Tom Potter of Pe Ell checks out the 1941 biplane that nearly killed its pilot earlier today.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – An 85-year-old man was run over by a plane today at the Chehalis-Centralia Airport.
Firefighters called just after 3 p.m. said the small rear wheel ran over his chest after he was knocked to the ground when the plane started up and circled around on the ground.
Getting run over was bad, but it could have been so much worse.
The open cockpit biplane built in 1941 by Boeing has a shiny silver propeller that stretches roughly 10 feet from end to end, nearly reaching the ground.
“I kept telling him to stay down,” said Merrill Stulken, an Alaska resident who was at the airport fueling up his plane.
The plane shouldn’t have started up, but it did, according to Stulken.
“If he’d have put his head up, he’d be gone,” Stulken’s brother-in-law Tom Potter of Pe Ell said.
The plane circled over the man four times and then stopped, according to Stulken.
“God intervened,” Stulken said, calling the outcome of the accident a miracle. “I honestly thought I was gonna to see a man be killed,” he said.
It’s a mystery what happened, according to Stulken.
Stulken was getting ready to take a flight over Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and his farm in Boistfort, he said.
The pilot had a dead battery and asked him for help, he said. They were contemplating getting it going by cranking the propeller by hand.
The plane was parked, and shut off, he said. The fuel was off and before the pilot got in the cockpit, the two men rotated the propeller about one-third of a turn to check it out, Stulken said.
That’s when it started prematurely, he said.
The pilot, from Lakewood, was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital with a cut to the back of his head.
Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Pat Gilligan said his injuries must not have been too bad, because they got a phone call from the hospital within hours telling them he was headed in a taxi back to the airport to fly home.
The fire department didn’t release the injured man’s name, but the plane is registered to John Dimmer in Tacoma. The hospital said a John Dimmer was treated and has been released.
Stulken and his brother-in-law were back at the airport later this evening, surprised to hear the pilot planned to fly tonight. The plane was still parked however and the injured man wasn’t there.
Stulken estimated the tail of the aircraft weighed 500 to 1,000 pounds.
“He’s got true grit, he’s a tough old bugger,” Stulken said.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
If you weren’t there or really have all the facts to an incident you might consider Abraham Lincoln’s thoughts: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt!”
This man was a very nice gentleman, he had taken all precautions regarding his airplane and he and I were both very fortunate to not have been injured more than what had happened.
85 and flying? I wonder if they inquire as to what kinds of medications he might be taking and if flying would be in his, or anybody else’s best interest.
Oh. I thought the plane starting prematurely was God’s intervention.
I’m not sure what to think about people who are 85 years old flying over head. I guess as long as he’s got no senile dementia,not mistaking a leisure flight with a possible fire bombing raid over Berlin
from his youth I’m okay with it.
Why didn’t God intervene when that dipsquat’s plane “shouldn’t have started up?” SOUNDS LIKE DRUGS TO ME