A Laborer's Hazard at Port Blakely
A tally man suffers a catastrophic injury on the docks while working a pile shipment.
Stewart Campbell, a tally man at Port Blakely, met with a painful accident yesterday. While scaling a load of piles onto the 'Katie Hickman', the platform he was standing on gave way. One of his legs was caught between heavy timbers, tearing the flesh from the bone from his ankle to his hip. He was transported to Seattle by the steamer 'Politkofsky' and taken to the hospital. He will likely be incapacitated for six weeks.
“The flesh on his leg was torn loose from the bone from the ankle nearly to the hip.”
This industrial accident at a local mill highlights the extreme physical risks faced by 19th-century workers. It serves as a grim reminder of the pre-OSHA reality of Seattle's timber-driven economy, where worker safety was secondary to the speed of throughput.
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