For three haunted days, they were buried 240 feet below stone inside the Quecreek Mine, given up for dead by many, except for the families who wept and hoped and prayed, the rescue workers, who kept pounding away, and the miners themselves–who refused to die. When the tunnel was finally cleared near midnight on Saturday, a rescue capsule reached down like a palm from the heavens, lifting the men to safety.
“The miners are alive!” Gov. Mark Schweiker proclaimed triumphantly, as thunderous cheers broke out across the little towns of coal country in the hilly Alleghenies. Unwilling to give up on these men who seemed doomed, an army of rescue workers had pumped water and drilled stone around the clock, determined in their bid toward salvation. It was a story of legend, an astonishing tale of survival of tough and rugged men who had hunched in the blinding darkness in a four-foot pocket, grasping for survival.
It was midday Thursday when a seismic device sounded an alert to the trapped men. And nine taps came back from within–the traditional miner code–enumerating the number of survivors. But there were no more sounds after that, and hopes dimmed as experts talked gravely of the dangers of hypothermia and carbon monoxide that threatened the men.
The miners–30 to 55 years old–were doing the dirty work on the second shift late Wednesday when disaster hit. A wall burst in an abandoned mine, sending tons of water pouring toward the men. Running for their lives from the cold, rushing torrents, the miners found a pocket in which to hide.
“Salt of the earth” was the way one of the miners, Tom Foy, 51, was described by his nephew Bill Foy to NEWSWEEK. John Phillippi, another miner, has a young son “who idolizes everything his father does,” a friend said. John Unger, 51, is “just regular folk,” said a neighbor. His elderly mother, Mary Unger, had stood vigil for days. “He’s my only son,” she said simply.
Family members had spent the agonizing days at the nearby Sipesville Volunteer Fire Department, clinging to hope. Everywhere in Somerset County, signs on restaurants and gas stations urged people not to lose hope. pray for the miners, read the sign at Wendy’s. A candlelight vigil on Friday at All Saints Catholic Church in Acosta drew 300 people. A simple altar was adorned with nine figurines of miners–one for each of the men. The mine is just 10 miles from the site of the United Flight 93 crash on September 11. And families of the passengers on that flight sent a letter of support to the candlelight service: “We consider you our family.” From the cities and little towns of Pennsylvania coal country, people sent so much food to workers and family members that officials at one point asked them to send no more.
The mood grew somber on Thursday, when a 1,500-pound drill bit broke in an escape tunnel, an accident that cost the rescue effort some 15 hours. But they simply pulled it back and started boring a new hole. After the drill was repaired, engineers and rescue workers had to pound through sandstone to make way for a 30-inch-wide rescue shaft. Pumps suctioned out water from the mine at a rate of 2 million gallons a minute. With the water level inside the tunnel falling, they were able to drop down a telephone to the trapped men. “Praise the Lord” was reportedly the first sound they heard back. The governor rushed to tell the news to the sequestered family members.
With helicopters poised to transport the survivors to hospitals, rescuers lowered down water, food and blankets. A little over an hour later, just before 1 o’clock Sunday morning, the first miner (Randy Fogle, 43, who had complained of chest pains) was lifted to safety. Family members and neighbors waited to see the rest of their loved ones finally emerge. Said Joyce Graham, a neighbor of John Unger’s, the man whose mother just the day before had lamented her only son’s fate, “The mines can be hell, but there are miracles that can happen, too.”
As cable TV prepared to beam images of the rescued men around the world, pandemonium broke out at Mel’s Restaurant and Lounge in Somerset. “You just can’t ever count a miner out,” said owner Jean Pletcher as folks driving by honked their horns, whistled and celebrated a joyful outcome to a miserable three days. “We went from feeling like somebody slapped us to knowing that our prayers are answered.”
