 This is Dave Gary During his 15 years as an underground coal miner Dave has experienced his share of non-routine events But one Event that he was involved in is something that seems to be happening far too often the past few years Dave I'd like you to take us to the day in question and Tell us in your own words what happened and how you felt Well on that day I was a minor helper And his midnight shift When we arrived in a section on a portal bus we went to the dinner hole like usual and the boss came in to Tell us what the conditions we had for the day brought the 4 to 12 bosses report and He told us that we had a It was a retreat section. He told us that we had a push-out stump and then we had to move across the section So after we left the dinner hole, I will know it was a power center to walk the miner cable like I always did I walked up to to the miner and 4 to 12 shift had left a push-out stump set up for us to go in Boss had already run the face The operator of my body He took his gas check. I Watched the cables. He pulled up into the cut through the cable out of the way and then my buddy started to mine her up and I flagged for the first buggy to come in. He just started turning ahead and something and I positioned myself in the back of the miner to the right To watch the front part of the cut and the formula run around to the back side to watch the watch a roof from the backside It was all like I said, it was in a push-out stump. So it was already The cold was already loose and the roof was a little drippy But he loaded the first buggy Send him out on that signal for the second buggy to come in Second buggy just got underneath the boom and he started to run the conveyor load him up And I noticed a crossover top of the miner on the other side. I could see the foreman Flagging me out But when it when I it was a dual thing whenever I saw him flagging us to pull out I Could notice the post up along my right-hand side starting to bend so I ran up to the Operator the kitchen and tapped him my torting. It's pulled out of there So I grabbed the cable We started backing the miner out and it's you know after you've done it for a while You hear noises that maybe other people wouldn't hear and I could hear the timber snapping So that told me it was time for me to get out So I dropped the cable And I started running out, but I'd yell for my buddy to We better get out there now I Never I Never looked back I Was off and running and I ran into the boss as he was coming across from the backside and But the time I ran into him we heard it come in now when it came in and it Rolled way back it came back past through the intersection and And the dust was just so thick you couldn't see anything so Foreman asked he said you know is everybody out and We counted heads real quick and we were missing one And we pretty much figured it had to be the operator At that point in time. I hoped that he'd stayed in a cab You know and didn't get out and try to run it Foreman sent one of the buggy operators up to phone to call dispatcher and let him know that we'd had a fall on a minor and As the smoke was clearing the former myself we went we started walking up in towards the cut to see what we could see how bad the how bad the conditions were and As the smoke as the dust cleared You could see the boom and then you could see I Could see a big piece of slate that it fell back across the back of the canopy But that was it. I mean the rest of it was totally covered. I couldn't see anything so Which as we were walking up towards the minor You could see that the minor has was back the boom had cleared where the roof had fallen and And It looked like the most of the the slate that fell Had hit on top of the minor and slid down And covered the minor that way so we walked up to the lip where the and gave it a quick look to look for real ugly pieces drips or whatever and We thought it was okay, you know safe enough to stand there And we started calling for the operator calling his name And we called several times Before he answered and he answered it sound like he was far away His voice was real real small We decided, you know, rather than have him wait, we'd get him out as quickly as we could and Sort of through caution to the wind and you know, it wasn't the best thing to do to go underneath the unstable roof Like epic which I'll be better to get him out So the form and I both called down underneath the boom and underneath that big piece of slate and got to him and We explained to the operator what we were going to do how we were going to try to extract him and The only way we could see that we could get to him was taking him out through the back panel in the canopy So I reached through the the canopy and grabbed him underneath his armpits and I told him that you know I was going to try to pick him up a little and If you feel anything, you know, let me know and we'd have to try something else And I said, you know, if everything's okay, I'll grab you pull you up out You help me a little bit to get him out so we gave it a try and we pulled him up and out and We'd be drug him out from underneath the boom of the minor and took him out to the last open cross gun And he was you know visibly shaken But no it didn't show sign of injury About that time help started arriving from The shift boss came and he brought several his general people with him To look the situation over and the mistake that we made then was that we sort of forgot Charlie, you know, he he was still pretty shook up and We just left him sitting for a while and went back up and started looking at the minor to see what you know what we could do it to straighten it out and at By that time we we walked up to the minor when we're looking around and looking around and Forming one desk the shift boss one dashing the operator some questions about what occurred, you know, because we really didn't have the answers So that's when he came back into mind. We had we'd left him so we went out and back up to where we left him in a breakthrough and He was visibly sick now. I mean he was the reality had set in and he just came close to getting it and The shift boss asked me if I'd take him out in his Jeep and take him outside You know, they asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital or anything and he didn't want to so on the ride out I Asked him. I said jazz. I said, but didn't you you know, what what took you so long didn't you you know see anything happening, you know and he said that he was so intent on Doing the job that he was doing that he really wasn't paying attention to the post situation and the roof and I tried to explain to him that you know, I Had to get out of there. You know, I didn't I didn't have a can if you over me I had to go and he said he understood totally, you know that you know, I did what I had to do and The funny thing was he said it you know, it happened to him so fast That he said he never even saw it happen He said, you know, the next thing he knew he was sitting in a dark. It was just He said and you know the noise of the roof breaking up was really loud And he never heard it. I mean he he said he just All of a sudden he was in a dust filled situation and in a dark And he said that was good And it happened that way because if he were to realize what was happening He would have tried to get out and around and then he definitely would have made it The bad thing was That as later on after I Got him outside The roof came in three more times As they were trying to pull the miner out. It kept it kept coming in and You'd ever realize how you put yourself in jeopardy when you Because you know the mind it kept coming in back further out in the intersection and we'd all been standing there just moments before minutes before or whatever and It just was totally unstable and you really couldn't tell I mean it Like I said it came in I think three other times Before they got to the miner back and cleared how much Supporting did you and the face boss? Do it at the time you were trying to dig the miner operator out none We thought And and I don't actually Really believe that we even gave it much thought to post around the lip Our primary thought was to get in and get him out, you know, see what kind of shape he was in if we could help him In an emergency situation like that, I don't know if you always think a lot of times you just do and I'd I Can't say that we ever gave it a thought to post that up Maybe if we'd been you know instructor that would have been drilled into us That you know you never Go under an unsupported roof even in a situation like that. Perhaps we might have Gave it thought But to me it just seemed like it was a natural reaction just to go and try to save your buddy If you had thought to do that Where were the posts? How much time would it have taken to support? That lip to do what you could do to make the place safer before you crawled in well We unloaded our the way we used to do it in retreat sections was that we always had posts unloaded in Basically every entry with stacking along the ribs So they were always nearby 100 feet or no more than that Then perhaps to set three or four posts Or to get three or four jacks and put up along that lip that might have been you know Maybe it wouldn't have taken that long. Maybe we'd only taken a couple minutes And as it turned out we had more than you know a couple minutes with plenty of time we could have done it but We didn't give that a thought. I don't think I'm thinking Just reacting