DREADFUL MINE TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2848, 19 February 1925, Page 3

DREADFUL MINE TRAGEDY.

San Francisco. Fell. 3. At Louisville, Kentucky, Floyd Collins, aged 35, was caught by a cave-in 300 ifeet from the surface of a granite quarry, and one leg was (irmly held by the rocks. Rescuers squirmed their way in, feeding him with sandwiches and coffee. A t noon, after he had suflereil this torture for 70 hours, he begged bis friends to tie a rope round his shoulders and drag him out by force, unmindful of whether bis leg was pulled off. Collins’ brothers finally offered £IOO reward if auy surgeon would crawl in and amputate I lie leg. Finally a doctor was obtained and lowered SO feet in a basket. He squirmed on his stomach to where Collins’ head emerged from the •constantly falling gravel. He was too far gone however, and perished while the doctor was working over him. RECOVERY OF THE BODY. New York, February 10. A message from Cave City, Kentucky, stales that after being imprisoned in a cave for seventeen days, the body of Floyd Collins, a local explorer, was reached by rescuers to-day. Collins was trapped oo December. 31, when a boulder fell, pinning- him by the foot. The victim was discovered two days latef, and thereupon his relatives and friends supplied him with food and water and installed electric wires, placing lamps about the body to provide heat. Frenzied attempts at rescue were rendered extremely diflicult owing to the narrowness of the passage, which was only wide enough for one person, necessitating scooping of the earth and stone and passing it back from man to man to the entrance. However, at the end of live days, the exhausted rescuers had reached Collins and were just ready to prepare to remove him when rocks and earth fell I between them and the injured man, railing- him off entirely and rendevii »• further efforts at release through the passage useless.

Interest in the prisoner now rose [o fever heat. The Governor of Kentucky, with State and Federal officials and engineers, assumed the direction of rescue work while thousands of miners and curiosityseekers gathered about the spot,

end doctors waited with an ambulance. The engineers were compelled lo sink a 70-foot shaft from the surface of the hill over the cave. This task, owing to continual obstacles, such as rock formation, (hods and landslides, occupied ten days, during which time Collins was without food or water. Radio tests proved he was still breathing several days after be was last seen, bul these ultimately failed. Owing to (lie continued delays and the excitement of the populace, the wildest storigs came to he circulated, one claiming that the whole imprisonment was faked to get publicity. This was quiekely disposed of when (Ik resellers reached Collins. He bad been dead for some days.