Biographical Non-Fiction posted January 10, 2025 | Chapters: | Prologue 1 -2- 3... |
An encounter with the Angle of Death, 300 feet underground
A chapter in the book Can You See The Real Me?
Faster than a Speeding Bullet
by CM Kelly
Background Can You See The Real Me? is a collection of ten short stories, rooted in my coal mining experiences and the politics I found myself "tangled in". |
Whenever I caught wind of someone in the Engineering Department making a trip to an underground mine, I would eagerly volunteer to join them. Not that I didn’t already have a lot of underground experience. In college, I spent several semesters working underground as a United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) laborer making more than enough to pay my bills and graduate debt-free. Yes, some people like to fly, skydive, or dive off cliffs, but for me, I love going underground. These assignments were engineering studies, designed to find ways to mine the coal safer and of course more profitable. It was during one of these trips underground that I came within seconds of losing my life.
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It was a Tuesday afternoon when my Engineering Supervisor informed me to be at Renton Mine the next morning to participate in a time study. The Renton Mine was opened back in 1916, located about 15 miles due east of downtown Pittsburgh, it was one of 40 mines that Consolidation Coal Company owned. The Renton Mine worked the Upper Freeport coal seam. For the most part, the Upper Freeport was a 5-6 ft thick seam, it was a premium coal used to make coke for the steel furnaces up and down the Mon and Alleghany. Because of its age, the remaining minable coal reserves were very limited, at best the mine had 2 more years of remaining production.
To get every bit of the hi-grade/metallurgical coal, the mining operations were being pushed to the fringe areas of the coal reserve. Places where the seam thickness was reduced to 3-4 feet and the roof conditions were bad, and I mean bad, unstable, ugly, unsafe. Even in the good areas of the mine, I would describe the roof as terrible.
Performing a time study is a tedious task, a clerk-like activity where I would join up with a mining crew of eight or nine workers, a section crew, and record the time it took to perform certain tasks. By recording the duration of each task, a wealth of information was gained regarding the productivity of the crew and the machines. The crews and more specifically their Foremen, usually had a different view of this effort; they thought a time-study was the equivalent of being graded or observed under a microscope. A time study engineer was not warmly received at a coal mine.
I showed up on Wednesday morning, well before the beginning of the shift. I had been to the Renton Mine on previous assignments, so I knew the Superintendent and the general layout of the mine. The Superintendent assigned me to Frank’s crew. We were introduced and Frank told me to head underground and jump into the mantrip that had “Moon Ship” painted on it. Mantrips are the first piece of equipment one encounters when going into an underground coal mine. At the Renton Mine, they were electric-driven vehicles that rode on rails throughout the mine, powered by an overhead trolley line typically 300 or 600 volts DC. These mantrips were a mass of heavy steel plating with a few electric motors, whose only duty was to move a work crew of 8-10 men from the shaft bottom to the area where the men and machines were mining coal, aka the “working face” or simply the “face”. There were no springs or shock absorbers, just cold steel plates to sit on, with the sides and roof made of the same. They were the taxis of an underground mine.
INSERT PICTURE
Typical Underground Rail – Mantrip
I squeezed in and introduced myself to the other six guys in the vehicle. It was a cold reception, but not unexpected. As we waited for Frank to come and drive us to the face, one of the men informed me of what happened a few days earlier. In what I would describe as a typical coal miner drawl, with chewing tobacco oozing out of his mouth, he told me that there had just been a fatality at the mine. Specifically, it was the Foreman of this very crew! He said it in a few plain, unemotional sentences.
For the next few minutes, until Frank showed up, the only thing that could be heard was the breathing from the seven of us packed into this tin can contraption. I took this declaration in stride, it was the second time I had been at a mine just after a fatality, so it didn’t shock me. I could sense that my non-response bothered the others on the mantrip, in the dark environment you really can’t get a good look at your co-worker's faces, but the body language and silence were telling enough. Nothing more was spoken of until the mantrip got to the section. We climbed out and walked to the dinner hole.
