 Hello, I'm Charles Vaught. Roof Falls are the number one immediate killer of coal miners today. When a roof fall kills a miner, however, it affects not only him or her, but the people who witness the accident and also the people that personally is behind in his or her family. I have Dave Muron with me today. Dave is going to tell the story of a roof fall accident that he witnessed. He'll tell us step by step, minute by minute, what happened, what he thought about, and what the aftermath was like. Dave? It was a Friday morning in October. I just wanted to work that day like any other day, and I was getting dressed, talking to a friend of mine, Rocky, dressed next to me. And I went in to get orders where I was going to go, and that time of year there were a lot of people off because of fishing and hunting and whatever. So just so happened I was a shuttle car operator in Rocky's section that day. And we went into what we call P-12 cut-through. We're cutting line rooms from P-12 to P-14. There already, like line room two and three were already cut through, and we were in line room one. We had about 30 feet to go, so for the whole shift we set 30 feet of colder cut. We went in and we took one lift, got the whole lift out, and we needed to set wooden bars, and we set the wooden bars and then we could advance again. After we had that lift out, we set the wooden bars in normal progression. After we were done with that, checked the cable and realized that the shuttle car wasn't going to make it through for the rest of the lift. So we went back and took lunch, and they added cable to the buggy. And when we were finished, we only had about 8, 10 feet to go, and when we spent time there talking to Rocky and telling him about my experiences, I had that summer vacation. For some reason I remember that day giving him some candy that I had from a European country. And after that, we just headed back to the minor and we took the canvas side out. Once we did that, we cleaned up, set the timber, put the canvas up, and we got ready to start the other side. And Rocky's minor helper had to leave. He had to go out for a meeting. He was on the safety committee. And so the boulders were finished, so we had the boulders come over. And Frank became minor helper at that time. He was the boulder helper. And so he helped Rocky on the minor. And we took the other side out, and the boulder operator came over at that time. So they said, just have me bring up the plank that we needed to support the roof. So I brought them up, and they said, just leave the buggy here, and you go back to the feeder and get ready to clean up. So as I went around the corner, they were starting to set plank. And what I didn't know at that time was they went in and they started to set the plank. The furthest from in by, Afri cut through and worked her way out by, which really wasn't normal procedure. But it wasn't very long after I made the corner. I heard a loud bang. And I heard somebody yelling, and so I came back around and he said, Rocky had been pinned. And when I got around there, there was a large piece of rock that fell from the rib towards the center of the entry. And I couldn't see Rocky at that point. But Frank was working right beside him and crawled from underneath the rock. And we were all excited. We didn't know what to do, and we didn't know whether to go call someone or what to do. And I remember climbing up on the miner, and the roof still unsupported. And all I wanted to do was get him out of there. When I crawled up there, I had a jack to try to jack the rock up. And I remember being able to look under and seeing his head and his neck was pinned, and it was just, I knew immediately he was already dead. I remember being very shook up and just couldn't think straight. Well, we couldn't get the rock off for some reason. We were trying to jack it and the rock would break. But we were still frantic. We were still thinking maybe there was still a chance, even though I knew he was dead and still see his blue face. And at that time, the roof started chipping again. And we all backed up, and we weren't even thinking about supporting anything. So at that point, we realized that we had to take our time and support the roof when we set extra timber. And we went up and we got a couple different jacks. And in the meantime, one of the mine former came in and everybody was checked around to see what they could do. But at that point, everybody accepted he was dead. And when they went in and finally lifted the rock, I remember being there and his body dropping to the mine floor. And we put him on a stretcher. And I really remember the ride out, I think, more than anything. It was different. There was something different about the mine going out. It was real quiet. And as the rails, when we hit the joints and the rails, remember the blanket shaking and getting outside just everything just seemed different from that point. And when we got outside, we let him in the ambulance, and we're putting my, last thing I remember, just putting my light away for some reason that day. It was just another picture I could see in my mind. And from that point on, working in the mines was totally different. When I went in, I would think about what happened. The peer pressure was totally different. I could, if people wanted to go under on Supported Roof, then I had a little more caution to stand up to him, I guess, and stand up for myself and know that was wrong. And it's something that has stuck with me for a lot of years, and I'll never forget, and has put a big impression on me. And I remember the funeral home seeing his wife and children there. And that hurt was completely different than anything I've ever experienced. Looking back, what was the reason that these guys were abandoning the regular procedure and working out from under the pins and back toward the pins? I really don't know. It just seemed to me just convenience when I left the minerhead. We were coming close to the last plank that was set, and we didn't bolt those planks. We just set the plank, and they didn't center bolt them or anything. And it was easier for him to operate the miner and to put the plank up. So it was just, I guess, they thought it was easier. Do you know what happened to his wife and children later? No, I don't. But I think one of the things that came up to me that, over time, that we tended to forget about them and really lose contact with them. But I'm probably not sure what went on after that. And you say that after this happened, people were a little more conscious of what they were doing. I think, for me personally, I can say that for everybody generally, for the first two weeks to a month, I think they did. And they had a tendency to forget about it after that. But when you actually see someone you know and just see the life God had brought in a place like that, it just leaves something with you. I just, that day I thought, this isn't a place I want to die. I just, the mind just isn't a place to die. I don't want to do that.