Lowrie St Equitable Gas Accident, Troy Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvnania
Posted by: 
sherpes
N 40° 27.672 W 079° 59.106
17T E 586046 N 4479442
gas leak suffocated six employees of a gas company doing routine maintenance
Waymark Code: WM6XYD
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 08/03/2009
Views: 5
Site of an industrial accident that claimed the lives of six employees of a local gas company. There was no explosion.
Text on plaque placed on the wall of building at corner of Lowrie and Gardner streets:
In memory of six Equitable Gas Co. employees who died working at Lowrie & Gardner Streets on November 17, 1971
M. Coleman
D. Devine
R. Grundler
W. Letzkus
C. Pitassi
A. Zeleny
Published on the Post-Gazette, November 19, 1971
Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Heroism
The freak gas leakage accident on the North Side which took the lives of six men had an element of heroism which lifted it above the normal industrial tragedy.
That was because three of the men died in the attempt to rescue their fellow workmen when something went wrong while an underground main valve on an Equitable Gas Co. line was being replaced. They were Monroe Coleman, William H. Leftkus, and Charles Pitassi who went to the aid of their suffocating associates - Donald DeVine, Raymond Grundler, and Albert Zeleny.
Once again we are reminded that even in an era when ther is so much stress on safety and when we tend o think the day of dangerous jobs is past, still in the so-called routine tasks necessary for the maintenance of confort in our urban civilization there can lurk deadly danger.
Even more dramatically we are reminded that in the breasts of men there can be at moments of crisis such exraordinary selflessness and heroism.
Disaster Date: 11/17/1971
Memorial Sponsors: Equitable Gas
Disaster Type: Technological
Date of dedication: Not listed
Parking Coordinates: Not Listed
Relevant Website: Not listed
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