William A. Freitag, 44, construction inspector, attempted to save James L. Laidlaw, 18, and Leroy E. Ewart, 23, laborers, from suffocation, Long Beach, California, December 17, 1959. While working inside a newly laid waterline 30 inches in diameter and varying from seven to 13 feet below street level, Laidlaw and Ewart were overcome by an unidentified gas. Another workman, looking for the two men, entered a manhole of the line and, unaware of the gas, lighted a cigaret. The gas exploded in flames which rose to 10 feet above the manhole, fatally burning the men. Soon afterward a similar flash of flame emanated from a manhole three blocks away. Firemen and police were summoned and found another workman overcome and fatally burned inside a third manhole. In answer to a call for city water department employees to advise the construction company men, Freitag and Roy E. Blakeney, another inspector, went to the scene, where equipment had been set up to air line. Freitag, wearing an oxygen mask and carrying a flashlight, descended into one of the manholes, which had been tested for gas. With one end of a rope tied to his ankles and the other end held by firemen, Freitag entered the waterline and crawled 50 feet in each direction from the manhole; but he found no one. Ascending to the street, he discarded the mask and oxygen tank, which hindered movement inside the line, and moved to the next manhole, where a test showed no sign of gas. Freitag descended into the second manhole with the safety rope and, on a small cart propelled with his hands and feet, searched more than 500 feet of the line. Finding nothing, he left the line and moved to a third manhole, which Blakeney then entered. Detecting a musty odor, Blakeney returned to the street, and firemen aired the line. When tests showed no gas at the manhole, Freitag then entered it, while Blakeney moved to another 1,100 feet away. Each man took with him a sound phone connected by a long cable, and Freitag also had a rope tied to him. Inside the line the two men worked their way toward each other. When he had moved 400 feet, Freitag found Laidlaw dead, with Ewart lying 25 feet beyond him. Using the sound phone, Freitag notified Blakeney, who joined him at the surface. They reentered the line twice and with the aid of firemen removed the bodies of Laidlaw and Ewart almost five hours after they began their search for them. 44953-4362
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