Harry H. Perkins died saving Joseph Duma from suffocation, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, June 22, 1934. While Duma, 44, was cleaning the sump of the pit beneath a scrubber tank, he was overcome by blast-furnace gas containing much carbon monoxide that issued from the waste pipe of the tank near the floor of the sump. Perkins, 38, labor foreman, who was directing the work, after calling to one or two men, dropped feet first four feet down from the top of the pit to a wall of the sump and then jumped five feet down to the bottom. He grasped Duma under the armpits, lifted him, and pushed him up to a man who stood on the wall of the sump and grasped Duma’s wrists. The man pulled Duma upward while Perkins took hold of Duma’s legs and boosted him. Men at the top of the pit got hold of Duma’s hands as he was pushed up, and Duma was pulled out of the pit. The man on the wall of the sump quickly climbed out. Immediately after Duma was pulled out, Perkins was overcome and fell in the sump. About three minutes later a man, protected by a gas mask and a safety belt, entered the pit and tied a rope on Perkins, and he and Perkins were then drawn out. Perkins could not be revived. Duma was revived in two hours. 34027-2804
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