The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-02-24
Queer Mining Accidents
P. b, Mcdonald in Mining and Scientific Press)

In the Mining and Scientific Press
Of October 20, last peculiar blasting
accident was recorded in the Dead
wood news letter. Three men in the
orc Hondo shaft had lit the fuses of
la round of Is holes and climbed into
the bucket. Owing to a delay in start
ing the hoisting engine which was on
dead center, one man became excited,
out and the bucket was hoisted. His
companions missed him, and grabbed
the bell cord, giving the signal to stop;
but the man in the shaft, not knowing
that, started to climb the bell cord
thus giving another signal which car
ried the bucket and two men to safety
on the 1500-foot level. OF course the
bell cord broke, leaving the man in
the midst Of Is holes, loaded heavily
and about to explode. Getting in a
corner he barricaded himself with
planks and heard Of the holes fired.
he says he heard no more until his
companions dug him out intending to
take his remains to the undertaken.
Aside from a few slight bruises and a
nervous shock, he was not harmed
and in a few days was as before. The
fault, in this case, was carelessness in
not having kept the ladder extended
to the bottom of the shaft.
A somewhat similar case occurred in
gold mine at Grass Valley The
hoist refused to work, leaving several
miners in a shaft among a round of
holes with lit fuses. All but one of
the men tried to climb the timbered
sides of the shaft. That one with a
praiseworthy GOODNESS, cut all the
fuses with him knife, and succeeded
in beating the round.
In another instance in the Lake
Superior iron region, during the sink
been removed to enable the cable to
lower timbers, etc, held with chain.
On one occasion when the empty cable
was being hoisted a miner caught hold
Of it foolishly thinking to ride up the
shaft by hanging from the end of the
chain. OF course the cable swayed SO
much that he was dashed against the
timbers killing him.
At the Tioga mine, Bodie, Mono
county, California, in 1879, a man es-
capped death in a remarkable manner.
The story as told by a prominent min
ing engineer of New York, and veri-
fled by the man who was his foreman
at the time of the accident, is as fol-
lows Nine men of the night shift
were being lowered in the cage down
a vertical shaft; contrary to orders
the hoistman in the engine room did
not throw in the clutch of the hoist in
advance, but began to lower the cage
holding it merely by the brakes, prob
ably intending to throw in the clutct
! later. The cage fell rapidly, SO that
| the hoist man could not stop it, the
amount of friction he was able to give
it only served to keep the cable tau
50 that the safety catches did MOI
work. In fact it would have beer
better had the cable broken, as in tina
case the safety catches would hav,
caught and stopped the cage. The
cage and men fell $40 feet, wen
through a bulkhead of S-inch squar'
timber and dropped 20 feet into DIR,
stump. Six of the men were killed, tw'
were mangled and crippled, so tina
they subsequently died of the injuries
but the ninth man in some miraculou
way received only a few insignifican
abrasions. When rescued he wa
speechless but not unconscious.
The same authorities vouch for tn
truth of the following equally marvel
Gus escape In early days on tn
Comstock lode, miner named Ton
oliver fell 10 feet in the Yellow Jack
ct shaft, went through a 2-inch wood