A dinner hole was nothing more than a few heavy tarps hung up in a crosscut where the crew could lay their lunch buckets, a place the crew could convene at the start and end of each shift and of course for lunch. Typically, the dinner hole was located a few hundred feet back, or out-by, the working face. The crew sat down in the dinner hole around the makeshift combination electric heater/toaster situated in the middle.
Frank left the dinner hole to perform the mandatory pre-shift inspections at the face, a simple task of checking to make sure there were no dangerous conditions left behind from the previous shift; namely unsupported roof, concentrations of methane or black damp, just a few of the things that could kill you or the whole crew.
The noise of riding the rails on the three-mile trek to the section prevented any discussions in the mantrip, so I took this moment to ask, “How did it happen?” Not exactly the opening line a grieving crew wanted to hear from a young, green corporate engineer. Maybe it was because of the brazenness or just the blatant stupidity of it, but after a few silent moments, two of them opened up. They explained that Bill, a ten-year veteran of the mine, had gone in-by, or just pass, the roof bolt supports to assess the roof conditions.
The unsupported roof, thousands of tons of rock, came down without any warning and crushed him. This happened just before lunchtime on the previous Friday, it took all weekend and Monday for the rescue team to recover his body. As per tradition, the mine was shut down for a day of respect on Tuesday. The funeral services were going to be held over the upcoming weekend.
In my mind, it sounded like Bill took a very high-risk, unnecessary action. It didn’t matter if you worked one day or 40 years underground, there were two rules you never challenged: 1) never bring matches underground and 2) never go in-by unsupported roof. Why he went past the roof bolts only Bill knows. For the crew, this was the first shift back to their section, the scene of the fatality. One of the other miners then spoke up and said, “Here we are mourning the death of Bill and the company sends in a spy to make sure we don’t f--k off. He’s here to make sure we get back to making money for the man.” I didn’t know how to respond to that, and maybe it was best that I didn’t try, so I said nothing. The crew and I just sat there in silence, as it sunk into me that Frank was a brand-new Foreman for this section.
20 minutes later the crew was at their machines and commencing to mine coal. After some thought, I just couldn’t believe that the company, or any person, could be so cold as to send in a young green engineer to watch over these seasoned men as they were wrestling with the loss of their colleague. And why didn’t anyone at the office or aboveground inform me of what I was walking into?
Lunchtime came and we all met in the dinner hole, my presence again coldly received. I could have left the dinner hole and sat somewhere else amongst the crosscuts and entryways, but I stayed. The biggest advantage of the dinner hole was that the tarps cut down on the constant cold air breeze of fresh air and it had the toaster/heater, both of which brought a few moments of warmth to this cold and damp environment.
After lunch I found myself walking back towards the face with the Frank. While I was preoccupied with my own concerns regarding the “spy” comment and my safety, it dawned on me what the crew’s new Foreman must be going through. Frank was in his mid-forties, probably twice my age, and an ex-school teacher. He had over 15 years of experience underground, half of them here at Renton and five of those as a Foreman.
In the coal industry, the history of the Union–Company conflict has a long and tortuous path. Many movies, books, and songs have told that tale. Jumping from Union to Company was rarely well received by the Union rank and file. I could tell that after half a shift, he too, was feeling the pressure as he was now supposed to fill the shoes of the deceased. It’s bad enough to replace a co-worker because he was let go or quit, but filling in for someone who died on the job is at a whole different psychological level.
He mentioned this to me as we walked around inspecting the working face. No big disclosure, no complaining, just a few words. I asked him how well he knew the deceased, he said, “Not much, just from work”. There was no emotional attachment, but an obvious professional connection. A general sense of teamwork between them, but with alpha personalities, teamwork is sometimes overridden by the internal drive for personal success. This was typical in the coal mines.
