About 7 July 1917
Boy Killed Between Elevator and Floor
Gaylord Bueter, 16 Years Old, Loses Life Trying to Save Child.
In attempting to rescue his boy friend from a supposed danger, Gaylord Bueter, 16 years of age, lost his own life last night. Bueter was caught between the elevator door and the floor and fatally crushed at the Fifth East hotel. He was a son of Charles W. Bueter, 822 Fourth East street.
Young Bueter had been employed at the hotel as elevator boy for the past four weeks. Last night he was acting in the additional capacity of night clerk in the absence of the regular desk man. His companion, Frederick Whittle, 9 years of age, who lives at 127 South Fifth East street and was playing in the hotel lobby, suddenly jumped into the elevator and started it upward. Bueter endeavored to leap into the climbing cage in order to stop the car when the accident occurred. An examination by Dr. J. S. Gallihan showed that the body was crushed below the ribs, but that no ribs were broken. He declared that death was caused by rupture of the kidneys.
Young Bueter attended the West high school last year and was working at the hotel to pay his next year’s school expenses. His work had been entirely satisfactory to the hotel management and he had just received an increase of salary.
There were no eyewitnesses to the tragedy. The cries of the Whittle boy first attracted the attention of E. L. Larson, who was sitting outside on the veranda and who, on seeing the accident, telephoned to the fire department, which soon came and extricated the body from the shaft. The body was removed to the emergency hospital.