A CLIMBING FEAT.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12772, 20 April 1910, Page 1

A CLIMBING FEAT.

An extraordinary feat performed by I two workmen, David McWhirter and | William McLelland, to whom the King has awarded the Edward medal of the Eirst Class,- is recorded in a recent "London Gazette." Two steeplejacks were engaged in fixing new lightning, conductors to a chimney ,about 180 feet high, at the Coltness Iron Works, Newmains, Lanarkshire. The two steeplejacks, who were at the top of the chimney on a scaffold consisting of two planks, about nine inches broad, were affected by the gas fumes from the chimney and one of them became unconscious and fell on the soaifold. The other, after tying his mate to the scaffold by a rope, was able to descend by a ladder to the ground, and received medical attention. . ' There was not time to obtain the assistance of regular steepCejacks to (■„«> to .the aid of the man on the scaff)ld, and McWhirter and McLelland, *ho were employed at the ironworks, volunteered. I They both ascended the ladder got on to the narrow scaffold, and succeeden in placing -the unconscious man in ■ the "boatswain's chair" used by the steeplejacks, and in lowering him safely to the ground. Neither of them had previously had experience of climbing chimneys.