In general, it takes a unique personality to work underground and most miners I encountered seeked the solitude that working underground provides. The sense of being alone in the mine is akin to the fisherman or hunter who finds himself on a lake or in the woods at 4 am. Most are quiet, reserved, keep-to-themselves types. They like it that way and to be their peer you had to respect that.
I asked Frank to explain to me the retreat mining method that was being utilized in this section. I had some schoolbook knowledge of this mining method, but as we continued to inspect the working face I knew that to hear it directly from Frank would be a great learning experience.
After a few minutes, he flipped the conversation and asked me about the latest mining technique, called longwall mining, that was taking hold in many of the nearby mines. The more efficient longwall method, with mining rates of 10 times that of continuous miners was indeed sweeping through the industry. But its application was fit for newer mines, ones with vast virgin coal reserves. A mine like Renton, with its antiquated rail haulage system and limited remaining reserves, just couldn’t be set up for longwall mining. As our conversation went on, we both knew that the days were numbered for Renton.
I was fascinated as he described the retreat mining method, how the continuous miner would position itself to cut the 90-foot wide by 90-foot long pillar, or block of coal. These pillars were left behind to support the roof as they mined the entryways and crosscuts to move the working face from the portal’s shaft bottom to the limits of the coal reserve.
Once having reached the boundaries of the coal reserve, the continuous miner would then start pulling back or retreating to the portal shaft. On the way back they would rob the coal in these supporting pillars. As each pillar of coal was mined there was nothing left to support the roof. The roof would eventually cave in and fill the void where the coal seam once existed. Leaving behind a caved-in section of the mine, never to see the light of a miners’ cap lamp again, it was the ultimate scorched earth policy.
INSERT PICTURE
A crude sketch of a Continuous Miner (CM) section advancing mains.
The coal pillars are grossly undersized, typically 90x90 ft and entries and crosscuts are 16-20 ft wide.
INSERT PICTURE
Retreat entry ready to fall.
Note the spalling on coal ribs on the right side
and the delamination of the roof
Frank, pointed out the temporary support posts that were placed at the northern end of the entry and the eastern end of the crosscut. They delineated the boundary between the working area and areas where the retreat mining had already occurred. The two rows were placed 4 feet apart and spanned the 16-foot width of the entry and crosscut. Even in the dark, I was able to notice that the immediate roof behind these posts had not collapsed. We discussed this a bit and Frank said it was typical for a roof fall to lag by one pillar, but in this case, the lag was maybe two or three pillars deep.
The consequences of this “lag” were twofold: first, additional roof pressure was being placed on the existing, yet-to-be-mined coal pillars, crosscuts, and entries. Considering the ugly roof conditions of Renton this only made a bad situation worse. Second, when the roof did come down, it was going to be a big event. Most people like a big boom, from a gun or fireworks, but that’s when they are above ground. Underground, a big boom is viewed quite differently. A roof fall acts like a mini earthquake and can loosen the roof in the immediate area, possibly triggering other roof falls in the nearby entries and crosscuts, and that’s not a good thing. As Mining Engineers, with our book knowledge and formulas, we like to think we know how to control such roof falls, but in the end, it’s Mother Nature who owns the rule book.
The crew went to work and finished the West to East cut and then started the South to North breakthrough of the pillar they were robbing. There was about an hour left in the shift, the mental fatigue of the fatality and thoughts of the viewing later that week had set in and collectively they knew they were done for the day. They left it for the next shift to finish the fendering and pull out the Widow’s Stump. The crew members parked their equipment in a safe spot about 200 feet or so from the face and headed to the dinner hole.
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The Widow’s Stump
A word about the “Widow’s Stump”. After the majority of a 90-foot by 90-foot pillar was removed, in a very systematic, safe manner, there would be a small remaining block of coal on the nearest corner of the block, it was called the Widow’s Stump. Appropriately named, mining out this last chunk of coal, which was probably 15 ft by 15 ft, was like removing the bottom block from a Jenga tower. But as you can imagine, this was no game.
