MFDJ 12/23/23: Workman’s Drop

Today’s Work-Related Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Two victims of work-related falls at Grand Canyon include accidents while working near the edge. Philo Anderson became entangled in a rope while lowering a section of pipe on November 24, 1927. He fell 300 feet off the North Rim. Months later, on June 12, 1928, Lane McDaniels, age 42, was working on the partially constructed Navajo Bridge at River Mile 4. Despite this being the tallest steel bridge in the world at this time, the supervisors vetoed rigging safety netting under the bridge because they were sure that hot rivets dropping by accident might ignite it. McDaniels, unfortunately, missed his footing on a scaffold. He fell. And there being no net, he plummeted about 470 feet into the Colorado River. His fellow workers stared down in horror. They said that, upon impact, McDaniels’ body seemed to “burst and flatten out” on the surface of the water. Four steelworkers quit after McDaniels’ death, not from fear of falling, but from the dismal prospect of being swallowed up by the turbulent waters of the Colorado if they did fall, with no hope that their bodies would ever be recovered.

Navajo Bridge under construction

Culled from: Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon

Ghastly!

One of my favorite books is Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook.  It is exactly what it says it is: a bizarre and oft-disturbing scrapbook collected over the years by Los Angeles area police detective Jack Huddleston, whose career spanned from 1921 to the early 1950’s.

Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!

This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).

Here’s today’s entry:

September 11th.  There is a beautiful harvest moon shining down upon us. I wonder if dear friends at home are looking at it also and thinking of me. Ten detachments left to-night. Nearly all the 21st boys have left, Miller among the number. How homesick it makes a fellow feel to see all his friends leaving him in a place like this.

Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost