The surviving members of the miracle "9 for 9!" miners of Quecreek, Pa. -- (l-r) Blaine Mayhugh, John Unger, John Phillippi, Ronald Hileman, Robert Pugh, Mark Popernack, Randy Fogle and Thomas Foy -- stand proud on the twentieth anniversary of their rescue from a flooded coal mine 245-feet underground.
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They're older now, however nonetheless sturdy. A number of stroll slowly, one with a cane. They use nicknames they gave one another greater than 20 years in the past when their lives — entrusted to at least one one other of their harmful work — grew to become without end entwined in historical past.
The Quecreek miners, whose story of entrapment, near-death and rescue captivated an anxious nation 20 years in the past, met for a reunion on a balmy night earlier this month on the Somerset Nation Membership in Somerset, Pa.
It was the primary time in a decade all surviving miners had gathered, a part of a weekend of celebratory occasions — together with a Nascar race in Jennerstown, Pa., — to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of their dramatic story.
Sporting polo-style shirts, informal shorts and denims, they stood in a Pennsylvania subject, birch bushes behind them, joking with a photographer and one another. The youngest, Harry “Blaine” Mayhugh, 51, took greater than his share of ribbing: “Loosen up, film star!”
From July 24 to July 28, 2002, lower than a yr after the phobia assaults of Sept. 11 horrified the world, a smaller information story gathered power on this nation: the story of 9 miners trapped lots of of ft under floor, their oxygen provide dwindling because the water rose round them.
The nation prayed for these males in Pennsylvania’s coal nation for over three days as their households gathered in a hearth station. Leslie Mayhugh, who's married to Blaine and is the daughter of miner Thomas “Tucker” Foy, 72, recalled her desperation on the time. “There have been preachers, medical doctors and counselors within the hearth corridor saying, ‘You’ve acquired to maintain constructive,’ however I stored considering, ‘I can’t lose my dad and my husband in the identical day.’ Our two little ones, seven and eight years previous, asking the place their dad was and their Pappy Tom have been. We stored praying. I had the children go to my mother’s home [because] we didn’t need them on the hearth corridor if the information was dangerous.”
Round 3 o’clock on July 24, the miners had reported for a typical day’s work, digging for coal utilized in energy crops to make electrical energy. All was nicely till simply earlier than 9 p.m., once they minimize into an deserted mine, releasing 150 million gallons of water into Quecreek. (It was later found their employers had equipped them with outdated, inaccurate maps).
Because the water burst by means of, Dennis “Harpo” Corridor, the shuttle automobile operator, jumped on a cellphone to warn others working close by. Due to Corridor, a separate crew of 9 miners made it out safely.
However the remaining 9 have been trapped 245 ft under floor. Scrambling to search out viable exits, they realized all have been flooded in order that they huddled on the highest level they may attain. Rising water knocked out the cellphone line, leaving them with no method to communicate to anybody outdoors the mine. For eight hours, they vomited and gasped for breath as oxygen dwindled. Stated Miner Robert “Boogie” Pugh, 70: “I figured we have been carried out for.”
However at 2:50 a.m., they heard a blessed sound: drilling. “You can hear them upstairs working,” mentioned Pugh. “We had nothing else however to take a seat there and pray and hope for the most effective. We have been praying arduous.”
The miners who escaped earlier had notified authorities. Beneath the management of then-Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker, a plan was hatched to pinpoint the precise spot to drill by means of 245 ft of rock and plumb in a pipe that may carry the lads contemporary air.
At 5:10 a.m., the pipe punched by means of the rock. Overjoyed, the miners beat on the metal pipe 9 occasions to sign they have been all alive.
However their ordeal was removed from over.
For the following two and a half days, as lots of of emergency responders labored around the clock to drill a rescue shaft and pump out thousands and thousands of gallons of water that threatened to fully flood the mine, the miners reassured one another to stave off panic.
“One man mentioned, ‘I’m gonna get out of right here now!’” mentioned Pugh. “We calmed him down . . . We advised him, ‘You'll be able to’t go nowhere . . .take it simple. If it involves it, we are going to all drown collectively, that’s all.’”
“I prayed to God he’d give me the energy to just accept no matter was his will,” recalled miner John “Ung” Unger, 72. He added, “We knew one another nicely sufficient to know we’d assist one another.”
