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Show THEEE CLOSE CALLS. NARROW ESCAPES HAD BY WORKMEN IN A PULP MILL. One of Them Crushed to a Shapeless Mas Between Iron Boilers Another Whirled Around on a Belt Thrilling Experience With a Log Janu "I never hear of persons narrowly escaping es-caping death or surviving extraordinary injuries," said t3 New York representative represen-tative of a bij-t P company, "that I do not thinif r aome remarkable Instances In-stances of the ki id that have occurred at one of our mills in the northern part of this state. On ne occasion a workman named "Wolf wa ; engaged in cleaning a machine used 1 1 a certain stage in the process of pulp ij mnuf acture. The principal prin-cipal feature of this machine was two very heavy iron rollers one above the other. "When i i operation, the upper roller was press ;d closely down on the lower one, and t ley revolved in opposite directions. To c san these rollers the upper up-per one was raisi 1 seven or eight inches, the machine of c rarse being at rest. "In the courst of hia work Wolf, who was a young t orman, thrust his head and shoulders bt : ween the rollers to see better to clean t: e lower roller. While he was in that position Borne careless person turned or the water power. The rollers started ; 5 once, and before the alarm could be given and the water turned off Wolf was dra wn clear through between the rollers and dropped on the other side, as xaurh like pulp, so far as appearances went, as anything could be. I happened to be in that part of the mill at the time and saw the frightful mishap. "I ran to wher the limp form of the workman lay and dispatched a messenger messen-ger at once for a doctor, merely as a matter of form, however, for that anything any-thing could be done for the shapeless mass of humanity never entered my mind -It was ixyujlsiMto Vt the body. We shuffled it on to a blanket and carried car-ried it to the unfortunate man's home. I noticed that, although there was not the slightest evidence of consciousness, Wolf was still breathing and that his heart was beating. When the doctor came, he declare' 1 that from the shoulders shoul-ders down then i was positively not a single whole boi e left in Wolf's body. He said there wb s not one chance in ten I thousand of the : aan living. " 'It would ta ce 10 doctors a week to set his bones,' he said. "He incased t le body in plaster from the neck down, i nd when he came nest day was amazed to find that Wolf was still alive and had regained consciousness. conscious-ness. Wolf lay (incased in plaster for several weeks. His bones knit and grew together again, but in such a way that when he was alje to get around he was covered with knobs and ridges and queer corners and angles from head to feet. But he was alfve. He was our night watchman for 10 years after that and is alive today. j "Another time a workman in a different dif-ferent part of tlje mill named Sanneman was caught in a1 big belt by a felt apron he wore, and before the works could be stopped he was whirled seven times around the pulleys, striking the ceiling with tremendous force each time. He was taken up for dead. I examined him before the doctor came, and there wasn't even the sigrrfrun abrasion or mark on his body- 1 f&inutes later, when the doctor came, he was as black as coal all over. There wasn't a spot on him that was not discolored. The doctor examined exam-ined the man carefully, and to his amazement found that there was not a bone broken anywhere about him. Hia injuries were so slight that he was at work again within two days. Yet he had passed seven times through a space between the pulley and the beam not over seven inches wide. "Once the dam of one of our mills became be-came so clogged with logs that they interfered in-terfered with the water power. It was necessary to release the jam or shut down the mill. The work would necessarily endanger the lives and limbs of all who engaged in it, and volunteers were asked for, handsom xtr,a. pay being offered. Plenty of men were ready to take the risks, among- them Pat O'Brien, an Irishman, Irish-man, 61 years old. He insisted on being one of the gang and joined it against the protest of the superintendent. "The work of releasing the log jam went all right until the key log that held the main jam was to be removed. There lay the danger. The key was removed, and the men made a wild dash to escape the rush. They all got out of the way but four, among them the old Irishman. Pat 1 crunen. rnese rour were caugnt among tho logs and went over the falls, a sheer descent of 83 feet. Men and logs went over together, and everybody supposed that the men would be ground to atoms. But a most astonishing thing happened. In falling a number of logs fell on end in a group, their upper ends toppling together, to-gether, forming an almost perfect tent, or peaked hut, with the down stream side open. The men had escaped injury, not only from the logs in the fall, but from the tremendous plunge itself, and it was as they landed in the water below that the tent of logs formed with them beneath its Bhelter. This saved them from being drowned by the water that plunged down from the great height. "There was constant danger of the shelter of logs being forced from its lodgment by the pressure of water. In view of the latter danger, when it came to rescuing them, the three young men of the party urged old Pat O'Brien to be hauled up first. He obstinately refused to be hauled up until his companions had been rescued, when he took his chance and was landed safely above. He had scarcely been lifted above the shelter of the logs when it gave way, and the logs went crashing and thundering on down the stream. I have heard of wonderful escapes of death, but never anything so wonderful as that." New York Sun. |