OCR Text |
Show 3last Occurs While Lowering Dynamite In Arrowhead Pet. Well 1 Xine people, two of whom were women, were instantly illed when the shot which was being1 prepared to be lowered ifitn the Escalante oil well exploded at approximately 9:40 ,m., Wednesday night, from causes unknown. Two women, 'osamond Snow and Lea Cottam, who were part of the "roup, were so badly injured that the latter died after they fad been taken to the Washington County hospital and Miss "now is so badly injured that it is not known whether she ill live or not. Two men, Bert Covington and Elmer Erickson, specta-."rs, specta-."rs, were injured by the blast. Mr. Erickson seriously when ;. piece of metal was blown into his chest. Considerable ;-lood was lost by the injured man before he was given medi- il 'attention at the hospital. Dr. McGregor reports that Jirgery will be required before they know the extent of his 1 juries Mr. Covington was bruised and lacerated about the ead and his ears were injured but it is thought that his ase will not prove to be serious. r. ; . .--.'....-----; vvv-i. -'.-'-; n . I- I' " T-X-kt ' T'T "-' . V ' - .r. j ' A-vi"- ., ;. O vii-w of the stywl rif; of the Kscalaute woll,, scene of tha explosion rt'cslni'Mtny nifjl't where nine people were killed nnd three seriously !n,iu'cl. It is locnted on the HloonuiiRtan Dome iihout seven miles iowlh west of St. (ieoiRe. The well was being drilled! by 1j!ie ArroW-ie;.d ArroW-ie;.d retiolenin corporation. The known dead are: Charles l.-on. president and general mnn-iijer mnn-iijer of the Arrowhead Petroleum '.(inuinny, by whom the Escalante' tf'jll U leased and was being drill-j ?d. his wife Mrs. M!abel Alsop; , 7. M. Flickenger. veteran oil drill-! 5m- who was handling the shooting; j Joseph Empey, Jr., electrician, his oii-in-Uiv, Kail Nicholson, assist-uit assist-uit electrician; Billy Maloney, oil! ivorker. son of Mrs. Vivien Malon-J'y; Malon-J'y; Mrs. Olive Bleak Snow, wife )!' Jijseph S. Snow; Ray Nelson, inn of Mrs. Ernest Nelson; Jo-' ?eph F. Kitterman, druggist, at j :ho Liberty Drug store. Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Tickett. Wallace Wal-lace Blake, of St. George; A. Sam-'on. Sam-'on. an oil land salesman; Jack YY:;:.uns, oil well driller, Mrs. C. ;M. Flickenger and her sister, and Tex Bethea, driller were also spectators spec-tators at the scene but had all retired re-tired a distance from the well and so wore not seriously injured. According to Mr. Pickett, his wi:e and he had parked close to l he well along with others, but Mr. Bethea came by and suggested that since they were under some high tension wires it would be better if they moved their car to another spot. Mrs. Pickett was nervous and so when they got to the place they first thought to move to, a spot about seventy-five seventy-five yards from the well, she asked him to go a little farther so that the p'.ace where they .stopped was: approximately 100 yards from the. well. They had the back of the car toward the well and were sitting sit-ting there listening to the radio. Mr. Pickett bases his estimate of the time when the explosion occurred oc-curred by the fact that the 9:30 program had just been announced and he figures that it was about ten minutes from that time when the explosion c a m e. Although they were 100 yards from the well, the top of their car was blown in, Mr. Pickett receiving a i slight wound on the side of his head, and the right window was shattered, although it is of un-hretikfibie un-hretikfibie glass. Sevrtral dents were made in the side of the car and one of the fenders was bent, j Immediately after the explosion. ( Bert Covington and Elmer Erickson Erick-son came staggering out from j among the falling debris, both injured in-jured as described. Not knowing how badly the men were hurt and , realizing that help must be secured. secur-ed. Mr. rickett immediately put j these two men in tho car and ; started for St. George. George A. ' -Samson also came in and went to 'the Liberty Drug store and asked that they get doctors out at the well immediately. Mr. Pickett al-' al-' so attempted to get in touch with (Continued on page four) OIL III BUST KILLS TEN; HI DISASTER Oil HASEVtR Kil (Continued from first page) the doctors and left word that they be notified. Cars, loaded with men were rushed out