Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster

10. Escape and Rescue

10 ESCAPE AND RESCUE This mustering of the Minutemen of the coal pits is one of the finest things in industrial life in America today. —Paul U. Kellogg, “Charities and the Commons,” Vol. 19 At About half past five the morning of December 6, Angelo and Orazio DePetris, brothers, and Dan and Leonardo Dominico, father and son, entered the No. 8 portal and walked down the main entry. They began work in the second right south face off the first south. Here, they undercut the coal seam using short-handled picks, set off a round of explosives, and loaded one car full of coal. After the first car had been loaded and taken out, just before 10:30, Angelo and Orazio had put off a shot in the coal face at the third left south section where the men had been working. Just as they bent over to pick up the loose coal that had tumbled down from face of the room, a powerful concussive force knocked them violently to the ground, pushing them hard against the mine floor and rib. They struggled to their feet before a second, equally powerful explosion and concussion knocked them to the ground again. The 126 chapter ten violent explosion smashed Dan Dominico to the ground with such force that his ear was badly cut and one arm injured so seriously he could not raise it. But he had not seen any explosion or fire: “I didn’t see anything; the jar came and threw me down and I didn’t see anything.”1 Immediately, the mine began to fill with smoke, loud noises, and continuous blasts. Orazio testified that the blasts lasted for ten minutes or more. Leonardo Dominico testified, I never seen anything at all . . . just knocked me down. I just seen smoke; I heard lots of noise. In fact the noise was accompanied by a concussion which knocked all the miners down, and the noise lasted for about ten minutes.2 The blasts, in addition to knocking the miners down, had extinguished their carbide lamps and knocked their canvas caps off their heads. Both Orazio DePetris and Leonardo Dominico had matches in their jacket pockets that day but the jackets, lunch pails, tools, and all the belongings of the four had been lost or destroyed by the blast. Now, despite the darkness and smoke, they struggled to get back to the main heading by feeling the ground, trying to find the rails on their hands and knees, attempting to head out of the mine the way they came, by following the tracks. As they went, the smoke grew dense and they were forced to turn back. Yet even as they turned, the smoke increased from deep in the mine. They crawled back past their working place, moving south toward an entry to a dead end where the hillside slopes down toward the river, lessening the distance to the surface. Here the younger Dominico, Leonardo, remembered seeing an opening or crack in the mine roof two or three days before, only fifty yards from the place where they had been working. “We started to go this way on the track,” Donato Dominico, Leonardo’s brother, testified, “and came back around toward the hole to get out.” His escape and rescue 127 father, Dan Dominico, unable to move quickly because of his injuries, had to be helped by his son and the DePetris brothers. Slowly, they moved toward the opening, Leonardo estimated that it took about fifteen minutes to make there. Finding the toad hole, they struggled to grab hold of the side of the hole. Reaching up, they pulled themselves higher, helping and boosting each other up and out. One of the brothers hoisted himself up first, and a fellow miner, Jim Rogers, who was above the hole on the surface, saw the survivor and called to other observers who then helped the others out including the injured Dominico. As they were drawn out of the enlarged hole, smoke enveloped them and was so dense that those on the surface could barely make out the hole.3 When they arrived on the surface, they were facing the river just above the streetcar line looking towards Pentrose. Gasping for breath in the fresh air, they remained stunned for several minutes until finally they stumbled over to the crater of what had been No. 8 portal. By this time a large crowd...