The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1906-12-08
Slow Approach of Victims
Death Watched by Agon-
lied Companions.
KNEW END WAS NEAR
Victim Is Canadian Who Had Made
Many Friends at His Adopted
Home.

The body of Maurice Quinn, who was
caught in a slide of wheat in one of the
big sheet iron tanks of the Hammond
Elevator company, was recovered last
night at $40, after six thousand bush
els of wheat had been removed from
the elevator in an effort to secure the
body
The death of Quinn was one of the
most unusual that has ever been chron-
icled in Hammond. and the circum-
stances, under which fellow workers
were compelled to see their comrade
actually dying by inches. makes the
accident all the more terrible.
The Hammond Elevator company has
sixteen bins or tanks, that together
have a capacity of over half a million
bushels of grain. These elevators are
all of steel and are built like large
standpipes. The yare about fifty feet
high and twenty five feet in diameter
and hold in the neighborhood of 10000
bushels of wheat.
When 1t Is necessary one of these
bins, as they are called, may be empti-
ed by drawing off the wheat through a
ten-inch pipe at the bottom and then
hoisting the grain and depositing it in
another of the large sheet iron bins.
Three men, Maurice Quinn, Louis
jaeger and Edward Writer'S. were in one
of the bins, from which the grain was
being taken and were occupied at var
ious intervals in facilitating the flow
of grain out of the pipe.
The grain would cake against the
sides of the bins and when the men
were not occupied in breaking up the
IA
and let the kernels run over them.
Feet Clogs Hole.
Quinn lay IN the grain with his feet
partly covered, when the grain from
the side opposite where the grain was
being drawn off, being at an angle of
about forty five degrees, started to slide
down, as a result OF being agitated by
one of the other men who was working
in it, and covered Quinn to the waist
Quinn did not realize his danger un-
/ til he tried to extricate himself 1t is
said If the grain should cover a man
| to the knees 1t would be almost i'm
possible for him to pull his feet out OF
! 1t. Quinn's companions saw his pre-
| dicament and tried to pull him out, but
| their efforts were unavailing and the
only thing that could be done was
! done was to stop the flow Of grain.
| This was done at once. but the grain
/ kept coming on down the incline, and
/ inch by inch the man was buried. The
| companions Of Quinn made desperate
/ effort with shovels and boards to keep
| the grain away from the young mans
! head. but when they shoveled they
could but put the grain farther up or
the incline and it would flow back
over Quinn's body.
"AH on" Says Victim.
Finally. with grain up around his
neck. Quinn said: Il guess it's all of
! fellows" and succumbed.
The grain covered his face and ther
his head and there was a last terrible
struggle and he slowly suffocated
The only means by which his body
could be recovered was TO draw of al
the grain. This carried the body witt
it to the tap and before long the grue
some sight Of a mans feet projecting
from the pipe from which the grain wai
being drawn was presented to the men
who were working franticalIy to facili-
tate the flow Of wheat