I did get to witness the extraction of a Widow’s Stump a few days later and the process went like this: The continuous miner would be positioned to make its final stab at the stump. The support crew would set up some temporary roof support in the form of two rows of 4-inch diameter locust posts in the adjoining crosscuts. The mechanical loader that operated behind the continuous miner, plus the two shuttle cars, that would transport the coal away, were all strategically set in place. At the appropriate time, the Foreman would give the signal for the continuous miner to “hit it”.
Despite its 70-ton weight, with its bulldozer-like track system, the continuous miner would make what seemed like a dash into the Widow’s Stump and commence to chew out the remaining coal. What a sight! This was exactly what I went to school for, to see this massive electric-mechanical machine drive right into this stump of coal, it was the very definition of man versus Mother Nature.
The noise, the dust, and the sparks from the miner’s carbide teeth hitting the thin shale layers embedded in the coal seam is an amazing sight. Add to that the vibration from the tank-like machine that made your teeth rattle. Together it made for quite an experience. As the miner spit out the coal at its rear, the mechanical loader would work feverishly to load the two 10-ton capacity shuttle cars. They quickly ran their separate routes to the waiting empty rail cars about 500 feet away. After the 4th or 5th shuttle car was loaded the removal of the Widow’s Stump was deemed “done”. Even if there was some coal remaining the exposure to a potential roof fall was not worth it. The miner would then quickly pull back into an entry or cross-cut a good 40 or 50 feet from where the stump once stood. No roof bolting of this area would be done, the machines would move on to the next pillar. All of this happened in a matter of 10-15 minutes. For a novice like me, all I could do was watch in awe as the machinery and men worked in a tightly synchronized motion.
I wrote down on the side of my notebook, “Funny how quick and efficient men can be when the stakes are at their highest.”
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INSERT PICTURE
A typical Continuous Miner in a 7 ft seam of coal.
Note: The spinning drum with its carbide-tipped cutting teeth & the miner operator with his control box. This 800-hp machine weighs over 70 tons.
As the crew headed to the dinner hole, I could see Frank’s hard hat light in the West to East cut, so I turned around and started to walk towards him. As I approached him I realized that he had stepped outside of the supported roof area, just about two steps beyond the roof bolts. At the end of this trying shift, he seemed to be contemplating what had transpired the few days beforehand.
I was not embarrassed that I came up upon him in this solemn moment, he clearly heard me coming from 25 or more feet away, plus my headlamp gave me away at about 50 feet out. As I approached, he pulled back to be under the roof bolts. When I asked if everything was ok, he responded with a tired voice, “It’s going to be a big, big, badass fall.” With that, the shift was done, and we headed back to the dinner hole gathered up our coats and lunch pails, crawled into the mantrip and headed back to the shaft bottom.
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The next day, Thursday, we were back at it, and so was the tension. The bathhouse chatter was high with the pending funeral services just a day away, it seemed to strengthen the opinion that I was a company spy. Kinda pissed me off, which didn’t help the situation. But I had a job to do, and they had theirs. Once we arrived at the section, I walked up with Frank as he inspected the face. The night shift had finished the fendering and pulled the Widow’s Stump on the pillar we worked on yesterday. We inspected the breaker posts in the entry and crosscuts, it was obvious that the roof from the previous retreated pillars still hadn’t come down. The pending fall was going to be even bigger than we expected yesterday. Yes, we were in for a big ass fall.
The next day, Thursday, we were back at it, and so was the tension. The bathhouse chatter was high with the pending funeral services just a day away, it seemed to strengthen the opinion that I was a company spy. Kinda pissed me off, which didn’t help the situation. But I had a job to do, and they had theirs. Once we arrived at the section, I walked up with Frank as he inspected the face. The night shift had finished the fendering and pulled the Widow’s Stump on the pillar we worked on yesterday. We inspected the breaker posts in the entry and crosscuts, it was obvious that the roof from the previous retreated pillars still hadn’t come down. The pending fall was going to be even bigger than we expected yesterday. Yes, we were in for a big ass fall.
