.
Tells How 1t Feels to Drop That Dis
lance and Sensations Experienced.


lance and Sensations Experienced.
Portland (Ore.) Dispatch to New York
American.
Few men in this world have fallen
125 feet and lived to tell the tale, while
the number of those that escaped with
out bruise or scratch could probably
be counted on the fingers of a hand.
Portland has such a man, Charles E.
Heft, an electrician, employed In equip
ping the Wells-Fargo building with
elevators. He fell with the freight
hoist from the ninth floor of the sky
scraper to the ground ground and es-
capped absolutely without a scratch.
The cob pipe he was smoking did not
even drop from his teeth.
The young mans marvellous nerve,
presence of mind and obedience to the
instinct of elf-preservation alone
saved him from possible death and al
most certain serious injury.
William McCanty, who was with
Heft on the hoist when 1t plunged
down that awful distance, did not fare
so we'll. In fact, his injuries are such
that death may result.
Heft doesn't consider his act as any
thing particularly marvellous.
Il kept my head all the time he
remarked between puffs of his cob
pipe, a few minutes after the accident,
land did the only thing | could to save
myself. thought not of my past life,
as | have heard that men do when
they are in great peril, but | did some
hard thinking, in the short time | had,
about how to save McCanty and my
self.
81 thought of my home and my wife,
and that quickened my mind a good
deal, | guess.
81 don't know but what a glimmer
ing thought of probable death did flash
through my brain. But life, not death,
was what thought of most.
THE sensation of falling that dis
lance is eXhilarating and even pleas
ant. Things just seem to drop out
from under you. The earth sweeps up
around you, and 1t is pretty hard TO
breathe. That's all I remember"
The day the accident occurred Heft
and McCanty had assembled on the tenn
porary elevator to a point about mid
way between the eighth and ninth
floors, when the elevator came to
stop with jerk. 1t paused for an in
slant at the dizzy height and then with
the speed of lightning it shot to the
ground, 125 feet below.
Not for an instant did Heft lose his
nerve. He is a powerfully built young
man, and, reaching upward, he gripped
with his right hand the diagonal iron
brace running from the side timbers
to the draw beam of the hoist. He tried
to reach the other brace with his left
hand, but the wheelbarrow was In his
way. At the same time he yelled to
those below to look out and to his
companion, McCanty, to grab the
braces.
McCanty endeavored to obey instruo-
lions, but the breathless flight of the
elevator seemed to have numbed his
senses for the moment, and he could
do nothing to ease the shock of the
fall.
According to the law of gravity It
would require the elevator less than
two and half seconds to fall the 125
feet. Yet In that time Heft had taken
every precaution in his power to pro-
tect himself from the inevitable crash,
had told his companion how to save
himself. and had warned the men work
ing on the ground floor. In addition TO
this, he had gagged to a nicely the
speed of the descending car and the
distance from the bottom.
Just before the crash, which ripped
out the floor cross beams, the heavy
two-inch plank floor, the side beams,
the supports and braces of the car. he
raised his feet from the floor Of the
hoist by main strength of his right arm
and then, like man stepping from a
rapidly moving street car, he sprans
out of it, the rebounding hoist merely
slapping the bottom of his foot and
numbing it for few minutes.
The tremendous momentum of the
car and the impact against the massive
steel floor Orders of the building
caused 1t to rebound about seven feet.
1t hurled McCanty out of the hoist like
a catapult, whirling him over and over
and landing him on the pile of machin
cry. But Heft picked himself up coolly
and set about aiding his injured COM
nauinp