TERRIBLE ACCIDENT.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1204, 17 November 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

TERRIBLE ACCIDENT.

The “Bendigo Advertiser” gives the following account of a terrible mining accident that occurred on Friday evening last at Lansell’s No. 180 claim, Victoria Reef :—“ A miner, aged 23, named Wm. Clemens, was working in the 2560-feet level, and an extra truck being required from the surface he signalled to the engine-driver. The empty cage was then raised from a lower level and stopped at the 1560feet level. Clemens then stepped on it, and, giving the usual signal, the driver started the engine and commenced the journey up the shaft. When the cage had ascended more than half the total depth of the shaft • —past the balance, as it is called —the descending cage with its weight was beginning to bo in itself sufficient to raise the ascending cage in which Clemens was standing. James Eller, the driver, went as usual to the engine to shut off steam, but he found he could not • ■ utrol the engine, and the speed of t,.0 ascent of the cage in which Clemens was standing was accelerated by the increasing weight of the descending cage with its great length of wire rope, besides the full strength of the powerful machinery being at the time wholly concentrated in bringing up the cage, now literally flashing up the shaft. The driver persisted in his efforts to reverse the engine, but without success, and in a few more seconds the ascending cage appeared above the brace on the surface, and then, with terrific speed, was almost instantaneously dashed to the top of the poppet heads. In a second the sto it double chain connecting the hook of the cage and the rope was snapped through, and the cage with its doomed occupant was seen to descend almost as it had been raised. Cage and man went crashing down the shaft to the 1660 feet level. The grippers on the cage, which was one of Webb’s patent safety, appeared to catch for an instant before the cage descended below the brace, and subsequently it was discovered, owing to marks on the woodwork, that the grippers had momentarily caught at intervals along the skids, but not with sufficient grip to arrest or even materially slacken the descent of the cage. The velocity of the descending cage increased with every foot below the brace. At the 1,590-feet plat there were doors across the shaft, and the cage crashed through them, continuing its descent until the 1,660-feet plat was reached, where a pent-house is erected. Here there is also a cistern or well; about 16 or 17 feet deep in which there was five feet of water. Into this the cage and man dashed; its further descent to the bottom of the shaft being prevented through the cage being caught in the cistern. At the bottom of the shaft, 1175 feet from the surface, men were engaged in sinking, and one of them, William Wright, who was engaged at the crab-winch, heard the crash, and supposing that an accident had happened, ascended to the 16G0 feet plat, where he found Clement lying in the cage, just out of the water. He was just alive, and groaned once or twice when Wright spoke to him, but died in a few minutes. He was soon afterwards raised to the surface and laid in the engine-room, no medical man being called, as he was unmistakably dead.