They rationed the lunches and thermoses of water they'd introduced with them for simply at some point of labor. A corned beef sandwich that one man’s spouse had packed was divided 9 methods. Slowly, the lights on their arduous hats burned out one after the other.
‘I used to be considering I’d fairly have died of no oxygen than drowning.’
Miner Robert “Boogie” Pugh, on the hellish ordeal
They “talked about household and buddies, what we might do if we acquired out,” mentioned Unger.
“There was quite a lot of silence, too, everybody in his personal ideas,” mentioned miner Ronald “Hound Canine” Hileman, 69. “All people carried out quite a lot of prayin’, that’s for certain.”
All moist within the bone-chilling chilly, the lads lay shut collectively for heat.
“One would flip over and we might all have to show over since you’d be inhaling your buddy’s face, and it was so chilly,” recalled Pugh.
There was additionally ache as a result of the lads have been positioned on high of coal seams, or elements of the mine the place arduous coal is embedded inside rock.
At one level, the drilling stopped. “I used to be considering I’d fairly have died of no oxygen than drowning,” Pugh mentioned.
Even because the drilling resumed, the lads started to lose hope. In water to their chins, a number of of them agreed to tie themselves collectively to assist rescue groups to search out them within the occasion of their deaths — and likewise to assist one another.
By the fourth day, in water to their necks, the lads wrote goodbyes to their households on shreds of cardboard, utilizing a pen belonging to their boss, Randall Fogle, 68. They put the notes in a lunch pail with a water-tight lid, securing it with electricians’ tape, the place rescuers may discover it.
“You already know you’re on the finish of the road whenever you’re writing your loved ones a letter telling them, ‘Goodbye, don’t fear about us, we’ll be in a greater place,’” mentioned Mayhugh.
Lastly, at 10:15 p.m., after greater than 45 hours of drilling, the rescuers’ drill broke by means of rock, making a rescue shaft. A slender yellow rescue capsule was lowered to carry the lads out. “We had half smiles on our faces considering, ‘We could get out of right here,’” recalled Pugh. “We have been all completely happy inside, however we weren’t celebrating but.”
The miners agreed on who can be rescued first.
“The boss went first as a result of he was having chest pains,” mentioned Unger.
They selected who would go subsequent: these in fragile well being, youthful males, and people with younger youngsters.
The final out have been Pugh and Mark “Mo” Popernack, 61.
“I advised Mo, ‘Go forward, I’ll be the final one,’” recalled Pugh.
“Mo mentioned, ‘Boogie, you go.’
“I mentioned, ‘Go, you be along with your youngsters, you’ve acquired youthful youngsters.’
“Mo mentioned, ‘You go.’
“So I lastly mentioned, ‘OK, I’m not going to argue. I’m gettin’ the hell outta right here!’”
When each single final man had reached the floor, their households, who have been watching the rescue broadcast on a TV that had been introduced into the hearth corridor, let loose a large cry: “9 for 9!” That joyous outburst reverberated throughout the airwaves at a time when Individuals longed for hope.
“The teamwork is what I recall,” mentioned Schweiker, who now serves as senior vp of Renmatix, a biotech analysis firm, and attended the miners’ reunion. “The entire is larger than the sum of its elements. That’s a lesson that’s timeless, even in 2022.”
Pugh mentioned the expertise made him a greater man.
“God provides you a second probability and also you attempt to make the most effective of it,” he mentioned. “At one time, I used to run over a possum and never give it some thought. Now I'm going round them . . . I respect life far more.”
In the present day, the Quecreek mine is closed and simply eight males survive. Dennis “Harpo” Corridor died this yr on Could 13 at 68.
“Harpo would’ve needed to be right here,” Mayhugh mentioned wistfully, taking a look at his fellow miners gathered earlier than sundown. Standing along with his spouse, Leslie, and father-in-law, Tom, within the breezy night, he added, “I really imagine it was a miracle.”
At a time of division in America, the rescue of all 9 of the miners stands as a testomony to the ability of religion, unity and cooperation.
“So many good individuals prayed for us,” mentioned Pugh. “I by no means knew we had so many good individuals on the earth.
“There was 9 of us, and God was the tenth man,” he added. “If you happen to’re down and out, don’t surrender. Don’t stop.
“I by no means believed in miracles.
“Till I ended up being a part of one.”
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