Rescued PA Miners Recount Ordeal (***PICTURES***)

AP ^ | July 28, 2002 | Larry Neumeister

[MinuteGal]

Merci, Alouette. I appreciate your work in posting these human drama photos.

Leni

[SuziQ]

Thanks be to God! I'm just in tears of joy looking at these pictures. The ones with the miner and his wife did it for me. She knows just what a blessing it is having him beside her, as does he! I put in a tape and left it on when they first started bringing them out last night. I haven't watched it yet, but I plan to do that this evening, even though I'll have to endure Geraldo!

[linn37]

what a wonderful day it must be for the miners and their familys...God Bless Them.

[linn37]

hey when they replayed Geraldo crying with relief that these men were safe I cried right along with him.

[Unknown Freeper]

I love that happy look on the face of the fire chief. And you can see the love that the wife has for her husband in those two shots of them together. Today is a good day.

[LibKill]

I was leaving work Friday afternoon and reflecting that it had been a fairly rough week.

Then I remembered these poor men trapped 100+ feet underground.

My week then looked like heaven by comparison.

I'm really happy they got out alive.

[McGavin999]

What a day! I stayed up all night to watch the men being brought up, it was incredible. Americans are tough people, and these miners are amoung the toughest. There's no doubt about it the hand of God was in this rescue.

Isn't it funny that during the nineties all we saw were the soft, "sensitive" girly-men and we feared for our country. Now we see everyday how truely strong and gritty our people are.

[bandleader]

I Prayed Hard For Those Guys And Their Rescuers And Families!!I Guess That I Should Have Asked The Lord For Something For Me While I Was At It!!!!I'm Only Kidding,Praise The Lord God Almighty!!!!!!!!!!!

[JZoback]

Wonderful pictures

Thanks

[RedBloodedAmerican]

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.

[flying Elvis]

9 4 9 bump

[Tennessee_Bob]

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.

[Jesse]

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?

[PoisedWoman]

Another bump for touching, wonderful photos. "God Gave Us a Miracle," indeed.

[f.Christian]

Pumping all that air in the mine through that 6' bore hole to keep the water level down and raise the air temperature was a brilliant way to save these mens lives!

Congratulations and thanks to all!

[ex-snook]

Great job - thanks for the pics.

[vance]

Terrific thread. Bump.

[bvw]

With all due respect to these fellows, mayne they should have spent some time in the decompression chamber.

[bvw]

I think their joints, long term, would have thanked them.