The Monster Chain: A Mill Worker Pulled Back from the Jaws of a Conveyor
At the Hoquiam Lumber Shingle Company, a conveyor chain seized a worker and began dragging him toward death — until his fellow hands stopped the machinery in time.
HOQUIAM — Being slowly dragged to a horrible death by a conveyor chain at the plant of the Hoquiam Lumber Shingle Company, Lee Marker, an employee, was rescued by fellow-workers, who succeeded in disengaging the propelling mechanism of the monster chain before he was killed outright. Marker's left foot was terribly lacerated and almost severed at the ankle, and doubt is entertained by the surgeons in charge of the case whether the member can be saved.
“Being slowly dragged to a horrible death by a conveyor chain... he was rescued by fellow-workers, who succeeded in disengaging the propelling mechanism of the monster chain before he was killed outright.”
Industrial conveyors and unguarded machinery maimed and killed workers across the Pacific Northwest long before safety regulation existed. Marker's rescue by his crewmates is a reminder that, then and now, the first line of workplace safety is often the person working next to you.
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