to the scene as no one knew the extent of the damage dam-age although it was thought that none of the ones that were in cluse could be alive. Tex Bethea also left at the same time as Mr. Pickett and drove to the Ilyrum Leany place where he phoned for Sheriff Cottam who left at once for the well. On his return, Mr. Bethea helped rescue Rosamond Snow and Lea Cottam and put them in his car and hi ought them to the hospital. According to Wallace Blake's son, his father was the last man to leave the derrick and the first man back to the well after the explosion. Mr. Blake picked up Miss Snow and attempted to carry her out but because of a recent sickness had trouble doing so. He had her away from the well though when Mr. Bethea came back. Rescue work was handicaped by the many live high tension wires that were scattered by the blast. Extreme precaution had to be used until these were turned off by Bert Riding when he had been notified to do so by C. W. Love, Jr., who was One of the first to arrive. Mr. Love, immediately turned around and came back into town to notify Mr. Riding. It is believed that the power was turned turn-ed off at about 10:30 p.m. Mr. Blake's son states that his father had felt a premonition of the disaster and he and Mr. Samson Sam-son had gone to Ray Nelson's I car, about 500 feet from the well, and were sitting in it when the accident occured. The back of the car. which was toward the well, was blown in and the back window smashed. Mr. Blake feels that had they net had the windows win-dows Of the car up they would both have been seriously hurt. People for miles around felt and heard the explosion. Many St. George residents were conscious of it but didn't associate it with, anything serious since there had been considerable blasting being done in connection with the instal-' instal-' a-tion of the St. George sewage system. , Drilling operations had been going go-ing on for some time at the Es-calante Es-calante well and several oil sands had been encountered showing fine indications of oil so it had been decided to shoot the well. Preparations had been made during dur-ing the day by the day crew and everything was ready at about 8 p.m. when the group left here. It is estimated that between 700 and 800 pounds of explosive material had been raised in preparation to letting it down into the well. This was in cartridges approximately ten feet long, five or six of these having been raised at the time the accident occured. The men had planned on lowering this to an oil sand stratta located about 3,000 feet deep. There was more powder in the powder house which was to be used if other shots were thought necessary. This powder burned without exploding. The first arrivals after the accident ac-cident found a terrible sight with the 'derrick a tangled mass of wreckage and fires burning in the different parts of the wrecked wreck-ed derrick. Although this structure struc-ture was of steel, cement and galvanized gal-vanized iron, there was some timber tim-ber among it and it was this that burned. A coroner's inquest was held Thursday morning at the well, under the jurisdiction of Harold Snow, justice of the peace, and a jury was sworn in. An investigation inves-tigation was made of the bodies and C. M. Flickenger, Ray Nelson, Mrs. Joseph Snow, Mrs. Charles Alsop, and Joseph Kitterman were identified. The bodies of the other oth-er four: Charles Alsop, Joseph Empey, Jr., Kail Nicholson, and Billy Maloney were not found. Joseph Kitterman, 4 6, was born at Salida, Kansas. He leaves a wife and two children who reside re-side at Salt Lake City. The body was sealed in a casket and shipped ship-ped Thursday to that city. Officials of the Arrowhead Petroleum Pe-troleum corporation report that their employees were covered by compensation insurance to the amount of $5,000 each. This of course doesn't cover the spectators specta-tors who were there at their own risk. Graveside serivces for Mr. Flickenger Flick-enger will be held in the city cemetery cem-etery at 10:00 a.m., Friday morning. morn-ing. Funerl aservices will be held for the rest of the group on Friday Fri-day afternoon in the tabernacle. Business houses will close their doors and the entire town will turn out to mourn their dead. Obituaries Ob-ituaries will be published in the next issue of the News. |