Gas Tragedy

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6625, 11 August 1931, Page 7

Gas Tragedy

WORKMEN OVERCOME. LONDON, July 27. Detecting the presence of a noxious gas in a caisson on the bed of the Thames in which four of his men were working, tho foreman, William O’Donnell, aged 20, shouted a warning to those above and went down to savo his mates. His body was found 40ft. below the surface. Ho was still grasping the ladder when he was overcome by the gas and died. Tho men he had tried to savo were dead, and were brought out by iiremen wearing gas-masks. Two of tho victims wore brothers. The tragedy occurred near the end o. 1 ! a night-shift during work for the construction of an under-water tunnel at a new motor works at Dagenham, on the lower reaches of the Thames. The caisson had been sunk in mud and ooze 50 yards from tho bank of the river. Apparently the workmen disturbed au old refuse heap and liberated carbon dioxide gas. Several other shafts had been sunk safely. Rescuers, who heard O’Donnel’s cry, rushed to the caisson and saw the men huddled in a heap in two feet of mud at the bottom of the caisson.

Diver Scammell, hero of the rescue of another diver, Milton, trapped under a caisson at Dagenham, on June 19, went down first, and guided the rescue party.

Diver Milton, when a caisson stuck, went down to ascertain the cause, it suddenly dropped and imprisoned him in several feet of mud. Other divers were rushed to the spot. Scammell went into the mud and passed a line around him while the others freed his life-line and air-pipe. Milton was hauled to the surface after being in the mud for seven hours. "Give me a beer!” was all he said when asked how he felt.

Caisson is an engineering term, and is applied in this case to a big pt eel cage used as a sort of "floating dock.” The caisson, or cage, is divided into compartments, and sunk into the ground. Men at its base dig the earth or mud, and tho cage gradually sinks to its full depth. Then, for tunnelling purposes, it is pushed ahead, and, when the job is completed, filled with concrete. The carbon dioxide would be released from the old refuse, and would overcome the workers.