ANR | Descent Into a Caisson,

New York World
August 8 1898, p. 1

FOR THE WORLD MRS. MILLER WRITES OF HER EXPERIENCE IN A CAISSON.

Tortures She Endured in Her Novel Trip Under the River Bed.

"To the Editor of The World:
"You ask me to tell about my trip to the bottom of one of the caissons of the new East River Bridge, my sensations when I was in the air chamber, what I thought when I was told I was eighty feet beneath the surface of the East River, and what it was that prompted me to make the trip.
"I will answer the last question first. My husband is employed on the work--not down in the caisson, but up above, where he tends one of the locks. Boarding with me are ten of the men who make their living by working in the caisson. I had fourteen of them until about a month ago, when some of them went to Santiago to build docks for the Government.
"Therefore, I had ample opportunity of knowing what a fearful drain this work is on the strength of a man. I saw the strongest of them return to my house, after a few hours in that fearful place, almost dead and racked by fearful pains. Many of them were unable to walk up the stairs.

Where Strong Men Are Killed
"I have known men to die from the malady the doctors call 'caisson disease,' which to me seems to be simply an aweful kind of paralysis.
"I could not understand this. I was unable to make clear to myself why it was that air should have such a terrible effect on the men. They had described it to me again and again, but yet I felt I had no conception of it. The more I thought about it the greater was my desire to go into the caisson and find out for myself just what the conditions were.
"All the men tried to dissuade me. My husband ordered me not to attempt the trip.
"But it was no use. I had made up my mind to learn about it and there was nothing for me but to go. So one afternoon about 5 o'clock I made ready. I had asked Mr. Cummings, one of the men, if he would take me, and, when he saw I was determined, he agreed. I put up some lunch so I could say I was bringing it to the men rather than have them come home for it. This was an excuse to be allowed to descend.
"So away I went. When we got to the foot of North Fifth street, where the caisson is, Mr. Cummings and I go on the elevator to go down to the air-lock. I had the lunch basket in my hand and made some remark about it. When we got to the air-lock Mr. O'Malley, the lock tender, looked amazed when I said I wanted to go further. But I told him I was determined to go, and he opened the door for me.

Awful Pains in Her Head
"Then I found myself in the small air-lock, the door of which was closed after me, and the air began to pour in through the valve.
"But before he turned on the air Mr. Cummings took time to warn me that if I felt any pain to let him know at once, when he would take me out. He said I must be careful about this, for my ear drums might be ruptured and I would never hear again. He told me to clear my nose frequently. When I had promised to do all this he seemed to be more at his ease, and then the air, which he had turned on, began to make its way in at full force.
"It was the most peculiar sensation I had ever experienced. The only way I can describe it is that it felt as if some one had hit me on one side of the head with an immense hammer and that immediately afterward some one else on the other side had done the same thing. Then it was as if the men had seized me on either side of the head and were trying to pull it apart. It was somewhat difficult to breathe, the grinding noise was something awful, and there were those hammers hitting me constantly on the head. Oh, how my head did ache!
"But, although my feelings were much worse than I can describe, I did not say a word to Mr. Cummings, for I knew if I did he would at once take me out, and that, I was determined, he should not do until he had to carry me out. For I was that far, and nothing was to make me go away until my curiosity - I suppose I may call it that - had been satisfied.

Would Not Turn Back
"But it was only in a remote sort of a way that I remembered his warnings. I had forgotten all about the fact that I might be made deaf; I didn't think that my heart might not be strong enough to stand the strain. I do remember that I wondered what my husband would think if he could see me there. I had seen him when I was stepping on the elevator, but he did not suspect that I was going into the caisson.
"I was brought to myself by Mr. Cummings saying something to me. And how strange and queer the sound of his voice was! It was very, very loud, and yet it had a peculiarly hollow sound. It startled me so that, although I was sure Mr. Cummings alone was with me and the place was brilliantly illuminated by electricity, I looked around to see who had spoken.
"I answered him, and it did not seem to me I had spoken, for I could not hear my own voice. So I repeated my reply in a much louder tone. Mr. Cummings has been laughing at me ever since, saying I yelled so loud that I might have been heard several blocks away.
"Considering that I see every day what fearful effects the working in a caisson has, and that the pain was like nothing I had ever known before, it strikes me as strange now that I did not ask him then to take me away. But I saw him there; I knew others were in a worse place below, and I simply gritted my teeth and told myself that wherever any person could go I could.
"And just as it seemed as if my head must go off, Mr. Cummings said to me that the pressure of the air was thirty eight pounds, and that all was ready for me to go into the air chamber. He pulled open a little round door at the side of the air lock, told me there was a ladder for me to step on, and I crawled through the door and on to the first round of the ladder. This surprised me, for all the time I was in the air lock I imagined it was constructed like an elevator and that it was descending to the bottom of the caisson. I suppose this idea came from the fearful pain.
"It seemed like an eternity to me to get to the bottom of that ladder, and yet it is only twenty feet long. When I got to the bottom I found myself in the large air chamber in which the men were working.
"And weren't they a surprised lot of men when they saw me! Some of them ran up to me, shook me by the hands and told me I was a brave woman to do such a thing. And when one of them said I was at the bottom of the caisson, and eighty feet below the surface, I had no sensation of fear, but rather felt a little bit proud.
"And now there was something else to torture me. It was the intense heat. I have been told that the thermometer registered 110 degrees there that day, and I don't think it was half enough. Why, it seemed as though I were breathing solid chunks of heat, and this, with my other pains, was something awful.

Too Weak to Walk
"There were the men working on the bed of the river, all of them stripped to the waist, and each wearing heavy rubber boots. And the perspiration was dripping from them in streams almost. Why, one of them told me that when he dragged off those big boots he often found them filled with water. And I almost forgot my own distress in looking at these poor fellows and thinking of their awful life.
"I remained in that chamber looking around for about twenty minutes, and it seemed to me that the hammering in my head was not quite as vicious as it had been. But I suppose it was only that I was becoming a little bit used and reconciled to it. Just as I was about to leave I saw a man hurl a piece of rock to one side. It was small and it came to me I should have it as a souvernir of my trip. I have it now, and I intend to have some inscription put on it to remind me of the event.
"But my greatest surprise was to come. When I started to ascend that ladder I found my legs were hardly of any use to me. Then I realized why it was the men had come staggering into the house after a two hours' stay in the caisson. I had been down there about a quarter of an hour and I was hardly able to support my own weight. I would never have got up that ladder if I had not been assisted. I was never so fatigued, so utterly fagged out, in my life before.
"But I reached the air-lock all right and then the air was turned off gradually. When the pressure had been reduced to the normal it left me with a splitting headache, a painful earache, with that horrible drumming sound still ringing in the ears and what was like a bad attack of neuralgia. I was somewhat dizzy. There was very little nausea, but I had no appetite for several days. Even now occasionally I have that headache and that drumming sound comes back, but I say little about if for I will get no sypathy. My husband scolded me for doing it.
"I have been asked if I would go into the caisson again. Let me say it would be the biggest kind of an inducement that would get me into that awful place once more.
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Transcribed by Chelsea DeWeese, University of New Hampshire