T The following is, with minor corrections, Chapter 35 from my book-length memoir "Bridge Ahead" published in 2008. Today, May 2, 2016, is the 44th anniversary of the mine disaster in which killed ninety one men. A memorial service is held each year at 11:00 am at the Big Creek exit of highway I-90.
On
May 2, 1972, I was working as usual in the Clinic. Around noon, we
began to get rumors of a fire in the Sunshine Mine. No one knew the
extent, but the general feeling was, a hard-rock mine had little to
catch fire. We doctors conferred about emergency measures for burns
and possible other trauma, and continued our regular work while we
waited for the first casualties.
Only
two had arrived at the hospital by the time I made rounds that
evening. One of them I knew personally—Byron Schultz, a cage
(elevator) operator at the Number Ten Shaft—who came in with smoke
inhalation and probable carbon monoxide poisoning. Later newspaper
accounts said that, after the initial evacuation of miners, the first
rescue crew to descend that afternoon had found Byron attempting to
make his way out through thick smoke on the 3100 level. He was near
collapse, and a member of the rescue team gave him his own oxygen
apparatus to breathe, but soon collapsed himself. When Byron had
revived enough to talk, he told the rescue team, “They’re all
dead back there!” The team’s monoxide detector showed dangerously
high levels. Beginning to suffer toxic symptoms themselves, they
returned tothe surface. Byron recovered, and got credit for saving
several miners that day by staying at his post until the smoke drove
him out. About sixty of the day shift escaped, warned by a pungent
skunk-like odor dumped into the underground ventilation system to
signal urgently Get
out NOW! More
than ninety others, including some who had re-entered the mine on
rescue missions, were still underground.
A patient of mine arrived at the hospital just at the end of evening
rounds. Hysterically she wept, “Ijust
know my husband’s dead!” There was little to offer her, beyond a
listening ear and a sedative. I privately thought she might be right.
The
following day was my day off, and with some hesitation I phoned the
mine office, asking if a doctor could be of any help. The switchboard
operator gave me an emphatic yes. I drove over, parked outside the
gate, and identified myself to the police officer keeping the crowd
at bay outside. He allowed me in; I passed through a gathering of
family members anxiously awaiting news of husbands, sons, and
fathers, and I climbed the stairs to the mine operations office.
Miners, company officials and rescue crew members crowded around a
large table covered with ventilation diagrams, cold coffee cups, and
half-eaten sandwiches. They had been working for hours to get some
safe ventilation scheme to clear the mine’s air without feeding the
fire, which appeared to be centered on the 3,400 level. I had
worked in Kellogg five years now; my patients included some of the
state police, telephone operators, miners and mine officials. I
could go freely about the mine premises, but not into the mine
entrance where the air was still poisonous. My first job was to
attend a mine security man who had breathed some monoxide, but who
recovered without trouble. Otherwise there was nothing to do but stay
available if needed. I wandered among the crowd outside, who
were being attended by Red Cross and local volunteers serving free
soup, sandwiches, and coffee. Someone set up rows of cots in a
warehouse where people could rest during their vigil.
About
noon that day, an electric donkey engine towing a string of flat-bed
mine cars brought out six more bodies wrapped in blankets. I examined
them briefly, identified them, officially pronounced them dead, and
sent them to a temporary morgue in Kellogg. One was the husband of my
anxious patient of the night before.
My
mind focused on incidental features, to keep me from the enormity of
the tragedy unfoldng around me. First aid texts often describe
monoxide victims as having a cherry-red color. Actually, their color
resembled sunburn, quite unexpected in men who work underground, away
from the sun. None had any burns or significant wounds. Because
the rescue crews could carry only a two-hour supply of oxygen with
them, and most of that was used in getting to and from the work area,
the recovery of these six bodies had required the full efforts of two
rescue crews. Thereafter, all attention was directed toward finding
possible survivors. Bodies encountered underground were left there
till later, which led to other problems in the very moist, warm,
underground air.
The
six bodies went by car into Kellogg. Members of the miners’
families in the waiting crowd made it plain that they would break the
head of any news reporter outside the gate who tried to take
pictures.
A
chance question about medical help underground got me an invitation
to join the next mine rescue class. Curious about the training, I
joined about thirty-five miners for an eight-hour condensed course in
fire control, gas monitoring, and oxygen apparatus. We learned to
dismantle, check, and reassemble each valve and tube in our McCaa
oxygen packs, working as carefully as a sky-diver packing his own
parachute. We donned the apparatus and climbed in tandem up a steep
slope to get used to the forty-two pound weight on our backs and the
sweat fogging the inside of our masks.
As
it turned out, they needed little medical aid underground, but my
classmates spent many hours searching for survivors, and later
recovering bodies and fighting fire. I still have my Bureau of Mines
certificate qualifying me for underground rescue (long obsolete, 35
years later) but I never had any work to do underground.
I
stayed part of the night. Nothing on paper can reproduce the feeling
of standing in the crowd, that chilly night, watching the air-exhaust
stack on the hill above us propelling a constant billowing stream of
smoke into the air, or speculating what the sudden turning of the big
wheel atop the mine shaft structure might mean.
