Death by Machinery

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C. W. Beard, employed at the Lowell Bleachery, met his death a short time ago in a very painful manner. While stooping over to oil a shaft, which revolves about 118 times in a minute, his clothes had become entangled with the end of the shaft, by which means he was carried around with it, and his bead and limbs, at every revolution, were brought in forcible contact with an adjacent wall, and also with the hanger of the shaft, which is a perpendicular stationary cast-iron, in a perforation of which the shaft plays. How often he had been whirled around this shaft it was impossible to determine, but his clothing was most-1 ly torn from his body; his boots, after having the soles ripped off, were stripped from his feet, and thrown to a distance of some twenty feet from the shaft; his stockings and hat, and a portion of his watch-chain, were thrown in different directions to a considerable distance, and the remainder of his clothing was still revolving round the shaft. His body and limbs were of course shockingly mangled, and the blood and locks of hair on the hanger bore painful testimony to what he must have suffered during his fearful gyrations. When he became disengaged from the shaft, it appears that he fell under it on the ground, a distance of some four or five feet, whence he had dragged himself about five or six feet to the place where he was lying when found. The unlortunate man was immediately removed to a room in the building, but expired almost immediately.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 10This article was published with the title “Death by Machinery” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 10 (), p. 74
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican11201852-74d

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