Tragedy in the Auditorium Elevator
A thirteen-year-old boy dies after a freak accident in a downtown elevator cage.
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.
The 13-year-old son of K. Bertrand, a well-known grocer of Spokane, died early this morning from injuries received in the Auditorium elevator Wednesday evening. At the time of the accident his injuries were not thought to be serious, but at noon yesterday the boy began vomiting and bleeding internally. Charles Bise, the elevator boy on duty, tells a straightforward story: young Bertrand followed his father's delivery man up to the fourth floor. After they got out, he attempted to run the elevator up to the fifth floor. Just as Bise pulled the lever to start, young Bertrand, who was standing on the outside holding on to the elevator cage, started to get in and was knocked against the door, throwing it open. As soon as Bise saw the boy was in danger, he reversed the lever, but the boy's body was caught between the elevator door and top part of the cage door.
“The boy's body was caught between the elevator door and top part of the cage door, inflicting internal injuries.”
Early skyscraper history in the West is marked by these industrial tragedies, which led to modern elevator safety standards. This story serves as a reminder of the hazards in the rapid expansion of early urban infrastructure.
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