Trapped in the Gears
A farm worker is severely injured in a gruesome accident while operating a header in the fields near Walla Walla.
S. C. Robertson, while driving a header on the farm of Mr. Witt this morning, was severely injured. He had alighted from the machine to fix the gearing when the horses became restless and started. Mr. Robertson was caught in the crown wheel and before the horses stopped he had been taken around with several revolutions of the wheel, the flesh from his left arm and hand being torn to the bone in several places. He was brought to Walla Walla and is under the care of Dr. Shaw.
“the flesh from his left arm and hand being torn to the bone in several places.”
Farming remains one of the most hazardous occupations in the Walla Walla Valley today. This 1903 account captures the brutal, intimate dangers of mechanical agriculture, a stark reminder of the personal cost behind the region's massive wheat harvests.
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