A MARVELLOUS EXPERIENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12853, 29 April 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MARVELLOUS EXPERIENCE.

BLOWN UP THROUGH 25FT OF MUD

AND WATER.

A SPOUTING GEYSER

From the "black hole" of the East River tunnel, neai Joralemon-street, Brooklyn, New York, recently, Richard Creedon. a workman, wa? blown through ten feet of the mud roof, through fifteen feet of water tc- the surface of the stream, and about twenty feet true into the air, on the top of a spouting geyser. Then he tumbled back into the river, swam to a uearbv 'boat, and, reaching shore, walked to his home, and took a nap, none the worse for his perilous adventure. The accident, was unprecedented in the history of submarine boring.

Creedon's remarkable upward dive was caused by an explosion of compressed air, which caught him in its path and sent him whirling on his flight in little more than a second. Three other men who were with him in the tunnel were tiling against the walls and pinned there motionless until tlio air pressure had been relieved, but, strangely enough, none of them were injured.

Work had been advanced about two hundred feet from a shaft at Joralemon-street and about fifteen feet- below the bed of the river. Creedon and his companions were behind a circular steel shield, 'backed by a second shield perforated by openings, through which the dirt is passed to that part of the tunnel already completed, and carted away. As a support to the bed of the river compressed air is forced into the tunnel to prevent caving in. Behind the second shield were eighteen other men. Creedon suddenly heard a sound like that of escaping steam, and looking to the roof saw a jagged opening in the mud through which water was beginning to trickle. For exigencies of this kind bags of sand and sawdust are kept in the tunnel because they stick closely to the leaks under the air pressure. •SHOT CP LIKE A SOCKET. Realising the danger, Creedon caught up two of these bags and clambered up the timbers, shoring the roof to put them in position. Before he had succeeded the pressure had become so heavy that a channel had been forced through the water of the river from the top of the tunnel and he could see through to the sky. At that instant the other three men who stood below watching him saw him shoot up like a rocket and disappear. Caught by the outrushing air ho had 'been drawn into the aperture and forced through it at tremendous velocity.

There are wharves and warehouses all about Joralemon-street, and workmen were lounging along the water front when they saw the strangest spectacle of their lives. Out of the middle of the river suddenly leaped a waterspout, bubbling and hissing to a height of twenty feet- or more and with a roar heard for blocks. On the very top of this, like the little ball borne up bv the fountains in shooting galleries, lay Creedou, his arms and legs frantically flourishing in the air. The watchers launched a rowboat and pulled vigorously toward the geyser. But that time, however, the column of water had subsided and Creedou was struggling in the waves. When the boat reached him he was swimming lustily, and on his face, just emerging from the surface, was an expression of the blsinkest astonishment.

One of the men dragged him into the boat, began to rub him, ami said he would hurry him to a hospital, but Creedon. who was entirely conscious, although a trifle bewildered, said: "Hospital be blowed," or words to that effect-. "I want to go to the sandroom and warm up : I'm freezing to death." His wish was granted, and after he had dried his clothes he wanted to go back to work, but his foreman insisted) that he should go nome. "All right, then," said Creedon, "but I guess I'll walk; I'm not takin? any more chances," and walk he did, except for the passage of the two rivers. When he got home a doctor listened to the strange story, and then discovered, to his amazement, that Creedon bad not so much as a scratch on him. "Well, then, I think I'll have a sleep." said Creedon, and he did until six o'clock in the evening. HAD ASKED FOR A RAISE. Creedon, who is twenty-four years old, was not inclined to be at all serious about his narrow escape from death. " How did it happen?" be echoed, when asked to* describe the experience. "It came too sudden for nte to know what it was all about. I asked the boss for a raise only this morning. but I didn't think it would eome so quick. I'd just grabbed the bags and was sticking 'em on the roof to keep out the water, when I felt myself sucked in and | then it was all off.

" Say. I must have gone up like a streak of lighting. I wonder why I didn't stick in the mud. There was ten feet of it in that, roof, but I went through it so fast it didn't, have a chance. Some of it got in my mouth, but before I could swallow it T was sailing up through the water. If I'd bad time to think I guess I d have said to myself. 'Well, seeing 'aa I wasn't suffocated in the mud here's where I get drowned,' but I was travelling too fast.

"Then all of a sudden I'm out of the water again and sailing toward the sky. Something wet was under me, kinder pushing me tip. It seemd' as if I never was Igoing to turn around and go the other way, but pretty soon the thing under me, whatever it was, let go. and down I splashed into the river."

While all this was happening to Creedon the other men in the tunnel had been rescued, stunned and breathless, but not injured, and all went to their homes.