Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-06
KILLED IN WHEAT PIT
ELEVATOR FOREMAN FALLS AND
5000 BUSHELS CLUTCH HIM.

A dispatch from New York says: Patrick
Dolan, foreman of grain handlers In the
elevate Of the william Baird Company at
the foot of Van Brunt street, Brooklyn, fell
into pit containing 1900 bushels of grain
at the noon hour yesterday.
The little kernels rolling against one an
other like myriad cogs of a great machine,
gripped his feet, his ankles. his legs his
knees. crowding each other like honey cells.
held him fast and drew him down with a
power that was not painful motion, but ir-
resistible pressure. 1t was the hand Of the
gentle death of the quicksands of wheat
that Doian had warned his fellows against
since he handled wheat as a boy twenty
seven years ago. He plunged this way and
tnat, and with every step the quicksands
grlpped him more firmly. Dolan, who had
seen men go to edath in the same Dit cried
desperately for help
retro Amazlo, a workman, was the only
one who heard him. All the others were
at their noon-hour meal. Amazio knew
not stay to call for help. Striking out
across the same narrow plank from which
MS foreman had fallen, Amazio tossed one
END OF a rope to Dolan.
Two Men in the Trap.
Doian seized the rope, stumbled and fell,
and one arm was buried deep in the mil
mons OF rolling kernels and held as gently
ana as fast as though in the ooze of a Jelly
nsh' with the other he clutched wildly at
lhe rope, exhausting his strength in the
mama an,au OF Tear that had overcome him.
zlo Is new at the elevator and though he
nad been warned, as all men are who
work there. he did not realize fully
tne danger before him With all his
tne strength of one man against Countless
particles, busy as ants They crowdsd
anout the body of Dolan til his thighs his
ups MS body and then only the head and
above the surface po "eie
Amazio screamed for help, and. as he
screamed: the doomed foreman in a las
poWerfn 81 strength th tugged suddenly and
nus balance and fell, and in another Sec
ono ne, 100, was a prisoner
>; me nttie grains of wheat rose like a
t .iae ABOUT Doian. covered him, and bore
him down thirty feet into their dentb
Wnere there Is pressure no man can with
Amazio's cries had been heard TT.
fe!loW-Workmen rushed to the great grain
PIT. Ihey saw him for a second. and
then the surface closed over him as It had
save. ~
Out Of the Wheat Torrent.
The workmen stopped not second.
Sprlng1ng down from the shoulder of the
pit they rushed to the street Axes Glove
the cleats at the chutes that run from the
bottom of the pit to the street WALL where
grain is loaded like steam coal. Thew
knew the spot where their companion had
disappeared. They drove open the chutes
at that point.
The torrent of grain rushed forth. a
score of men with shovels pushing it to
one side to give the hurrying mass behind
1T room. Suddenly they screamed with
JOY. The body of Amazio shot down the
chute. He was seized. carried inside and
an ambulance was soon on hand.
DIR. Crane worked over the unconscious
Amazio for half an hour. Then he opened
his eyes, and his first cry was for Dolan
his foreman.
The men about him stood aghast. II
was the first they knew of Dolan having
been caught a prisoner in the pit They
rushed to the street again. Every chute
was opened, and the three thousand bushels
of grain were poured into the street.
| One of the chutes clogged. 1t was the
body of the foreman. A man on a rope
was lowered inside and, in another min.
ute, the body was in the street. Dollar
was dead, from the gentle death that had
left no trace of its means.
Dolan was forty-nine years old, and
lived with his wife and three children in
Dykeman street. He had told his fellows
many times that he believed the treacher-
Gus quicksands of raw wheat would some
day take his life.