Replies

I see no signs of respirators marks on their faces. Curious: how do they clean out their lungs from the carbon? what is on their faces, wouldn't it have been inhaled as well?

Thank God they are alive and able to return to their loved ones. Thanks for the post.

Curious: how do they clean out their lungs from the carbon?

Can you say black lung?

what is on their faces, wouldn't it have been inhaled as well?

The water from the abandoned mine was full of coal dust, as well, the Quecreek mine was full of coal dust (as well as rock dust to minimize the explosive potential of the coal). That's what you're seeing on their faces, the sludge from the water that flooded them. As far as respirator marks, I'm sure the first thing they did was take the respirators off. All they do is protect you from particulate, not from gas. There are rescue rebreathers for that, but they wouldn't have lasted the three days. If there had been methane in the atmosphere, they wouldn't have made it.

Coal dust is fairly innocuous in and of itself...it is generally too large to be inhaled into the small passages of the lung, and is trapped in the nose and the larger air passages where you cough it up. What gets you in black lung disease is the fine silicone dust, which is so small it is inhaled into the terminal airways and destroys lung tissue. But what really made silicosis and black lung disease bad is that most people who got it also smoked cigarettes.

What a great ending for a near tragedy. I was surprised they didn't just pop all these guys into a decompression chamber, especially since at least one of they exhibited evidence of decompression sickness.

I hope they bronze that escape capsule. You people from PA...what was the deal with the governor? Making political hay, or is he an alright guy?

With all the screwups and problems we have in our country, this whole thing makes me proud to be an American. I was listening on the radio in bed last night to live ABC coverage, and after the live coverage ended, the radio station played God Bless America. Not ashamed to admit I cried...hell, I've got a few tears running right now just writing about it.

Where else could they have gotten it together enough to pull these guys out of a black hole?