Two Men Crushed in a Railroad Cut — and Fifteen Walked Off the Job

KILLED BY ROCK SLIDE Two Workmen Buried at Brandt Camp Sunday. Two Others Were Badly Injured. The lives of two men were crushed out and two others were injured by a rock slide at the camp of Gilbert Brandt, opposite LeClerc Creek, on the I. & W. N. extension Sunday morning. The accident occurred about 8 o'clock in the morning. Five men, one of whom had the contract for the station work at that point, had gone to work to clean out of the cut some rock which had been loosened by a blast. The cut was about 35 feet deep and the sides were apparently safe. They had barely started work when a huge mass of rock from the top of the cut slid down upon them. One of the men had his head crushed, left arm torn off and leg broken, while another was cut nearly in two, with tons of rock laying on them. One other had a leg broken and a fourth was badly bruised while the fifth man escaped injury. Mr. Brandt immediately started to drive to Newport, a distance of 35 miles, after the company physician, while his men began the work of recovering the bodies. Justice Long accompanied Mr. Brandt to the scene the same night, but when they arrived they found that the injured men had been brought to Newport by the Steamer Spokane. Dr. Phillips was called to the hospital to attend to their injuries and they are now recovering. The dead men, Otto Blad and Gus Nelson, were brought to Newport Monday noon on the Steamer Newport and were buried Tuesday in the potter's field. About 15 of Mr. Brandt's men also came up on the Newport, having quit the job as soon as the accident occurred. Though there have been several deaths among employees on the construction work, these are the first violent deaths that have occurred.