BURIED ALIVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 March 1936, Page 12

BURIED ALIVE

MINERS’ NARROW ESCAPE.

Two miners trapped in a working under the sea by a fall of stone in Blackhall Colliery, near West Hartlepool, Durham, the other day, talked to their rescuers through a com-pressed-air tube. The tube was connected to a pick the men had been using and was found to be undamaged by the roof fall. The men, James Fullerton, of Blackhall Rocks, and Michael Cannon, of Blackhall, were trapped for more than 24 hours, during which time they gave directions to the rescue party, and joked with them. They had bee nin the pit since 9.30 on a Friday morning. When the fall occurred, shortly after 4 p.m., they had nearly completed an eight-hour shift. Altogether, when they were rescued, they had been more than 30 hours underground. Their first words over the tube were, “We are all richt. How long will it take to get us out?” The manager of the pit, who led the rescue party replied, “How many props are there on your side?” When the men had counted them, it was estimated that about 26 feet of stone separated them from freedom.

The men had been working two miles from the shaft bottom, but after their long 'imprisonment they were able to make the journey to the surface. Mrs Cannon was wailing at the pithead for her husband. This was the second time she had been an anxious watcher at the spot. Cannon was previously entombed for six hours in the same pit in the same way. When he came up he greeted his wife and then tvent straight to the pit baths with Fullerton. Mr J. P. Hall, chief agent of Horden Collieries, Ltd., owners of the pit, said the fall was about 20 yards long. James Stanger, a man who should have . relieved Fullerton and Cannon, said when he reached the place where the fall occurred he went to get timber for the rescuers. The place was about two miles from the shaft bottom and under the sea. The pit was about 1300 feet deep. Fullerton said: “We had plenty of air. We had oil lamps and, fortunately, they continued to burn for the 24 hours’ we were imprisoned. These lamps were our best friends. Without them -we would have been in the dark.

Mr William Miller, an overman, said: “Twenty-four men working in relays for 23 hours cut a hole 22 yards long and a yard in diameter through coal and stone.”