THRILLING ADVENTURE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 May 1929, Page 7

THRILLING ADVENTURE

MINER’S. NARROW ESCAPE. A thrilling story comes from Clydach V'aJe m the itliondda Valley, Wales. A young collier named K'nilyn Prothcroo who had been out of wont two years, at last found work and considered himself lucky. But as he was defending the pit alone the machinery of the hi. .ding engine went out of order and the cage stuck. He found that the cage could be moved a little, out it would not go right up or light down. For two hours and a-half the man was imprisoned anti possibly he lorosaw the swift and sudden fall of tin. cage, a disaster which has killed miners before. Possibly also lie was suffering from the hardships of two years Hiieinjployment. The unhappy result was that when the chance of escape cvinc lie was too exhausted to take it. 'Phe cage had been manoeuvred opposite a watercourse opening into the. shaft, but there was a gap of six fee; between the cage and the watercourse, and a tremendous drop of 900 fee, lay below. The colliery agent and two men went down the watercourse till they came to its opening on the shaft. A narrow plank Was placed across the chasm. Prothcroo was not strong enough to cross it as his own. strength had ebbed away. Then Will Jones, a pitman walked over the plank to the cage, picked the lad up and swung him across the gulf to the arms of the men in the other side, afterwards orossing the narrow and unstable plank again to safety. No man could have stepped safely above that tremendous drop unless he had been perfectly fit and perfectly calm. It was indeed a fortunate thimr for young Protheroe that there was a man at hand not only willing but possessed of the necessary nerve and strength to rescue him. This true story, says an English writer recalls a- passage in one of the romances written by Sir Rider Haggard. Three .people exploring the inside of a mountain had to cross a chasm by a narrow plank. Two managed it, but the third faltered and was hurled to death taking the plank with him. That tragedy of fiction might have been reproduced in the mining district of the Rhondda Valley.but for the coolness apd courage of Will Jones.