Thursday, August 07, 2003 :::
Right Arm Slightly Mashed: or, I've Been Working on the Railroad
Today I was at the archives going through annual reports of railroad companies from the 1880's looking for reports about a specific company I'm getting paid to research. I found a few job related things. As always, I found some slightly bizarre and sick stuff.
Some of the annual reports had lists of accidents on the railroad. One in particular from 1886, whoever filled out the reports sure did like the word "mashed." People had their "right arm mashed, braking both bones," also "foot mashed," and "right arm slightly mashed." Somone else had their "foot badly mashed" and one unlucky soul had their "end of index finger mashed off."
On December 19, 1887, an unfortunate tramp "was on a gondola loaded with logs, stealing a ride, and the logs shifted, catching his head. Head mashed, killed him."
Last Listened To:
Led Zeppelin, The BBC Sessions.
::: posted by tom at 1:34 PM
