Miracle at the Buzz Saw
A worker falls onto a moving saw, narrowly avoiding a fatal arterial wound.
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.
Louis Hogglund, an employe of Henry's sawmill, located about fourteen miles north of Spokane, miraculously escaped instantaneous death yesterday, but the injuries he received will probably result fatally. Hogglund fell on a buzz saw in motion, and before he could release himself from its clutches, the saw had cut through his first and second ribs and breastbone. A quarter of an inch more and the aorta, the largest artery in the body, would have been severed. Hogglund was filing the saw when the accident happened. An escape of steam from the boiler attracted his attention, and when he turned to resume his work his foot slipped and he fell in front of the saw. By throwing his hand against it he freed himself and rolled into a dust heap beneath, bleeding and unconscious.
“A quarter of an inch more and the aorta, the largest artery in the body, would have been severed and death would have been inevitable.”
Industrial accidents were a grim staple of the Pacific Northwest economy, where the physical toll of lumber work was often borne by the laborer alone, long before robust OSHA protections existed.
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