Worker crushed by clamshell shovel bucket
What happened on March 10, 1928 was unclear for several days after the accident.
While thawing the gravel, the men were instructed to work in a specific area to reduce the risk of the bucket coming down upon them — at least that is how the information was initially reported. The original newspaper article about Szolonyik’s death also stated that he appeared to have wandered off to the place where the clam was digging and was crushed when its bucket was dropped.
Five days later, however, the inquest jury released its findings that described a very different story. They assigned full responsibility for the fatality to the employer. The jury concluded that the accident was a direct result of negligence on the part of the company for failing to provide a signal man. Testimony from the workers probably helped in this decision because a signal man had been requested by them after the previous signal man on duty over the summer months was let go without reason.
There were two versions of events on the worksite that morning, one from the three men who had been working with Szolonyik and the other from the foreman on site at the time of the incident.
The labourers emphasized that they had been “sent” to the pit in which Szolonyik lost his life. During the hearing, Crown attorney T.C. Cowper also “declared that apparently the men had to run the chances of a clam coming down on them.”
However, the foreman in charge, Mr. Wilson, disagreed, saying that the original article was correct and — that Szolonyik had moved to an unsafe area from the place of work assigned and where the foreman had left him.
Fortunately, his immediate coworkers were witnesses to the accident as described in a graphic account published in of March 15, 1928:
“He (Szolonyik) was holding the chisel while John Zolyoni was wielding the hammer. The latter declared that he was just in the act of bringing down the hammer for a second blow when the clam came down on Syoloryik (Szolonyik), crashed in his skull, closed over with one arm protruding and was carried up. When the hoist man noticed it, he lowered the bucket, opened the clam and dropped the now dead man out, he afterwards being carried away by fellow workers.”
Szolonyik was killed instantly in this brutal workplace death.
It was also recalled at the inquest that a similar accident had occurred in the year prior due to the same problem (Alexander Penteskul had been crushed at the syphon culvert by the bucket of a dragline in July 1926).
Szolonyik had been in Canada for slightly less than two years, and in Ontario for one year. He came to Canada in 1926 on the Warlock, sailing from Antwerp, Belgium, to Saint John, N.B, arriving on April 19. His destination was recorded as “Colonization Board, Arbury,” an area of Ukrainian settlement in south-central Saskatchewan. The passenger manifest also indicated that his wife was to follow.
Left to mourn his loss was his wife, Zsuzsanna, and two children, László and Anna. The eldest of the children was two years of age when his father left for Canada while the youngest would not be born until six months after his departure. — This article is part of a series remembering the men whose lives were lost in the construction of the Welland Ship Canal. The Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial Task Force is a volunteer group established to design, finance, and build a memorial to recognize workers who were killed during construction of the Welland Ship Canal. For more information about the memorial, or to contribute to the project, visit www.stcatharines. ca/ CanalWorkersMemorial.