MFDJ 07/02/24: Explosion in the Tunnel

Today’s Ignited Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

On the afternoon of Saturday, December 11, 1971, an explosion ripped through a water intake tunnel under construction about 230 feet (69m) below the surface of Lake Huron near Port Huron, Michigan. The force of the blast was so immense that it ripped the 48-inch (120cm) corrugated metal air ducts to shreds, leaving a contorted mass of debris blocking the passageway and cutting off any escape for some of the workers further in the tunnel. Luckily, Eldon Bright was working near the elevator shaft and was one of the first to be lifted to safety. “You couldn’t see because all the lights were knocked out. I don’t know, maybe about 28 guys were trapped at the other end… Sure they will bring them up eventually, but a lot of them are going to be dead.”

It took rescue crews until 7 p.m. to reach the trapped men. Twice the rescuers had to be evacuated because of dangerous levels of methane gas. Ambulance worker Daniel Eastwood described the scene: “When we found men alive, we bandaged them, tied them to a stretcher and then moved on… They would cry for us not to leave…” Some 40 workers were in the tunnel at the time of the blast; 21 were killed and 9 injured.


Rescue workers bring a worker out on a stretcher

Investigations proved inconclusive but many believe that a crew working on the Lake Huron end of the tunnel five miles (8km) away set off the blast when they were drilling a ventilation shaft. Investigator Lindsay Hayes contended that a large drill bit broke loose, fell into the tunnel and set off sparks that ignited the methane gas.


The blast created a shock wave with a speed of 4,000 miles an hour and a force of 15,000 pounds per square inch.

The water tunnel, which was designed to carry fresh drinking water from Lake Huron to Detroit, was completed in 1974 and is capable of pumping 800 million gallons of water per day.

Culled from: Disaster Great Lakes

 

Civil War Injury Du Jour!

Surgeon General’s Office
Army Medical Museum

Photograph No. 196 and 197.  Case of successful primary amputation at the hip-joint.

Private James E. Kelley, B., 56th Pennsylvania, age twenty-eight, was wounded at about 9:00 in the morning of April 29, 1863, in a skirmish of the 1st Division, 1st Corps, on the Rappahannock, nearly opposite the “Pratte House” below Fredericksburg. A conoidal musket ball fired from a distance of about three hundred yards shattered his left femur. A consultation of the senior surgeons of the brigades decided that ex-articulation of the femur was expedient and the operation was performed at 4:00 in the afternoon at the “Fitzhugh House” by surgeon Edward Shippen, U.S. V., and the amputation was accomplished with slight loss of blood. The patient was, at first, placed in a hospital tent, was transferred May 22 to the Corps Hospital, progressing favorably. By May 28 all the ligatures had been removed. On June 15, 1863, the patient was captured by the enemy and removed to the Libby Prison in Richmond. Up to this date there had been no adverse symptoms. On July 14, Kelley was exchanged and sent to the Annapolis, U.S.A., General Hospital. On his admission he was much exhausted by profuse diarrhea. The internal portion of the wound had united but the external portion was gangrenous. Applications of bromine were made to the sloughing surface without amelioration. A chlorinated soda solution was substituted, and in the latter part  of July there was a healthy granulating surface. On December 23, 1863, the wound had entirely healed and Kelley visited Washington and obtained an honorable discharge from service and a pension. At this date, the picture from which the photograph was taken was drawn by Hospital Steward Stauch, U.S.A., one of the artists of the Army Medical Museum. Kelley then went to his home, near Black Lake P.O., Indiana County, Pennsylvania. A letter dated January 12, 1865, was received from him at this office and represented him as as in excellent health and spirits at the time. In the spring of 1868, Kelley went to New York and had an artificial limb adapted by Dr. E.D. Hudson. At that time the photograph was taken. He could walk quite well after the adaptation of the artificial limb. This specimen is preserved at the Army Medical Museum and is number 1148 of the surgical section. Kelley’s disability was rated March 4, 1874, as total, second grade. There was nothing additional recorded at the pension office at the above date.

Culled from: Orthopaedic Injuries of the Civil War 

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