The crew got to work and was making decent progress on the adjoining pillar. The miner pulled out of its 40-foot deep cut and the roof bolting machine positioned itself to start installing the short roof bolts or “pinning of the roof”. But just before the bolter finished its 1st hole, the bolter operator and his helper froze and shut down the equipment. Then Frank hollered over to the miner to “shut it down” along with the mechanical loader just behind it. During these few moments of pure silence, a silence you cannot achieve above ground, all ears were focused on listening to the roof. There may have been some faint, if not imaginary groans, but I truly could not detect anything. Frank and the crew members acknowledged not hearing anything either, so the equipment was powered up and the work restarted. For a new Foreman and his crew, this was a key testing point amongst them, a moment where you build trust between each other. After about ten minutes the bolter and his helper ceased drilling again. Again, there were no obvious sounds. The crew members seemed a little spooked, but who was I to second-guess their sixth senses? It was near lunch, so Frank told them to shut it down and head back to the dinner hole.
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While the crew headed to the dinner hole, I met up with Frank while he was standing between the two rows of breaker posts. It was rare for a Foreman to sit down with the crew to eat lunch; they typically had a sandwich or piece of fruit in one of their coat pockets that they ate on the fly. I survived underground with Snickers or Lance’s peanut butter crackers secured in my coat pockets. We stood between the breaker posts, and as I ate my candy bar, we struck up a conversation, we talked about why I got into mining and why he became a Foreman.
After about 5 minutes into the lunch break, off in the blackened void beyond the breaker posts, we started to hear some small rocks falling from the roof. It was funny how the drop of the first rock got my attention and triggered my listening skills to be on max. A few more thuds in the distance had my heart rate doubling, and I asked Frank if it was time to get out of here, at least back up to the next crosscut. Frank responded that we had plenty of time and described what would happen next. He said these small fragments of the roof dropping to the ground were just the beginning, the prelude to the big fall. The frequency of these would increase as the roof bent or bowed from the weight of hundreds of feet of rock above. Then the rocks peeling off of the roof would start to sound like rain or what he called checkers hitting the ground.
This would cause the roof to sag further, resulting in more weight pressing down in the middle of the void. Next would come the pinging sound of roof bolts shearing in two. Much like a rubber band stretched to its limit, the result is a violent reaction. These roof bolts, half-inch diameter steel rods, 4 to 10 feet long, with a shear yield of over 70,000psi, would be stretched to their limit and then violently break apart hitting the ground like a bullet.
Frank went on to state that eventually some of the bolts hitting the ground would cause sparks, which is never a good thing underground. Thank goodness the Upper Freeport seam had little methane embedded in the coal, thus the risk of a methane explosion at this mine was generally considered nil. A small moment of comfort in what was clearly a very dangerous place.
Once the checkering sound started there would be a pause, a quiet period, a dead quiet period, and then the eventual loud crack as the roof sheared along the imaginary line from the previous roof fall to the breaker posts. He said it would sound like a lightning bolt hitting at your feet and then within a few seconds, the roof, the thousands and thousands of tons of rock would begin to come down, accompanied by a big thud and a long rolling thunder-like sound. All this would occur over a matter of 10 or 15 seconds.
It would have been a great story if it had been told above ground, maybe around a campfire on a full moon night deep in the woods, or even at a bar, but hearing this 300 feet underground, standing between these 4-inch diameter breaker post while there are pieces of the roof falling a few feet away kinda redefines the term terror. In moments like this, you don’t have time to be nervous or anxious, you are too busy assessing the situation in front of you.
It would have been a great story if it had been told above ground, maybe around a campfire on a full moon night deep in the woods, or even at a bar, but hearing this 300 feet underground, standing between these 4-inch diameter breaker post while there are pieces of the roof falling a few feet away kinda redefines the term terror. In moments like this, you don’t have time to be nervous or anxious, you are too busy assessing the situation in front of you.
