Eight persons, seven of them injured in auto accidents and the other burned when a blow-torch exploded, were carried to the Concord Hospital for treatment Monday. All will recover unless complications set in, hospital attaches report.
Six of those hurt in auto accidents were occupants of Ford which collided with a Cadillac near Newells Monday afternoon. In this car were Mr. and Mrs. Will Coleman, their daughter, Mrs. Horace Wilson, the latter’s daughter, Fay, Carl Coleman and a Mr. Privett. Another Coleman boy in the car escaped without injury. They are all from Spartanburg, S.C.
John Henry, a negro, was driving the Cadillac when the accident occurred, and Charlotte reports state that he was arrested. The negro was en route to Thomasville where the Cadillac was to be delivered, it was reported here.
All of the occupants of the Coleman car except one boy were either cut by broken glass or bruised. In addition to being cut, Mr. Coleman suffered a dislocated thumb. The boy who escaped injury had been a student at the Jackson Training School hee and was en route home with his family who had come for him. The injured persons will leave the hospital this afternoon.
The collision occurred, officers here have been advised, when several cars attempted to pay one another at the same time at appoint just north of Newells. A passerby brought the injured people into Concord.
Fred Queen of the Magnolia Cotton Mills of Charlotte was the other person hurt in an auto accident. Mr. Queen was struck by a tourist passing through Kannapolis Monday afternoon. It is reported here that he stepped from behind one car into the path of the tourist’s car.
At the hospital this morning it was stated that he suffered a painful scalp wound and injuries to his back. His condition is not considered serious.
R. T. Misenheimer, driver of a truck for Bob’s Dry Cleaning plant, was the other accident victim carried to the hospital Monday afternoon. He was painfully burned on his face, head, neck and one arm when a blowtorch being used by mechanics at the Corl Motor Company exploded and threw burning gasoline on him.
The mechanics were using the torch, of a gallon and a half capacity, in an attempt to straighten the frame of an automobile. Due to a desire to secure better light for the work, they moved the torch to the rear of their shop, intending to move the car there later.
When the torch was place in the open, it began to burn all over and one of the mechanics tried to extinguish it with a fire extinguisher. Mr. Misenheimer, who was in the Bob’s plant nearby, seized an extinguisher there and went to the mechanic’s assistance. Soon after he reached the torch it exploded, knocking Mr. Misenheimer about 20 feet and igniting his clothing and hair. He was rushed to the hospital where it is reported his burns are very painful but not serious.
The explosion rocked nearby buildings, stopping clocks and overturning chairs. People rushed into the streets in an effort to locate the cause of the noise and shock.
Gasoline was thrown 30 feet in the air, igniting a tree in the rear of the Corl shop. In some strange fashion, the mechanics were not injured, the flying gasoline missing them.
It is probable that the entire rear part of the shop would have been ruined had the torch exploded on the inside of the building.
Editor’s Note: The old gasoline-fired “vaporizing” blowtorch, sometimes called a plumber’s torch or a soldering torch, was common through the 1930s. they were filled with liquid gasoline, you pumped air into the tank, the gasoline had to be vaporized, and the whole tank got hot during use. If the vapor leaks, it can cause the torch to “burn all over.” Spraying a fire extinguisher on a heated gasoline tank can cool it unevenly and if the tank ruptures, the gasoline becomes a fireball—a fuel-air cloud. That’s why gasoline shot 30 feet in the air and ignited a tree. Aren’t you glad we have safe torches now?
You might know that today’s cars are usually totaled if they have a bent frame, because unibody construction means the body is the frame. In 1926 cars had body-on-frame construction—a simple ladder frame made of thick steel rails. Mechanics routinely heated the frame with torches, used jacks, chains, and winches to bend the steel back into shape, hammered out distortions, and repaired cracks by welding. The work being done on the car was normal by 1926 standards. Thanks, to Copilot for explaining this.
From page 2 of the Concord Daily Tribune, Sept. 14, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-09-14/ed-1/seq-2/
