Tragedy in the Timber: A Faller’s Fatal Error
A young logger’s life is cut short by a freak accident in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A fatal accident occurred in McIntyre’s Camp No. 3, of which George McLean is foreman, last Wednesday morning at 6 o'clock. Alfred Kola, a native Finn, aged 26, was instantly killed by a falling limb. He was assisting to fell a tree and had just jumped from the spring-board and was standing about thirty feet away, and as the tree went to the ground it struck a dry hemlock, and a limb about three feet long and three inches thick was hurled backward, striking Kola a glancing blow on the side of the head. One side of his head was mashed in and the brains were scattered on the ground. He died instantly.
“One side of his head was mashed in and the brains were scattered on the ground. He died instantly.”
This account of a workplace fatality in a 19th-century logging camp underscores the extreme, often lethal, dangers that defined early Pacific Northwest industry. Today, logging remains one of the most hazardous occupations, though modernized safety standards and labor oversight have significantly transformed the conditions of the woods compared to the rough-and-ready camps of the 1880s.
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