Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1879 — An Engineer’s Presence of Mind Saves Ten Men. [ARTICLE]

An Engineer’s Presence of Mind Saves Ten Men.

Virginia (Nov.) Enterprise. Yesterday morning at 7 o’clock, as the shift was being changed at tl e Yellow Jacket shaft, ten men had a narrow escape from death. These men got* on board the small skip at the 2,000 station to go to the bottom of the shaft They had gone but a short distance before the eccentrics of the donkey engine broke, and the skip with its living freight, started for the bottom at lightning speed. P McCarty, the engineer, knew that the descending skip must be stopped or all on board would be dashea to pieces at the bottom of the shaft. He instantly seized a heavy plank, the end of which he thrust between the pinion shaft and the reel or drum form which the cable was paving off. By hauling down on the end of the plank it acted as a brake, and finally brought the skip to a stand, when it was within twenty feet of the bottom of the shaft. The drum was revolving at lightning speed when the plank was first introduced, and the friction produced streaks of fire and smoke, but the pressure gradually told, slowed down the speed of the Bkip, aud finally stopped it. To thrust the plank into rapidiy-revolviug machinery was a dangerous experiment, and might have cost Mr. McCarty his life, but he got the right hold in the start and held on with bull-dog tenacity. To do the right thing just as he did, at the right moment, required great quickness of thought. The plank, the E lace were it was to be inserted, and ow it was to be used, must all have been thought out in a single instant. During the descent of the skip one man leaped from it and caught the bell rope' holding to which be managed to swing himself to a wall-plate. Another jumped and caught a wall plate, but lost bis bold and fell, but in falling' caught a rod aud passing horizontally between the sinking guides,isome ten feet over the skip, where he held on till it stopped. Thus it will be seen that this man did some lively traveling. He got ott the skip, aud not finding a good landing place on the wall-plate, he weut down until he overtook the skin, when he got aboard of it at the point which seemed most convenient. Aside from a severe shaking up and a bad scare, the men all came out of the scrape about as sound as when they got into it.