OBIT: Michael KEARNEY, 1880, Johnstown, Cambria County, PA

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A LARGE FLY WHEEL BURSTS IN JOHNSTOWN.
Engineer of the Gautier Steel Works Killed.

  The Gautier steel works, of Johnstown, was the scene of a horrible 
and fatal accident early yesterday morning, the victim being Michael 
Kearney, an old and respected citizen of Conemaugh borough.  The works 
had just been started for the day, and Mr. Kearney was standing at his 
post, when the belt pulley burst, huge pieces of the iron of which it 
was constructed flying off the swiftly revolving shaft, dealing 
destruction to everything with which it came in contact.  A flying 
piece of iron struck and severed a six-inch steam pipe which ran from 
one part of the works to another, and the building in the vicinity of 
the engine was very soon filled with steam, which for a time rendered 
all objects there invisible.  The work of destruction was accomplished 
in a moment, and when search was made Mr. Kearney was found, lying on 
his back in the pit of the main driving pulley, a broken, bleeding, 
mangled corpse.  The body was immediately removed, to await the arrival 
of relatives of the deceased, by whose direction it was prepared for 
the grave before being taken to the home of the stricken widow and her 
children.  A careful examination of the body was made by Mr. Larry 
Furlong and Mr. James, and it was found that a great hole had been torn 
in the victim's stomach, from which the entrails protruded; that his 
left collar-bone was broken and the left arm nearly severed from the 
shoulder, and that both legs were fractured, the left at the ankle and 
the right at the knee.  The face was not disfigured in the least, 
though the lobes of both ears were nearly torn off.  The belt-pulley 
which burst was eleven feet in diameter and weighed several tons.  It 
was cast in two pieces, which were securely bolted together, and was 
believed to be perfectly sound.  It is thought that the first piece 
which flew off struck Mr. Kearney in the stomach, and that the other 
injuries to his person resulted from being hurled into the pit where 
the body was found.  This pit is a considerable distance away from 
where he was standing at the time of the accident.  Beside the piece of 
iron which severed the steam pipe, as noted above, other portions of 
the pulley flew against the main driving pulley, breaking a great piece 
out of its broad rim, and also wrecking a smaller "driven" pulley close 
by.  A piece of iron which would weigh at least a quarter of a ton was 
thrown a distance of nearly one hundred and fifty feet, passing through 
the side of the steel works and through the narrow frame boiler-house 
in the rear of the main building, on the bank of the Conemaugh river.  
Mr. Fisher, a fireman in the boiler-room, was struck in the loin by a 
piece of board and painfully, though not seriously, injured.

Morning Tribune, Altoona, Pa., Friday, May 7, 1880