 A massive roof fall occurred involving six coal miners, resulting in three fatalities, then three miners trapped. Here is the story of one of the survivors. Morning, Donal. I'm Sam Gross with the Mind, Safety, and Health Administration. And I talked with you earlier. I know you are a survivor of a massive roof fall. Donal, if you would, I'd like for you to just share with us what you've experienced from the time the work shift started on the day of the accident, up until where you are now. Sam is just a normal day. We all went to work and it was after lunchtime. I made a widening run. I was operating the 101 Jeffrey Miner. And after I made them a widening run, I was all getting ready to clean up the place and everything. I had a remote on the miner and I put my remote on the other side of the miner. We was starting to shovel and clean up and heard one of the guys holler say it was a working. And whenever he hollered, I turned and I went towards the miner. And as I was going towards the miner, the rock hit the top of my hard hat and it turned my light out on my helmet. And that's about all I remember there. And then just all of a sudden the mountain started shoving me down and it took me right down flat. And it was awful. It came down on my back and it broke off of the miner just like two falls. And it shoved me down and I started vomiting and I had no control of my bowels or anything all the way. They just shoved everything out of me. And I can remember calling for help and nobody to answer me. It was dark in there and it was some experience. Finer stood you right, Don. Though you was laying right immediately against the miner. Yeah, I always thought to myself that I would go for the miner because I've seen several falls and there was always a place beside that miner where the rock would come down and it would make a little opening in there. And I just happened to get my head under there and then it broke off the miner and come down on my back. I believe I had 70 some injuries by the time they got me out of there. I had foot ulcers, arteries, mice to my heart. My kidneys were shut down and calcium deposits. And I had probably one cracked rib, Sam. And as well as I remember, I saw my clothes. My wife had my clothes when I got out of the hospital. There was no cuts on me, but there was so much weight on me that my clothes were bloody where it squeezed the blood out of my pores. That's how much pressure I was under and it put her off. And I remember you all later on. I remember you all being there and talking to some of you. And I remember somebody getting to me and reaching back and breaking the vomit out from my mouth because I couldn't hardly breathe. I could just take a little short breath of air just enough to keep me awake and alive. But I never did go unconscious. I thought of my wife and my kids and they'd run me through the ordeal, I believe. But I remember them digging down to me and they had to remove all the rocks above me by hand. And I remember hearing them dig and stuff and using slate bars and everything they could use. But whenever they finally got to me, the hole was so deep, they couldn't get down in there to pick me up out. And they got me uncovered all but one leg. And I remember them working, trying to free the leg. And they had to cover me up again because it was starting to rib roll on me again. The side of the fall was coming in and they covered me up with boards. And they let that come back in on top of me again. And they had to start and clean it all out again. And whenever they got my leg free, they had to get me by the belt and by the back of the collar. One man got down in there and done this. And he picked me up and everybody else laid on their belly on top. And they pulled me up through the hole in the rock that they cut down to. Donal, can you recall about how long you was trapped underneath the rock from the tile of the rift fall till it was recovered? Approximately 14 hours I was under there. That's how I lost my arms. They were pinned under my chest and it cut the circulation off of them for so long that they couldn't get them to come back. They worked and worked trying to save my arms. They took a little bit off of the time trying to get up to where they were good enough. What they done, they rotted from not having circulation and stuff. So they amputated them small bits of the time until they got up almost to my shoulder. I have approximately six inches of stuff on my shoulder on both sides. I think that's quite an experience to go through. Miss Cuttleby, if you would like for me to tell me a little bit about the experience from the wife's side when a minor accident occurs and her husband is involved in it. If you would just kind of talk us through from the time you got word that your husband was in an accident and some of the things that you went through until his rehabilitation was complete. It was awful. I mean, you know, turf me talk about it. I'm sure it is. Appreciate y'all talking with us about this accident. Hopefully we can prevent some other family from having a good thing with y'all experience. Like I say to him, you can't be too careful. You just turn loose and it was one of those things. A person has to cope with something like this. You can't just give up. You have to get out. You have to still live your life. How active are you now, Donald? I do what I can do. That's all I'm saying. I drive a tractor. I drive a truck. I move my lawn for one of them. I run if I want to hunt. I fish if I want to fish. I do what I want to do. You were quite a sportsman before the accident. Yeah. I was deer hunting that week. It was during deer season. And if it wasn't for my wife and my kids, I'd have gave up under the ground. I fought, I did. And it was because of them that I fought. Now, how many years are we talking about on the rehabilitation, Donald? I don't forget what you feel. You're comfortable. You can still hunt and get out and do your garden work and put up your hay. How many years are we talking about? I was in rehabilitation in Virginia for one month. And that made me two months away from home. And I was a home person. I had to get back home. So I went through the rehabilitation as quick as I could. And I headed for home and then at home before I started. I started doing, she helped me. We worked together. I still am not good on buttons. I can't do buttons. She buttons my pants and my shirt. But other than that, we just make good. Donald, if you had a message you would like to convey to all the coal miners out there that's actively working in mines now, what would it be? Just have to watch your back. You have to keep one eye on the top at all times. Because you turn your head and it can be over within a second. You just have to be careful. These conditions and practices were noted after the accident. A proved roof control plan was not followed. The roof control plan required at least 80% of the boat length to be grouted. The boats and the roof fall area were less than 50% grouted along the length of the boats. Test holes were not drilled. On the day of the accident, roof boat machine operators could not recall drilling a test hole during boating operations. Change in the mine roof. It could not be determined prior to the roof fall if fractures were present in the roof. Head cold was not removed due to an increase in coal seam height. A miner had less than one month experience. Small pieces of rock falling from the mine roof struck the inexperienced miner who thought someone was flipping rocks at him as had happened in the past during horseplay. The approved roof control plans are only for minimum protection. Every effort should be made to determine if additional steps need to be taken to ensure that adequate risk support is provided at all times for the safety of our coal miners.