Robert Long, 26, Beardstown man and lineman for Central Illinois Public Service company, was electrocuted at Bluffs, Thursday shortly after noon when he became entangled in wires.
The Jacksonville fire department was called to the scene to use its respirator.
Attempts to revive Long were continued almost four hours after he was cut down from the entanglement of wires which held him to the pole 15 feet above the ground. At 4 o’clock a Bluffs physician pronounced him dead.
Long’s death was directly connected with the collapse of the Bluffs city hall. The front end of the two story brick structure fell in at noon, just a few moments after repair workers had left the building.
Contractor Donald Korte of Exter and his crew, Cliff Jones, Clyde Van Hyning and Moxie Crews, had begun bracing operations on the interior of the 90x24 building during the forenoon. The rear wall has been in a dangerous condition for years and its bulge outward had been progressively worse.
The four men had left the building for lunch just a moment before the front half crashed in.
Korte was in his recently purchased 1950 Ford station wagon which was parked in front of the building. He fell to the floor and was unhurt when the bricks rained down on the station wagon and completely smashed it.
Long, who has been the principal Central Illinois Public Service company employee in the Bluffs district since he joined the company in 1946, had just finished his lunch when he was called to the scene of the city hall cave-in, on Route 100, a block south of the Wabash tracks. The cascading debris had torn out some of the lower wires of the high line which runs in front of the building. Some of the wires were hot and dangerous.
Long rushed to the scene and climbed the pole north of the wrecked building. He cut the wires there, climbed down and ascended the second pole, slightly to the south of the city hall and in front of the James P. Monta residence.
Witnesses said Long appeared to be throwing his safety belt around the pole when he suddenly lurched backwards. As he fell, one foot became enmeshed in a lower group of wires, approximately 15 feet above the ground. The same witnesses said Long “moaned once or twice” as he hung head downward.
George A. Buck of Beardstown was there with a truckload of limestone. He backed the truck up to the post and volunteers brought a ladder and a rope. One end of the rope was looped over an insulator and attached to Long’s body, then he was freed from the entangling wires which held him and lowered to the ground.
The quiet body was placed on a mattress under the canopy of the Monta home and artificial respiration begun. State Highway Patrolman Charles Batley was contacted by radio as he was touring Route 36, three miles east of Jacksonville. Batley raced to the Jacksonville city hall, where alerted firemen were ready with Jacksonville’s oxygen resuscitation unit.
Efforts to revive Long were hampered by the twin facts that he had just completed his lunch and had been suspended head downward for at least 10 minutes. Food particles often obstructed his larynx and the oxygen mask.
Principals in the dangerous task of bringing Long’s body to earth included Buck, John and Richard Arnold, Luther Vortman, Harry Thompson and Bob Bingham.
Current Obituaries in the Astoria South Fulton Argus