Help
now poured in from everywhere. Experienced mine rescue teams from
British Columbia, Montana, and Utah joined the local crews. Improved
oxygen equipment, lighter in weight, arrived by air from England. It
allowed three hours underground, and used liquid oxygen that cooled
the wearer. All sorts of ingenious devices arrived: body cooling
equipment for survivors, closed-circuit TV adapted to underground
use, even a special two-man capsule that could be lowered down an air
shaft which became the prototype of capsules used in later mine
disasters.
High
school students volunteered for the Red Cross, or for church-operated
baby sitting services. Food poured in. A soft drink company set up a
free fountain. All the stores and bars collected funds for the
families. The Bean Association of America, whatever that was, donated
six tons of beans. One offers what one has.
KWAL,
the local radio station, stayed on the air all night with news
bulletins and music. The disk-jockey told Burley Herrin, a local
minister volunteering at the mine, “No matter what kind of music I
play, people call up and complain. What should I do?”
“ "Play
two westerns and a hymn,” the minister advised.
The
eleven-man county medical society set up a schedule to put a doctor
at the mine around the clock, and the nurses did the same. We did
mine rescue physical exams, assembled supplies for when survivors
might need them, treated headaches and sunburn in the crowd. We stood
by while family members told grandpa, “who has a bad heart,” that
his son was among the dead.
Two
morticians volunteered for mine rescue training in order to go
underground and stabilize the bodies until there was time to bring
them out. Unfortunately, both men had been working without sleep for
so long that they could not pass the necessary physical exam.
The
only group apparently pursuing its own agenda was the national news
media. The reporters had a tendency to draw a conclusion first, then
seek evidence to support it. Perhaps their editors back home had told
them to look for tear-jerker pictures, or statements against mine
management. Anyway, it wasn’t long before the crowd excluded them
from the premises. They then took station across the road from the
mine entrance and interviewed people coming out and going in.
Occasionally the police allowed a pool photographer in to picture
some special event like the governor’s tour.
Day
after day went by, with no apparent progress. Number Ten Hoist had
heavy smoke damage to be cleaned from its switches and motor before
rescuers could even travel down to the working areas of the mine.
Mine timbers and the plastic material of the ventilation pipes
themselves continued to feed the fire. The rescue teams sealed off
bulkheads, only to have smoke appear from another of the many
connecting tunnels. Underground power lines broke; underground power
substations overheated. Smoke and moisture fouled electric contacts
in the hoist machinery and had to be cleaned and dried. Many of the
trapped men worked in the newest part of the mine, served only by
Number Ten hoist.
There
were other escape routes, but I tried to imagine climbing twenty
stories up a ladder even in good air. If I had done so, I would only
have reached the next level above, and would have to repeat that ten
more times to reach the 3700-foot level that connected to the Jewel
Shaft a mile away. The mine rescue leaders were correct in refusing
to risk rescuers’ lives until they had dependable hoist machinery
and communications.
The
one surge of joy and hope came after a week of vigil, when rescuers
found two miners alive on 4800 level. Word came that they were in
good shape and had refused stretchers. They came up one at a time
through a ventilation shaft, riding the new rescue capsule to the
3700 level. Everyone gathered around the tunnel entrance, jostling
for a better view, the two miners’ families in front. Even the less
emotional among us joined the cheering as Ron Flory and Tom
Wilkerson, both bearded, smiling, and hanging on to their lunch
pails, walked out under their own power, though supported by
rescuers. Their wives joined them in the ambulances as they drove off
to the hospital for an overnight checkup. They owed their survival to
the air ventilation shaft and a door protecting them from the
monoxide.
Every
wife still missing a husband then believed her man would come out
alive. But when Number Ten Hoist finally came back in operation, on
the tenth day, rescue crews found only dead men, finally accounting
for all the missing. The coroner determined that all had died that
first day, some still sitting around their coffee cups at lunch
break, perhaps not even aware of their danger. Carbon monoxide is
colorless and odorless, and often precedes the smell of smoke.
I
saved a chart from the mine rescue class, showing the effects of
carbon monoxide at various concentrations and time exposures. One
tenth of one percent concentration causes unconsciousness if breathed
for an hour. Three days after the fire’s outbreak, the 3700 foot
level still measured 4.5% monoxide, enough to cause almost instant
death without a respirator.
That
fire changed mine safety rules nation-wide. The Safety Department no
longer locks up self-rescue masks to prevent pilfering. (Miners had
found that they made great inhalators while spray-painting rooms at
home.) Everyone going underground now carries a canteen-sized rescue
breather on his belt, allowing him an hour of breathing in an
emergency. Oxygen equipment at the hoistrooms allows operators to
stay at their posts until all miners are out.
Most
miners won’t work anywhere but underground. Many of the
fire-fighters we examined in the weeks following the disaster had the
same surnames as those who had died. Next to the Big Creek exit of
Interstate 90, a larger-than-life statue of a hard rock miner and his
drill, by sculptor Ken Lonn, memorializes those 91 men lost that day.
Sunshine
Mine remained closed for several years. It meant the loss of more
than 300 jobs, and nearly one hundred families without a
bread-winner. The Sunshine Fire contributed to an era of economic
decline affecting the Silver Valley for years afterward.
