Today’s Restless Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Eddie Merle Watson was the son of famed musician Doc Watson and was an accomplished singer and guitarist in his own right, playing country, bluegrass, blues and folk music. North Carolina’s Merlefest, one of the biggest folk-music festivals in the world, is named for him.
On October 22, 1985, Watson was restless and unable to fall asleep. To kill some time, he went to his basement workroom and began cutting up some wood paneling he intended to install. The saw snagged on a knot in the wood, and a large splinter flew off and lodged in the muscle of Watson’s upper arm.
Bleeding profusely, Watson got on his farm tractor and set out to find a neighbor to help him. He spotted a light on in a house at the top of a steep hill and managed to get his tractor up the incline. The couple in the house helped him remove the splinter and bandaged his injury, and Watson thanked them and left to go back home. He was now very tired and weak from excitement and loss of blood, and as he drove his tractor back down the hill, his brakes locked and the tractor plunged down over an embankment.
Watson was thrown clear but the tractor then landed on him, killing him instantly. He was 36.
Culled from: Here
Submitted by: Aimee
Foreshadowing Du Jour
The following is culled from Strange Days Dangerous Nights: Photos From the Speed Graphic Era.
One fireman in this photograph is about to die, and that is what makes it an unusually haunting image. The year is 1942 and the scene is Cedar Street, St. Paul, Minnesota where on a bitterly cold January afternoon firemen are battling a blaze that enveloped a two-story building next to the St. Paul Athletic Club (now the University Club). Because the club was literally next door to the Pioneer Press and Dispatch building, a photographer was quickly on the scene and snapped this close-up of fire fighters working to douse the stubborn, smoky fire.
As this photograph was taken, smoke was already pouring into the Athletic Club through second-floor doors that linked it directly to the smaller building. There were fire doors to prevent just such a situation, but they were open. Worried that heavy smoke in the club might make it impossible to rescue anyone trapped on the upper floors, four firemen decided to go up to the second floor and shut the fire doors. Among them was Captain Thomas Kell, who stands to the right of the ladder.
Kell and two of the other firemen – District Chief Frank Minogue and Russell Hunt – were overcome by smoke and fumes as they groped their way toward the doors. They died before rescuers could reach them. For the St. Paul Fire Department, it was the worst loss of life since 1900, when five firemen had died in a blazing warehouse in the Midway are.