Editor
WELLS—Town of Wells Supervisor Brian Towers narrowly escaped serious injury or even death when he got caught in machinery on top of the Algonquin Lake Dam.
He drove a mile-and-a-half to get home, but doesn’t remember anything between being caught by a 20-foot driveshaft and sitting in a chair at home as his nephew, Emergency Medical Technician Dan Abbott, examined his head wound.
Towers was at the dam Monday night, Aug. 23, to lower the gates that regulate water flow there. “It’s very routine,” he said Thursday. “We got 5.3 inches of rain and Sunday night we raised the gates.”
He said the 20-foot driveshaft attached to gears that lift and lower the gates wobbles a bit when gates are lowered. “I threw my hip against it,” he said, “it caught me, and that’s the last I remember.
“It grabbed me and threw me to the steel deck; I had no sense of time. I was hurt and had no glasses, my clothes were gone.”
When he arrived home Towers parked his car as usual below the house, walked up and inside and told his wife, “Kathleen, I need help.”
She said he was covered in blood and had his torn jeans tied around him.
Wells Volunteer Ambulance Corps got the call for help at 9:30 p.m. and took Towers to Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville, where it took 19 staples to close the “slingshot-shaped” wound in the back of his head.
He also has serious “rug burns” on his lower legs and pain all along the right side of his body, “from head to toe.”
Towers was released from the hospital at 9:30 a.m. the following morning, but had to return when it was discovered his right wrist was broken.
Kathleen Towers believes her husband was unconscious on top of the dam for 15 to 20 minutes, because the blood had started to dry.
“It’s something I’ve done hundreds of times,” Towers said of throwing his hip against the driveshaft. “I and others from the town are talking about how to prevent this from happening again.”
Towers was taking telephone calls and emailing from his home Thursday. No one is indispensable, he said, and town matters were being handled. “We have a good crew,” he said. “Everyone has stepped up to the plate.”
He returned to work Monday.