Ragnvald Gotaas, 25, homesteader, saved Oscar L. Dahl, 28, farmer, from suffocation, Plaza, North Dakota, June 14, 1913. Dahl was affected by gas in a well, 20 feet from the top, while he was being lowered by a steel cable. After Dahl had been raised eight feet, Gotaas slid down the cable and found Dahl hanging head downward, his foot insecurely caught in a stirrup on the end of the cable. Gotaas put his foot in the stirrup on top of Dahl’s foot and assumed a sitting posture, leaning back against the side of the well but not holding to anything. He tied a rope around Dahl’s ankle, but Dahl’s foot slipped, and Dahl fell down the well, which was 104 feet deep. Gotaas held to the rope and checked Dahl’s fall but could not stop it. A man at the top, who was the only other person present, seized the rope and stopped Dahl when he had fallen to a point 80 feet below the surface. Gotaas was hoisted eight feet and then climbed out of the well and helped the man to get Dahl out of it. Dahl was unconscious for eight or nine hours but recovered. Gotaas was dizzy when he left the well, and his hands were so badly burned by the rope as to disable him for two weeks. 16211-1325
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