JOSEPH A. SULLIVANJoseph A. Sullivan - July 31, 1936 (#85)
Engine Co. No. 36 - 551 - 26th Avenue

BROKEN WATER MAIN RESCUE

Appointed Engineer May 22, 1916

Assigned to Engine Co. No. 29, 1917
Assigned to Engine Co. No. 11, 1927
Assigned to Engine Co. No. 36

WATER MAIN TRAGEDY
RESCUER DROPS DEAD
TRAPPED WORKERS SAVED

HERO PLUNGES INTO FLOODED EXCAVATION; HURT

A premature flooding of a water main being installed on Fulton Street late yesterday caused the death of the fireman, nearly drowned the welder inflicted minor injuries on another workman.

Fireman Joseph Sullivan, attached to Engine 36 and living at 567 Eleventh Avenue, collapsed from a heart attack and fell off the fire truck just as it arrived at the scene. He was dead when picked up.

TRAPPED FOR AN HOUR

Walter Lynch, 33, of 1311 Van Ness Avenue, South, was trapped in the 20 inch pipe, with barely enough room to keep his nose above water, for more than hour before he was rescued.

Mitchell Johnson, 31, 909 Myrtle Street, Oakland, was treated for submersion, with Lynch, Park Emergency Hospital. Joseph dived into a flooded excavation to save Lynch’s life.

FLOOD LET LOOSE

Lynch has entered the water main at an excavation in Fulton Street at Twenty-ninth Avenue, and had crawled through the pipe to Thirtieth Avenue to enamel “wells” in the main. While he was two to three hundred feet from the opening, another workman inadvertently knocked a plug from a fresh water main exposed in the Twenty-ninth Avenue excavation.
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Fred Sample, 127 Third Avenue, Oakland, also a welder, raced down to an air valve at Thirtieth Avenue, opened and shouted a warning to Lynch as Joseph struggled to shut off torrent.

FANATIC DIGGING

Lynch had to wriggle backwards several yards to reach valve as the water rose in the pipe, but reached it in time keep on breathing. Rescuers passed whiskey down to him to keep him warm during the frantic work to open an excavation adjacent to the air valve.

When the pipe, six feet below the surface of the street, was reached the hole was cut with acetylene torches and Lynch was dragged out.
Source:  San Francisco Examiner,  San Francisco, 01 August 1936, page 3.

Extracted from original sources with grammar and spelling as published.

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