Douglas daily dispatch., 1926-02-18

(Continued From Page One)
ing Identification. Many of these
bodies were frightfully burned Others
were scarcely scratched and DR.. F. E.
Straup, the county physician and also
mayor of Bingham, said that in most
cases death was due to asphyxiation
Property damage, Superintendent
Wardlaw said, would not exceed
$4,000.
For more than day a binding
snowstorm held the gulch in it's grip.
This snow by this morning more
than foot in depth, rested upon
the crust sof earlier falls, and it is,
the belief of mining engineers here
that the, lighter new snow started
the slide at the top of the gulch.
With increased fury, weight and
speed, it swept down the narrow can
yon which is less than SO feet at
it's base The miners homes and the
boarding house rest on the sloping
side Hills. AS each building was
swept from it's foundations, the ava
lanche seemed to gather momentum,
according to Ed Larson, miner,
who heard the rumbling sound of
the approaching of snow and debris
from one of the windows of the
boarding house.
larson proved to be one of the
heroes of the catastrophe. He shout
ed a warning to the sleeping miners,
Eoff shift, threw one man out of
window and himself followed. Both
men escaped with but a few
scratches.
The three-story boarding house,
conducted by Mrs. James Mcdonald,
was the last building to be demol-
ished, and the avalanche came to a
stop at the back door of the office
building of the Highland Boy mine,
Of the Utah Delaware Mining COM
pany, subsidiary of the Anaconda
Copper company
Few Escaped.
Two of these were Counchita
Beitia, four years old, and her little
brother, Johnnie, two and one-half
years old. bathtub and wash basin
saved their lives. The little girl is
suffering from badly frosted leg.
The edge of the tub pinned this leg
to the ground, stopping circulation.
The boy also, pinned down by the
edge of the tub, is also suffering
from a frosted foot.
For more than four hours these
children were within view of the
rescue crew and during the slow
process of cutting away timbers and
removing snow and rock, James Nor
burg, a miner, held the little girls
hand and soothed her until she was
rescued.
1t was in this building that the
greatest loss of life occurred. More
than half a hundred miners, who
had emerged from the mine a short
time before, were sleeping in the
building. Few, if any aside from
Larson and the unidentified man he
threw from the window escaped. Mrs.
Mcdonald, sthe proprietor, is among
the missing. Jose Antonio and his
wife, the cooks, are among the dead,
whose bodies have been taken from
the ruins of the building.
Frank A. Wardlaw, superintendent
of the Utah Delaware Mining COM
pany, stopped work in the mine and
ordered the entire day shift to the
surface and the rescue work began.
The offices of the company were
pressed into service as an emergency
hospital. Here more than a score
were treated for injuries more or less
serious, and tonight seven patients
are being cared for.
More than 200 men started the har
rowing task of removing the living
and the dead from the ruins. Work.
men of all nationalities, Americans,
Mexicans, Finlanders and Spaniards
rushed to the scene of chaos in what
appeared to be a futile effort.
The work was courageous. Work.
men dared the flames of the debris
to rescue men and women and chill