A Spokane Man's Grisly End Aboard the Steamer Nelson
G. H. McDermott was traveling home to visit his family when he was caught in the machinery on Kootenai Lake, so badly mangled that only fragments of his skull could be recovered.
SPOKANE, Jan. 27.—Saws reached here today of a shocking accident, which resulted in the death of G. H. McDermott, in the Kootenai country. He was coming home to visit his family here, and while on the steamer Nelson on Kootenai Lake was caught in the machinery and was so horribly mangled that only pieces of his skull could be found.
“So horribly mangled that only pieces of his skull could be found.”
Before workplace-safety regulation, the machinery of steamers, mills and mines killed swiftly and left families to grieve over what could barely be recovered. The matter-of-fact dispatch — a man's death reduced to a single awful sentence — is its own commentary on how routine such losses once were.
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