Brutal Workplace Injuries at Local Mills
Three workers in Aberdeen and Hoquiam are left broken and maimed after harrowing industrial accidents in a single week.
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Last week seemed to be an unlucky week. On Thursday E. S. Wilson, while working at the Slade mill at Hoquiam, had his right leg fractured above the knee and three ribs broken. His clothing got caught on the shaft and he was whirled around several times, when, luckily, his clothing gave way, or he would have been killed. On the same day, E. Lloyd, a woodsman employed in Frank Miller's camp, had his right arm nearly cut off by an ax that slipped from the hands of a comrade who was chopping. A. M. Ballew had the end of one finger of his right hand cut off and two others badly sawed, while working at Sears Co.'s shingle mill last week.
“His clothing got caught on the shaft and he was whirled around several times, when, luckily, his clothing gave way, or he would have been killed.”
These accounts of industrial carnage underscore the immense physical cost of the lumber boom in Grays Harbor. Before modern safety regulations, the mill floor was a place of extreme peril where a single lapse or gear malfunction could end a life.
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