Harry B. Gilmore, 26, painter, helped to rescue Clarence W. Christy, 23, carpenter, and G. Paul McDowell, 37, grocer, from a cave-in in a ditch, Brackenridge, Pennsylvania, January 1, 1913. Christy and McDowell were working in a ditch 2.5 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and the side caved. Christy was completely buried by sand, and McDowell was covered to his neck by it. Gilmore and others ran to the scene, and Gilmore jumped into the ditch and scraped sand from around Christy’s head. Another man entered the ditch a minute later, and they began to throw sand out with shovels. The ditch was then six feet deep. When the ditch became too deep for the men to throw the sand out, it was hoisted in a bucket. About two feet from the top there was a crack in the sand at one side, and at the surface, six feet from the ditch, on the same side, was a crack. Men crowded close to the ditch, and self-constituted guards had to use force to keep them at a distance. Forty minutes after the accident, Christy was released. Gilmore and his companion then dug the sand from around McDowell, who was released 20 minutes later. Within a few hours a cave-in occurred, filling the ditch to a depth of seven feet. 10265-899
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10265-899