Steel mill worker injuries (1930s-1940s bar rolling)

In 1930s–40s bar mills, mile-long red-hot bars traveled at ~40 mph and were caught with tongs by workers between rolling stands. A "cobble" — the bar curving as it exited — could amputate an arm while simultaneously cauterizing the wound. Tom's second child was born in Bethlehem, PA, in a hospital located steps from the steel mill, sized accordingly.

Steel mills are hazardous places. There were people working on the hot tops on the ingot casting floor, and every now and then someone might trip and fall in. It's actually a fairly quick way to go. But the old steel mills were just places to maim people. My second child was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Wonderful hospital for a town that size, because it was just a couple hundred yards down from the steel mill. In the old days, like the 1930s and 1940s, when you're rolling bar, it'd be coming through at forty miles an hour — a piece of hot steel a mile long, coming through at forty miles an hour, and a guy was supposed to grab it with tongs and put it into the next stand. If anything happened, they called it a cobble. The thing curved when it came out, and it might just cut his arm off — but it cauterizes the wound at the same time. It's hot. It just cut through human flesh like a hot knife through butter.