History: Logging accident - Lyman Moffatt 1874
Contact: Vickie

----Source: The Clark County Press Date: Friday, 2-12-1874

Another Fatal Accident in the Woods.

Another of those accidents, of which we have recorded as many this winter, occurred in Parker & Kimball’s camp, in town 29, last Monday. A young man named Lyman Muffatt, brother of A. R. Moffatt, of this place, was struck on the head by a falling limb, and, it is feared, fatally injured. The missile was a dry pine limb, about three inches through and seven feet long. It fell from near the top of a large pine tree, and struck him endwise a little to one side and back of the crown of his head, crumbing his skull in the most terrible manner. He was brought to this place at once and all surgical assistance possible rendered, but, it is feared, in vain. A place in the skull some two or three inches square was found to be completely shivered, and a fracture extended in one place nearly across the back of the head. The skull was of course driven into the brain, but not so bad as might have been expected from the nature of the blow. The surgeions removed all the loose pieces of the skull, fifteen in number, and left the wound in the best shape possible, but the patient still lies unconscious, with hardly a hope of recovery. Mr. Moffatt is a young man of 29 years of age, unmarried, who came from the eastern part of the state to find employment in the pinery this winter. He was an industrious and exemplary young man, whose misfortune meets with general sympathy.