At this point, Frank abruptly stopped talking and stared out into the dark abyss. The rate of the roof rocks falling had not picked up, it was sporadic, he seemed to be getting nervous. After about two more minutes it picked up and, as he predicted, it started to sound just like a table full of checkers hitting the ground. The off-and-on checker sound lasted about 1 minute. At this point, I was ready to get the hell out of there, but I remembered that he belittled my earlier request to move back to the next crosscut, so I resigned myself to follow his lead. His earlier response was rather convincing, saying “I thought you came down here to learn, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience”. No pushback from me, but I knew that my concept of once in a lifetime experience had a different meaning between the two of us. With that, I turned my headlamp to the dark void and tried to catch glimpses of the roof dribbling to the ground.
Then I heard it, the first ping of a roof bolt shearing. As an engineer, I was a little in awe because I knew it took a hell of a lot of force to stretch a roof bolt and shear it. I strained to see the next one and hoped to see a spark. The pings came again and again, the pace was quickening, but still no sparks. I shined my headlamp at Frank, and stated to him, “It’s time to leave!”, as I saw his shoulders turn to respond, I heard it - the CRACK!
It was as if a lightning bolt had struck at my feet. At that specific moment, everything went into slow motion, frame-by-frame super slow motion. I recall hearing Frank yell, “Get the h…”. I didn’t hear the end of the comment, because, by the time he got the third word out, I was at least ten feet down the entry.
As I sprinted down the entry away from the roof fall, I was sure I would have qualified for any Olympic track event, despite wearing steel-toed boots, a hard hat, and a safety belt with the five-pound lamp battery and four-pound self-rescuer hanging off of it. My goal was to get past the next out-by intersection, a good 90 feet away, the first point that I considered to be safe. 90 feet that’s all I wanted, just 90 feet.
As I sprinted down the entry away from the roof fall, I was sure I would have qualified for any Olympic track event, despite wearing steel-toed boots, a hard hat, and a safety belt with the five-pound lamp battery and four-pound self-rescuer hanging off of it. My goal was to get past the next out-by intersection, a good 90 feet away, the first point that I considered to be safe. 90 feet that’s all I wanted, just 90 feet.
I must have gone 30 feet when I saw out of the corner of my eyes that the coal on the sides of the pillars, the ribs, was sloughing off, or caving in! The engineer in me knew this was the reaction of coal pillars being relieved of the downward stress, a result of the transfer of pressure from the closest pillars to the next out-by set. Why, I thought of that specific engineering issue at the time is beyond me, but it probably was a little bit of denial while the whole place around me was caving in. Then the practical part of my brain kicked in and said it’s more likely that the roof fall was outrunning the breaker posts and was catching up to me. If I had another gear, it was time to kick it in and move faster. This went on for another precious few steps, maybe 15 feet, again all in super slow motion. I was Indiana Jones, leaping over these collapsing ribs, and the rolling blocks of coal landing at my feet, hoping I didn’t lose my balance as the roar of thousands of tons of rock was collapsing behind me. If I stumbled, it would be my last fall.
Just when I thought maybe I was going to make it to the crosscut, needing only to go another 50 feet or so, I thought I should start saying a prayer under my breath, but then I stumbled! My left knee almost hit the ground, but my left hand landed on a chunk of coal about a foot off the ground and kept me from doing a face plant. The stumble twisted my body a little and made my head turn to the right and backward, and that’s when I saw it-- imprinted in my mind forever--I saw the image of the Angel of Death and the glimmer off the steel sickle in his right hand.
It was like a flash photo, the hood, the flowing black robe, but no skeleton face, just a robe’d hand holding a sickle. My mind did not react in fear or panic, but more of a puzzlement, a “what are you doing here?”. But in a millisecond my focus went back to keeping my balance and not hitting the ground. I now felt like I only had a 50-50 chance to make it and saying a prayer entered my mind again.
