The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1914-06-26
FOUR KILLED BY
TOUCHING LIVE WIRE
-Four Others Were Injured in Peculiar
Accident in Cold Storage Plant
in Boston.

BOSTON, June %. - -Four men We're
killed and as many more were injured /
shortly after 10 clock last night when
one after another they fell into an ele
yator well in the big storage warehouse
of the Quincy Cold Storage and Ware
house company, Commercial street and
Eastern avenue.
The persons dead were all employees,
their names and ages being as follows; |
John Donahue, 26 Michael J. Moriarty, |
IS; Joseph Lacey, p; William Ryan,
y.
The men who are dead were killed
by touching an elevator rope, fibre GOV.
cred, with steel core, that had become
charged with electricity The elevator
IS operated by electricity and the mem
received a high current.
Donahue was dead when taken out
of the well. Moriarty, Lacy and Ryan
were sent to the Relief hospital in
Haymarket square in the ambulance or
the Relief hospital and the Hanover
street station and upon arrival there
We're pronounced dead.
| Strangely enough the oldest man in
| the employ of the company was killed
/ in the accident. Moriarty had been an
! EIipioN VI lHt company IOE IHOIt IMAM
| 20 years
The building where the accident hap
pened is used for the storage of butter
principally, ut times there being more
than $4,000, 900 worth of it stored in
the various floors.
So far as can be learned the accident
was caused when RYAN took hold of the
elevator rope to bring it down TO the
street level. At the time the ear was
on the second floor. When he grabbed
the rope he received shock which
stunned him. and when the ear de-
scended he was struck ON the top of
the head, stunning him and knocking
him into the elevator pit IL feet below.
Michael J. Flynn, was working with
RYAN, and when he saw Ryan knocked
into the basement he set up shout that
attracted the attention of men working
on the other floors.
One after another then the men who
were killed rushed to the elevator wei
and. thinking that some one was being
! crushed to death, rushed to the elevator
openings aud, one by one, grabbed hole
! of the fatal cord
! John Donahue was on the second foo
i and was one of the first to jump to tn,
q assistance of his stricken eomrade II.
: grabbed hold of the elevator cord an,
/ Immediately plunged headiong down tn
: elevator shaft Then followed in quicl
succession Orr, Lacey and Moriarty
/ Orr sustained but slight shock an,
Z was still alive, as his fall was broker
e when he struck the other men at tn
j. bottom of the pit.
5. John j. Griffin, the night foreman
!. who was in the office at the time, hear
5 the screams of Flynn and he rushe
out to ascertain the cause of the trou
= BILE. He was the man lying at the bot
tom of the pit and naturally to aid hin
nj in seeing just what the matter was, h
IL took slight hold ON the highly charge
elevator ropes Instantly he plunge
headiong down the well and fell afte
making a half turn on the prostrat
bodies of the victims below
III Fortunately, at this point, Albet
Dowden, assistant night foreman, rea
y lied that something must be the matte
= with the elevator rope and he threw
switch that Shut off the power from tn
elevator. In the meantime, howeve
Marshall Baxter, 81, sustained sligf
. shock and fell into the well, injurin
y his arm painfully, but not seriously.