AMAZING FORTITUDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27387, 12 May 1950, Page 5

AMAZING FORTITUDE

Man Trapped At Bottom Of Well DEATH BEFORE RESCUE NEW YORK, May 10. After being trapped in p slide of earth at the bottom of a narrow well 18ft below the surface at a Brooklyn garage for 26 hours, Dominick Atteo, aged 45, died five minutes before rescuers extricated his body. ( - Atteo showed amazing courage during his ordeal.* His wife, mother, and his six children knelt at the edge of the hole and shouted encouragement to him. After being trapped for 19 hours, Atteo shouted up: “I’m OK. Tell my wife to go home and get some sleep.” Atteo’s wife later collapsed in hysterics and was led away. Atteo and two sons .had been digging the well for water to wash cars during New York’s shortage when the fall occurred. Atteo was seriously burned several hours after he was trapped, when one of his sons lowered him a lighted cigarette in a can. Oxygen being fed to Atteo ignited, exploded, and set the helpless man’s clothes on fire. Rescue workers poured tins of water down the shaft, then a doctor was lowered to put oil on Atteo’s burns and give him a hypodermic. Atteo suffered bad burns and shock. For hours, he had been desperately trying to scoop ajyay imprisoning dirt and rock with his hands. Earlier >he joked with his rescuers, game them directions, drank a cup of coffee sent down to him, but later he became exhausted. A steel oil drum with the ends knocked out was lowered around Atteo’s shoulders for protection. A rope was tied under his arms to prevent him sinking. Police, suspended in turn from lifebelts, risked death to dig earth away from Atteo. They later abandoned direct rescue efforts, and, working in the glare of searchlights before dawn today, started digging a tunnel from 30ft away. Rescuers had to dig about Bft under Atteo so as not to start a new cave-in of earth. Rescuers reached Atteo 25 hours after he was trapped, and found him alive. Atteo groaned with pain, and the police gave him oxygen. As the rescuers began removing the protective shoring Atteo became more and more excited, and he died five minutes before he was extricated.