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10th miner was spared from ordeal by day off (OR, How the Prince of Darkness saved my life, can I have my 15 minutes now?) When mine flooded, he was at Ozzfest Monday, August 05, 2002By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer They were supposed to be 10. Ten miners, not nine, were scheduled to be on the crew that wound up trapped 240 feet underground at the Quecreek Mine last month. Roger Shaffer Jr. thanks Ozzy Osbourne that he didn't have to go through that now world-famous, 78-hour ordeal near Somerset. Shaffer, 22, who lives outside nearby Hollsopple, is...

Bush, miners to talk today Monday, August 05, 2002Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Just one week ago, the Quecreek Nine, some of them still hospitalized, were recovering from a 78-hour ordeal after being trapped in the mine where they worked. Today, the men will meet President Bush. Bush, who is in town for a fund-raising luncheon for gubernatorial candidate Mike Fisher, will meet with the nine miners this morning at the Green Tree Volunteer Fire Company. The men, employees of Black Wolf Coal Co., were working in the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County on July 24 when they drilled through a wall and...

Bush to meet 'Quecreek 9' in Green Tree on Monday Disney acquires rights to miners' story for ABC movie Saturday, August 03, 2002By Ann McFeatters and Rob Owen, Post-Gazette Staff Writers WASHINGTON -- President Bush's visit to Pittsburgh on Monday will be the first of two trips he plans to make to Western Pennsylvania in the next month and a half, White House officials said yesterday. Bush will meet Monday morning at the Green Tree Fire Department with the nine survivors of the Quecreek Mine accident and their rescuers. After that, Bush will headline a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising lunch at the...

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) — The nine coal miners who were rescued from a cramped, flooded shaft Sunday decided early in their 77-hour ordeal that they would ``live or die as a group,'' tying themselves together so all their bodies would be found if they drowned. They also scrawled last messages to loved ones as they huddled together to keep warm 240 feet below the Earth's surface. ``I didn't think I was going to see my wife and kids again,'' a teary-eyed Blaine Mayhugh told reporters, hours after being pulled out of the Quecreek Mine in western Pennsylvania. He, his father-in-law...