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Image / Sylmar water district tunnel survivor

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Title
Sylmar water district tunnel survivor
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection
Creator
Messinger, Joe
Date Created and/or Issued
1971
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.
Ralph Brissette, 33, of Pacoima, who had been loading slag onto cars at the rear of the work area, was knocked down when a pocket of natural gas exploded in the midst of a crew of workers drilling a Metropolitan Water District tunnel 250 feet beneath Sylmar. He was able to stagger, semiconscious, toward the east portal more than four miles away, and was rescued by two Lockheed workers, John Wallace and John Rathburn, who were 300 feet from the site when they heard Brisette's shout for help. They found Brissette, put him on a car and headed for the Gate Shaft. A steel basket lowered by a crane was waiting at the bottom of the shaft, and Brissette was lifted from the concrete-lined opening, placed in an ambulance, and taken to Pacoima Lutheran Hospital.
Ralph Brissette is checked over by Charles Cooper, head of the inhalation therapy department at Pacoima Lutheran Hospital. Looking on are Brissette's brother, Ralph Brissette Jr., and sister-in-law, Bernice. Photograph dated June 24, 1971.
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;17 x 25 cm. on sheet 21 x 26 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00095547
Herald Examiner Collection
HE box 9475
CARL0005107095
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/30076
Subject
Pacoima Lutheran Hospital (Pacoima, Los Angeles, Calif.)
Patients--California--Los Angeles
Physicians--California--Los Angeles
Men--California--Los Angeles
Hospitals--California--Pacoima (Los Angeles)
Pacoima (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Sylmar (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner photographs
Herald-Examiner Collection photographs

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