Just as despair, and probably the roof fall, were about to overwhelm me, my chest and legs were magically lifted up as if two guardian angels had grabbed me by the shoulders. I was upright and in full stride again racing forward with what were like booster rockets on my legs. The euphoria of this phenomenon lasted a second, maybe two. I thought to myself, just run until you drop, run-till-you-drop, run-till-you-drop.
It only took another second to realize I didn’t have guardian angels on my shoulders my sprint was being wind-assisted by the blast of air from the roof fall! This blast literally made me weightless and gave me that extra boost that I was wishing for. Maybe my prayer was answered.
The deafening, thunderous concussion from the collapsing roof had now arrived and overcame me. I was still upright and running and thought I must have passed the crosscut by now. The push from the air blast dissipated very quickly. But my heart and brain were both still on the run-till-you-drop mode, there was no reason to fight that. As I felt a sense of relief set in, a gray cloud started to surround me, it was getting darker with every step. The noise, the vibration, the collapsing ribs, not to mention the guy in the black robe at my heels, and now I had to deal with this gray cloud!
What else would I have to encounter until I reached a safe point? I kept running for at least another dozen steps, the cloud of dust got so thick that I had to close my eyes and hope for the best. Although my legs were not tired my breathing was heavy, if not panic-induced. I was now beginning to struggle to move forward as I realized all this dust was from the roof fall. I also realized that the dust was now in my lungs, choking me from the inside. I was gasping for clean air with every step. I started to slow down to a jog and took a few steps to my right, hand extended in the darkness feeling for the coal rib. My senses told me that I had run past the 1st crosscut, but my mind needed confirmation. It was a great relief to touch that coal rib, it confirmed I made it past the crosscut and survived the roof fall. I collapsed against the rib.
Gasping, choking, and spitting were all I could do for the next few moments as I tried to catch my breath and get control of my heart. The dust quickly began to thin. I then saw a miner’s headlamp headed my way. It was Frank, I could only partially hear his laughter and his repeated bellowing “That was some effing fall!”. He dropped down next to me, as much or more exhausted than me. Through the gasping of air and spitting he admitted I was right; we should have left earlier. For the next ten seconds, we laughed, laughed out loud as much as our lungs could produce. We both knew we had cheated Mother Nature if not death itself. It’s a laugh I can easily recall and one that I have never made since, thank God!
It took a full minute, but we eventually stood up and started our way back to the dinner hole. With miner headlamps bobbing in the distance, we knew the rest of the crew was headed our way. They could see from our dust-laden faces that we were caught in the middle of it. We exchanged some general comments like, ” That was one hell of a fall, the worst I have heard in 20 years” and so on. But the only thing on my mind was getting to the dinner hole and getting some water. Once there, Frank recounted the event to the others. He said he didn’t think I would stick it out to the end; he thought I would pull back to the dinner hole like the rest of them. He did note that after the lightning bolt crack, he was a bit envious that I ran “faster than a speeding bullet.”
After I finally got my heart and breathing rates under control, it was time to get back to the face to assess the damages. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the breaker posts acted just as designed, the roof fall went right up to them and stopped, much like the way a piece of plate glass breaks after it has been scored. The sloughing from the ribs was not my imagination, it was bad, very bad; the 16-foot wide entry was reduced to a 3-4 foot wide walkable path. The crew members were cautiously sounding the roof, checking for weak spots. Within another 15 minutes, the crew was back into the coal.
This shift, and this roof fall, were one of the most memorable events I would have underground, definitely in the top 10. But in the end, it was just that, a memorable event. When it was over, it was time to get back to work. Like every other day working underground the goals hadn’t changed, make it to the end of the shift, get out of the mine without getting hurt, and never let your guard down.
These short stories are all from an introverted, wide-eyed, green hick, the 4th of 9, raised on a dirt road, one who never in a million years thought that he would wind up in the places or the situations described in the stories. With two engineering degrees, I lack any formal training when it comes to writing, but I find writing to be "fun" and "enjoyable" and a great tool to keep my memory sharp.
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