On October 12, 1935, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck near East Helena, Montana, causing widespread damage and marking the beginning of an earthquake swarm.
Some seventy-plus years later, I
entered a classroom in Knoxville, Tennessee, while attending training related
to my role as an apprenticeship instructor. Upon entering the classroom, I
noticed the image of a man balancing on his head atop a structure high above
the ground on the computer screen of another attendee. It was only my second
day of the class, and I didn’t really know the man, but the photograph
intrigued me. I asked, “Where is that photograph from?”
“That was taken at a smelter in East
Helena, Montana.”
“What? No kidding?” I couldn’t
contain my shock. “That’s my hometown!”
We introduced ourselves. The
gentleman with the photograph, it turned out, was a lineman instructor from
Montana. His image brought us back to the earthquake swarms of 1935. The
tremors had damaged the top section of one of the smokestacks at the plant. Not
long after, brick masons repaired it, and metal rings were installed around the
structure. In the image, one of the masons is performing a headstand on the
edge of a platform constructed around the stack. If you look closely, you can
see the Sleeping Giant far across the open valley in the background on the
left.
That headstand, while making for an
intriguing photograph, is a breathtakingly bad idea. It represents the
completely unnecessary risks posed by horseplay at the job site. I now share
this photograph in several of the safety classes I teach.
—Mitchell Hegman
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