1900 - Coalmininghistorypa.org

No. 11. TENTH BITUMINOUS DISTRICT. 685
gard to it. The three men examined the rock and thought it was perfectly
solid, and would have to be shot down, and the committeeman
turned away to go out of the room, when Nail went toward the face
to go to work, and as he was passing under the roll of rock it suddenly
fell upon him, injuring him so severely lie died the same evening.
This was considered an unavoidable accident.
No. !). Emile Holm was killed by falling from a trip of loaded cars
at Ogle mine Angus! 9th. His father had sent him on an errand out
of the mine, and he rode out on a loaded trip, and just as the trip got
outside the drift mouth, for some reason, he jumped up on the car,
and struck his head against one of the trolley supports, and was
knocked under the cars and dragged along a short distance, and
when taken out he was dead. The boy seemed to have acted very
carelessly.
Nos. 10 and 11.
Chester Smith and John Richardson were so seriously
burned by powder that they died. Smith was working in a
room with a miner, and had gone to the powder box to make up a
cartridge; Richardson, who worked in the adjoining room, was
sitting some ten or twelve feet away, and in some way a spark fell
from Smith's lamp and ignited the powder in the cartridge, and also
that in a can, and burned them both so severely that Smith died on
the evening of the 25th and Richardson on the evening of the 29th
of August. On making an investigation, I considered it an unavoidable
accident, as Smith was a very careful man. This accident occurred
at the Burnside mine.
Nos. 12, 13 and 14. John Kindress, George Slaposkoy and George
Kulick, were killed at Sugar Camp mine August 24th. These miners
were engaged in pulling out heading stumps, and on the morning in
question they had gone to work early, and had gotten plenty of coal
loose, and had mined the stump lengthwise of the heading, until
it was not more than five or six feet in thickness, and when
the driver came in with his first trip of cars he gave one to these men,
and they had just pushed the car almost to the end of the piller next
the gob, when without warning, the roof gave way, swinging over
the small pillar, and burying the men under the mass of rock. The
men in this case seemed to have been very careless in getting so
much coal loose, thus weakening the pillar too much. A fellow
miner was in the place half an hour before the accident, and he said
there was no squeeze on the props, nor any working of
the time.
the roof at
No. lo. William McKinney, was killed by a fall of slate in Great
He ml mine. October nth. He was at work making a crosscut and
had props set to within five or six feet of the face, and as he was nl
work mining, a piece of slate fell out of a po1 hole killing him instantly.
The accident was unavoidable.
No. H*>. August Kettron was seriously burned by powder at narbi-