Tank's Poetry
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united states mine rescue association
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Tank's Poetry |
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(The following is an excerpt taken from the 1907 PA Department of Mines Annual Report) Falling Down Shaft Adam Kunkle, Polish; Ralph Richie, American; Russel Hollern, American; Oscar Groki, American; and John McAllister, Scotch; all company men, together with three others, got on the cage to descend to their work. The engineer, instead of lowering the cage, hoisted it to the automatic dump in the headframe with such force as to displace the angle guides, upsetting the cage straight down the shaft. Five men fell to the bottom, a distance of 350 feet; the other three escaping by clinging to the cage and shaft timbers. At the inquest, the engineer stated that he had left the engine after hoisting a man up the shaft to see if there was water in the boilers. Upon receiving a signal to let the men down, he unintentionally sent the cage the wrong way, hoisting it to the automatic dump instead of lowering it into the shaft. The evidence shows that he hoisted the cage slowly at first, but when an alarm was given by the men around the top of the shaft, he became excited and shot the cage up. The following is a copy of the verdict: We, the jurors, find from the evidence presented that the death of Adam Kunkle and four others at the Sonman mine, August 17th, 1907 was due to an unintentional mistake of E.D.B. Holmes, operating the engine that raised the cage instead of lowering it, causing the fatalities. |
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