Thomas Mavin “Tommy” Proffitt of Universal Newsreel covering the 1936 St. Patrick’s Day flood in western Pennsylvania.

Little can be found about Proffitt. He was a staff newsreel cameraman based out of Pittsburgh for Universal Newsreel as well as being rumored according to his obituary of being the anonymous Universal newsreel cameraman assigned to the Hindenburg landing whom history says left before the explosion.

On March 20, 1928, Proffitt was covering the voyage of the “last lumber raft” on the Susquehanna River. The raft collided with a railroad bridge near Muncy, PA, severely damaging the raft and sending the passengers overboard. Proffitt had his back up against the shanty on the raft to steady himself while cranking his camera and was likely killed instantly when it was shattered by the bridge pier.

Universal hired men to search the collision site for Proffitt’s Akeley and recovered it. The film was developed and shown to theater audiences in Universal’s next release.

Proffitt’s body wasn’t recovered from the river until a month later and several miles downstream. Badly decomposed, he was identified solely by a press photographer’s association badge he was wearing when he died.