Fourteen Men Hurled Into River When Span Collapses. The Story Was Published in the Ironton Tribune Newspaper on Wednesday, December 1926, On the Front Page
Five men were drowned and three injured, one of them fatally, this morning when the center span of the Midland and Atlantic bridge being constructed across the Big Sandy River between Kenova, West Virginia, and Catlettsburg, Ky., collapsed and plunged into the stream.
Fourteen workmen were on the span, the third from the Ohio side on the four-span bridge when the great steel girders snapped at the pier, and the workmen were hurled into the icy waters of the Big Sandy river, swollen by the continuous rains of the past three days.
The workmen were engaged at the time in bracing false work of the bridge, some being on top of the bridge and some on the falsework beneath. Nine of them came to the surface and grasped parts of the floating timber of the false work as they were swept down stream by the swift current.
Two succeeded in swimming to safety, one swimming across the stream’s West Virginia side. The remaining seven clung to the timbers and were rescued by employees of Dam No. 1, half a mile below the bridge, who put out in hastily launched boats. Among the men rescued was C. C. Davidson of South Point, a brother of A. O. Davidson of Davidson and Massie of this city.
The three injured men were
- John Swan, Carnegie, Penn.
- Ed Probst, Columbus, Oh.
- L. C. Elder, of Gladys, W. V. These men were rushed to an Ashland, Ky., hospital where Elder died shortly after noon.
The five men who drowned were:
- H. W. Overstreet, Glasgow, Mo.
- A. Campbell, Nolanville, Tex.
- Clarence Goodwin, Alton, Ill.
- P. E. Carter, Rairden, Oh.
- B. Flack, of Huntington, W. Va.
None of the bodies have been recovered at noon today. Those who drowned and were injured were all structural ironworkers.
The new bridge was being constructed by the Mount Vernon Bridge Company, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, for the Midland and Atlantic Bridge Company. This company was headed by John C. C. Mayo, Jr., Alexander Cameron, and W. H. Dawkins, all of Ashland, Ky. Work on the bridge was started about five months ago and was about three-fourths completed. The work was in charge of C. S. Ewen, general foreman of the construction company.
The bridge site is about half a mile above Dam No. 1 and three-quarters of a mile above the point where the Big Sandy empties into the Ohio river.
The bridge construction is of steel on concrete piers. Two spans leading from the Ohio side had been completed, and the third span had been pushed out to a point where it was about ready to be connected with the other pier. It was this span that crashed.
The river had been rising steadily from continuous rains, and the workmen this morning started bracing and strengthening the falsework supporting the span. At 8:10 o’clock this morning, the big steel girders connecting the span to the pier snapped without warning. Workmen expressed that the rapidly rising waters and swift current had weakened the falsework and placed too great a strain on the unfinished span. Searching parties this afternoon were still seeking the bodies of the missing men.
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