Originally published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 30, 1924
Trapped worker is reached by life savers in strange disaster at nearby colliery
Hope of reaching Wise’s body given up after comrade describes fate; another hurt
By J. Newton Colver
Face to face with impending death for twenty hours, in the depths of the Black Diamond coal mine forty miles from Seattle, Manley Cooney walked forth at supper time last evening, free, unhurt, happy to greet his young wife.
Less fortunate were two comrades, caught in an earth shock and resultant slide, spoken of in mine terminology as a “bump.”
These are dead:
Robert Doucette—twenty-four, leaves a widow in Black Diamond; no children.
O.C. Wise—thirty-five; leaves a wife and young son visiting somewhere in Oregon.
George Rogolin, thirty-one, spent last night in the company hospital, only slightly injured.
The body of Doucette was brought to the surface about eleven yesterday morning, while the body of Wise has not been recovered up to a late hour last night.,
Cooney owes his rescue to modern mine mechanical efficiency and to the unflagging labor of fifty comrade workmen. Stripped to the waist, sweating like Titans, working continuously twenty hours in three-man shifts, the Black Diamond miners battled to save their comrade.
Through the long night and day, encouraged by the tap, tap, tapping on buried timbers to assure them that some life hung on the thread of energies, they labored furiously.
Toward 2 o’clock, there came the voice of the imprisoned Lazarus.
“Hello! Hello!”
“Hello, who is it?” the workers hailed back.
“This is Cooney. I’m all right. Keep at it!”
“Where is Wise—is your partner all right?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Cooney’s report sealed the doom of his comrade, mining officials at once recognized. Efforts to reach Wise, however, were not relinquished even when Cooney was brought forth.
The Black Diamond, the deepest coal mine on the American continent, was the scene of a long night and day of anxiety and excitement. The property, one of the largest coal producers in the sates, is owned by the Pacific Coast Coal Company, with offices in the L.C. Smith Building, Seattle.
Shook town
The “bump,” as the miners peak of it, happened at 9:20 Monday night. It was of such strength as to shake the whole of the little mining town. Sensing the certainty of disaster, mine officials rushed from far and near to the mine headquarters.
Unbroken telephone communications soon established the locality of the accident. It was discovered that the slide had occurred on the eleventh level, 5,500 feet down the main hoisting slope, 1,245 feet below sea level.
Cooney, Wise, Doucette, and five comrades were working over at the extreme south end of the level, at Chutes No. 29 and 30.
Cooney, Wise, and Rogolin were in Chute No. 29, while Doucette and Biehl were in 30.
The impact threw Rogolin back against the door of the chute, bruised and lacerated him slightly, but did not obstruct his ready passageway out and down to the level. Biehl was about to clamber up Chute 30 to where Doucette was working with some timbers, and was thrown fully sixteen feet back down the chute to the level. He sustained only slight bruises.
Al Simmons, Ben Davis, the fire boss, and Ed Louthit were also working in the immediate vicinity when the “bump” came.
Efforts on the part of the mine owners to notify Mrs. Wise, who is somewhere visiting, had not been successful up to a late hour last night.
Home rejoicing
Cooney was the central figure at a merry house party at his home in the edge of the village last night when the Post-Intelligencer photographers and the reported called.
“I didn’t realize at first, when the bump came, that it was serious,” he said. “I called out to ‘Jack’ [Wise], but got no answer, and then came another crash and the slide of the coal and debris. I was partly buried, and a big timber fell across my neck, but not so as to choke me. I got hold of a rock and began tapping and very shortly I heard the men below tapping back. From then on, I did not worry.
“I worked myself free again and proceeded to dig myself a little hole in the solid wall of coal so that, in case the men working up to me from beneath should start another slide, I could keep out of the way.
“My light soon went out and I spent five or six hours in darkness. I was cold, but I never once got hungry or thirsty. The air was good all the time, and I never lost heart for a minute.”
Cooney was due to go off shift at midnight, and it was decided about 1 o’clock Tuesday morning to notify Mrs. Cooney. H.M. Ireland, welfare director for the company, went to the little cottage. He told the young wife that Cooney had been caught, but that they thought he was alive and that he could be gotten out.
Late in the morning, however, Mrs. Cooney was told not to expect too much. Only for a time did the brave little woman lose her courage and then, about 2 o’clock came the glad news that her husband was alive and that his rescue would only be a matter of time.
At 5:40, the tram cars shot forth from the mouth of the mine with a cheering group of begrimed miners.
Cooney leaped over the side of the car and strode forth without assistance, waving his hand joyously to his friends and grinning like a schoolboy.
The Black Diamond has been comparatively free from disasters, officials said. In 1906, a gas explosion cost five lives. Three or four years ago, another “bump” took two more.
Mine officials attempted to describe a “bump,” but admitted that coal mine experts has for generations been baffled by the phenomenon. It is something similar to an earthquake in its effect, but what causes it is a mystery. Probably 1,500 feet of sold rock and terrain was overhead.
No hysteria
Unlike scenes which have traditionally been pictured at mine disasters, there was no evidence of hysteria about the mouth of the slope yesterday. No weeping widows nor curious crowds. A little group waited around, but, excepting the newspaper men, it was largely mine workers, waiting their call to duty.
Mrs. Doucette, the widow, and Mrs. Cooney were cared for during the day by Mr. and Mrs. Irelan, the company’s welfare representatives.
Mine officials led a party of newspaper men down the long slope and out along the eleventh level to within a few feet of where the men were working.
D.C. Botting, manager of mines for the company; Jack Parker, Tacoma, deputy state mine inspector; Ray Smith, chief engineer of the Black Diamond; Dr. J.L. Rains, the company physician, J.F. Taylor, and other mine officials, were on the job all night and all day without sleep and with only such bites of food as could be snatched on the run.
N.D. Moore, vice president of the company, arrived shortly before noon yesterday, and spent the rest of the day supervising the work of rescue.
Under the state workmen’s compensation act as amended in 1923, the widow of each dead miner will receive $150 cash for burial expenses and $250 for other expenses, also $35 a month as long as she remains unmarried. Mrs. Wise will also receive an additional $12.50 a month for the support of her child.
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