Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, April 30, 1924
Mine worker snatched from jaws of death
Manley Cooney calmly walks out of Black Diamond colliery after being imprisoned for twenty hours
How it seems to be face to face with death for twenty hours and be snatched back to safety just in time to escape an avalanche of rock and coal, was described this morning by Manley Cooney, Black Diamond miner, whoso two companions were killed Monday night in a “bump” in the twenty-ninth chute in the eleventh level of the Pacific Coast Coal Company’s mine, 1,600 feet below the surface.
The body of O.C. Wise, Cooney’s partner, was recovered at 6 o’clock this morning, about twenty-five feet from where Cooney lay uninjured for twenty hours. The body of Robert Doucett, third miner caught in the avalanche of rock and coal, was recovered yesterday.
The “bump,” which is the miner’s term for an upheaval something like a miniature earthquake, occurred at 9:20 Monday night while Cooney, Wise, and Doucett and five others were “pulling pillars” in the deepest portion of the mine, preparatory to taking out the last of the coal. The ‘“bump’ came without warning.
Called to his partner
“It came so suddenly we didn’t know what had happened until it was all over,” said Cooney this morning. “The first thing l knew I found myself thrown down on the rock with a couple of timbers over me and hardly room to move. As soon as I could get my breath, I called to Wise, my partner, and when he didn’t answer I felt that he was gone. The last I saw of him he was going down the chute to shut the water off, and from the position in which the ‘bump’ left things I was pretty sure that he had been buried.
“It’s pretty hard to tell just how I felt down there now that it’s all over. I felt sure that the boys would be after me, and it wasn’t long before I heard them but couldn’t tell just where they were working. I went to sleep two or three times but couldn’t tell how long it was, but the longer I laid there the surer I was that the boys would get me. I worked out some of the pieces of rock around my head to give more room for air and when there was room to move my body, I pounded on a timber with a piece of rock to let the boys know where I was. Then pretty soon I heard them talking and I knew they were going to get me, but it felt kind of funny when they began to loosen the rock and timber around me so I could get out.”
Cooney, who appeared to be unaffected by his twenty hours communion with death, went down to the mine early this morning “to see how things are going.” He arrived shortly after the body of his partner, Wise, was brought to the surface.
“Hello, boys,” was Cooney’s greeting to the men around the entrance to the mine. “I’m here, you see.”
“Hello, Cooney,” was the reply, and then there were handshakings all around and congratulations on Cooney’s narrow escape.
“I’m all right this time,” Cooney said when he had a chance, “and I tell you it feels mighty good. It was almost like a honeymoon again when I got home to the wife.”
Wife waits for return
In the meantime, Mrs. Cooney was recovering from the aftereffects of the shock and suspense from midnight Monday, when she received the first information of the accident, until about 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon, when she learned that he was alive.
“I believed they would get him out,” said Mrs. Cooney, “but it was terrible, just the same. Everybody told me there was hope and believed but was afraid, too. I can’t tell how glad I was when they told me they could hear Manley talking and I had an awful funny feeling when he came home. It was terrible waiting and not knowing and I don’t want to think of it anymore.”
Just how close Cooney was to death he did not know himself, for he had been out only a few minutes when a cave-in occurred and the place where he lay was covered by tons of rock. “There was a ‘flop’ just after we got him out,” said J.D. Walton, one of the crew of three men who pulled Cooney from his perilous position and passed him on down the chute. “If he had been there many minutes longer, we couldn’t have reached him.”
Walton, with Leonard Eskeson and Charles Ludwig, removed the last of the obstructions which liberated Cooney, Walton reaching him first.
Walks out of mine
“We wanted to carry him out but he wouldn’t let us,” said Walton. “‘I’m all right,’ he said when he stretched himself. ‘I walked in and I’m going to walk out,’ and that’s what he did.”
One of the first to greet Cooney when he came out was John Parker, deputy state mine inspector, who had been on the job since Monday night.
“How are you, Cooney?” asked Parker. “I’m all right, Jack,” replied Cooney, and then as he put his arm around Parker’s neck: “It’s mighty good to be out, Jack, but I was beginning to wonder if the boys were going to reach me.” Then nobody said anything for a minute.
Cooney’s first act on coming to the surface was to pose for a dozen movie camera men and newspaper photographers, and then, as if nothing had happened, he ran off to the wash house to get rid of the coal dust and go home to his wife.
Wise, whose body was brought out this morning, apparently had been killed instantly. The body was found near the water valve where Cooney said he saw him last. Doucett also is said to have been instantly killed. Both bodies were brought to Seattle.
Whether there is to be an official investigation of the accident has not been determined. Deputy Coroner Frank Koepfli made a report of his investigations yesterday to his chief, Dr. W.H. Corson, and Coroner. Corson has the matter under advisement. A report will also be made to the state mine inspector’s office. The accident is generally conceded to have been one of those that “just happen” without any cause that can be guarded against. Official investigation of similar accidents is said to have determined nothing that threw any light on the cause or produced any information that would prevent a “bump.”
Doucett leaves a widow while Wise is survived by a widow and a three-year-old son. Mrs. Wise and child were visiting in Bellingham and were not found by the mine officials until 4 o’clock this morning.
The accident was one of the most unusual in the history of the Black Diamond mine. While “bumps” are normally expected under the conditions which existed at the time, the almost miraculous escape of five other men in that area and the saving of Cooney’s life when the chances depended on minutes, are the unusual features.
The five men who escaped, Ben Davis, Al Simmons, George Rogolin, Ed Lautett, and W. Biehl, were knocked down by the concussion and thrown out of the path of the avalanche. Rogolin was the only one of the five seriously injured and is at the Black Diamond Hospital with severe bruises. Biehl was thrown by the concussion sixteen feet down the chute and out of the way of the rocks and escaped with minor bruises. Biehl was a new man and was working with Doucett as a substitute for his partner, W.H. McLoughrey, who laid off to go on a fishing trip.
Miner has hunch
Biehl says he owes his life to the consideration shown him by Doucett. Knowing that Biehl was not familiar with conditions in that area, Doucett kept him in the background as far as possible, and when the “bump” occurred he was down the chute after timber.
McLoughrey owes life to a “hunch.” He had gone fishing early Monday with a friend intending to return in time to take his shift. Just before that time he recalled that a year ago Monday he had been caught in a “bump.”
“I guess I won’t go back after all,” he told his companion. “I got bumped just a year ago and I’ve got a hunch I’d better celebrate by staying away.” Miners said that if McLoughrey had gone on shift with Doucett they would have been working together and he would undoubtedly have shared the fate of his partner.
Officers of the Pacific Coast Coal Company, notified of the accident soon after it occurred, went to the mine at once and some of them remained there until the body of Wise was brought to the surface this morning. These included N.D. Moore, vice president; R.W. Smith, assistant chief engineer, and D.C. Botting, manager of mines.
Welfare workers were sent to the homes of Mrs. Doucett and Mrs. Cooney and every possible care given them. Telegraph and telephone were used continuously in trying to find Mrs. Wise, who was said to be visiting somewhere in Oregon. She was finally located this morning in Bellingham.
The funeral of the two men will be held here in a few days.
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