Richard F. Layfield saved William M. Wyatt from suffocation, Greenwich, Kansas, May 11, 1932. Wyatt, 34, entered an oil tank to save a man who was overcome by methane gas there; the man had entered the tank to save another man who was overcome while making repairs inside the tank. Oily salt water was flowing from a pipe into the 8.5-foot-high tank and was 18 inches deep on the bottom. After alerting other men at a distance, Wyatt tied one end of a cable around one of the first victims and started to ascend the tank’s manhole ladder but was overcome by gas and fell from it. He lay unconscious, his head and shoulders supported above the water by a beam. Layfield, 36, machinist, was one of the men who were alerted. Knowing there was gas in the tank, he entered it through the 18-inch manhole and descended the ladder to the bottom. He tied a rope around Wyatt, then pushed him upward as men at the top pulled him out of tank. Wyatt was revived. Layfield was weak and dizzy when he climbed out of the tank. Several minutes later a hole was cut in the tank, and, after air entered, the remaining two men were removed. They could not be revived. Wyatt sustained severe injuries in his fall that left him totally disabled.
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Richard F. Layfield, Sr., 90, of Justin, Texas, died on Nov. 2, 1986, at Flow Memorial Hospital in Denton, Texas. He was born on Nov. 23, 1895, in Allen, Texas.
He was a Baptist and a retired machinist for American Manufacturing Co.
(Edited from an obituary provided by a family member from an unidentified newspaper.)