Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 49, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 May 1936 — Page 5

HAY 7, 1936_

BURIED ALIVE FOR TEN DAYS • n n a a a a a a a a a Alfred Scudding Tells of Terror in Moose River Shaft

(Alfred fteaddinc. who with Dr. D. f. Jtnbertkon survived the Mnnie River mine entombment, and who eoii.'horated In Dr. Roherton' peronnal story of I heir evperienee, eontributea this final artiele of the aeriea.) BY ALFRED SCADDING TTALIFAX, N. S.—l am so sorry to have been so ill that I could not collaborate more fully in the splendid straightforward story of our experiences which Dr. Robertson has told. Owing to my feet being encased in glass boots for six hours a day, with suction pumps slowly helping the blood find its way back through the lost veins of my feet, it is not altogether easy for me to relax into a story-tell-ing mood. I first wish to express my respect for the courage and manhood of the two men with whom I was entombed those 10 days. They w r ere unfamiliar with the mine. I, at least, had had three months around the mine to lear its ways and become fairly fami - iar with the geography of it, and what is more important, to become familiar with the character of the men of Nova Scotia. Although for the first four days our greatest fear was that the men above would assume we were dead, and not make a fast enough effort to rescue us, I must say I had faith from the very start that whatever it w -s possible to do for us, those men I had got to know around Moose River mines would do it. The instant the crash happened I realized T was in a difficult situation in that I first had to persuade two men, who were my employers, that, what I thought wise to do was right; and then I had to bear the responsibility for whatever course I advised. Mv first, thought, after the terrific crash up the shaft answered my heave on the signal wire, and after the violent belch of air down the shaft, blew my cap right off my head, was to get at once along the eastward drift toward th> solid rock at the far end of the property. Alongside the solid rnrk there, untouched by miners, was less likelihood of collapse than anywhere in the neighborhood of the shaft, where stopes had been cut out in past years. tt tt tt WE got to that eastern end of the drift and waited, while 1 steadily argued the point that we should hold still until the mine should ceavse its terrible falling. One of the things I shall remember to my dying day was our effort to work upwards through the stopes from that eastern end of the drift. We clambered up stopes and over cribs and timbers, the lantern lighting our way. I was leading. We had just negotiated a very awkward timber crib which leaned outward at the top, and had started across the broken rock above it, when to my horror I saw a huge upright timber, a solid log perhaps two feet thick, slowly and with a busy crackling sound bulge and burst in the middle. The hanging wall above it seemed to be oozing slowly down. I wheeled and shouted, making as good time as I could. Mr. Magill and the doctor went down over that broken and tangled Umber in a fashion that would do credit to varsity Rugby players. I will never forget the sight of them in the leaping light, of my lantern as we raced, plunging down the steep sloping cavern filled with ruin. A few hours later, when the mine grew somewhat quieter, we crept back to investigate this avenue of escape more fully. Tlie stope we had been in was crushed flat. I recall a curious thing Mr. Magill said there, as we stood looking up in the lantern light at the place we had been. ‘Do you realize the date?" he asked us. It was now April the 13th. I have gone over in my mind carefully to discover what part of ♦he whole 10 days was hardest to bear. And I think it. was those first four days of uncertainty as to whether they thought we were alive or dead. We could detect blasts and drills during the daytime, but at night it seemed to us the work ceased. a a a WE have since learned this was not so, that the work w-ent on furiously all the time, day and night. Perhaps some atmospheric action at night dulls sounds through earth, but we were uncertain in our minds whether this working, as we thought, by day shifts alone indicated that they thought we were dead and were taking their time about getting down to us. That, I know, in my own case was the hardest part of the whole ordeal to bear. I was not hungry at any time.

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My feet began to give me trouble very soon, owing to the constant wetness, the eternal drip, the coldness and inactivity. Later fierce pain;, in my joints and hips added to ray troubles. But none of these things, no physical suffering whaiever oothered me as much as. first, the fear that they thought we were dead: and. second. the fear that after they had discovered us. in blasting or othrrwdse cutting their way down to us—as we supposed, through the main shaft—they would start another collapse. Everything paled in my mind before that thought. The drill, when it came through to us, did not come through the side wall of the shaft but through the ceiling of the shaft, so to speak. We heard it drilling but could not locate the sound. It came out, as you now know, not in the landing off which our cubby-hole was situated but underneath the landing stage. When the first signal fuse came down, throwing a weird, pinkish-red light, I supposed the mine was on fire, that the friction of the cave-in had started timbers burning. At any rate. I dashed for the opening in the wooden landing or platform, and Dr. Robertson passed me cupfuL of water w'hich I slashed down furiously at the unrecognized rftessenger of good tidings. I put it out. It spluttered protestingly. I crawled back to our little cavern, though if I had waited a few minutes, I would have seen Billie Bell’s little flashlight protrude its eye out of the drill hole. a a a A LITTLE while later, compressed air began to hiss and roar out of the drill hole, but still we could not get it through our heads that there was a communication there. I supposed it was for some reason. We heard a pounding and air hiss-

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ing all day, and after some hours, the whistle began to screech down below the platform. Finally we realized the whistle was a signal, not a part of the process of rescuing us. I explored out on to the wooden landing with the last dim fading rays of my flashlight, and peered down the ladder hole of the shaft. You understand that the wooden platform completely floored off the shaft, with three holes or open traps in the planks. The one on the right, looking downshaft, was for the skip T and its rails; the middle one was for the ladder; the one on the left was for the steam and water pipes. I peered dow'n into the darkness of the deep and steep shaft where the whittle w'as screaming. I felt my way carefully down the ladder a couple of rungs. My feet had no feeling whatever. I knew, of course, that the shaft dipped steeply and dropped at a steep angle into the abyss 230 feet below. But the whistle had to be investigated. It seemed to be somewhere up in the hanging wall or ceiling of the shaft. I climbed the plank fence, breast-high, that divided the ladder shaft from the pipe shaft, and felt up into the darkness. Bracing myself on rocks and pipes, I felt a pipe. The pipe was vibrating with the wild whistle. I seized a stone and began to bang the pipe. The whistle ceased. A loud banging answered my banging. It was Billie Bell pounding with his wrench. In about four minutes, and they seemed long minutes to me, clinging there above that pitch dark shaft below the landing—a voice shouted: “Hello!’ I shouted back. a a a DR. ROBERTSON felt his way out to the platform above and looked dow'n through the hole at me, shouting into the tube.

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We were in communication with the world, with life itself. From the drill hole through which the drill pipe projected, a veritable tap of icy water poured straight down on me. Billie Bell was trying to tell me he was at the surface. and I was trying to find how many feet he was away from us, because his voice was so clear I thought he could only be 10 feet awav Many people still can not understand why we were so reluctant to come to the tube for food. But when I crept down that hoie and onto the ladder—feeling the shaft dropping a sheer 230 feet below me, with the ladder greasy, my hands so rough I hardly had any feeling in them, my feet no longer feeling anything at all, and with a nasty climb over a sort of fence to get to the pipe—and then from the drill hole itself I got a regular drowning from a flow of water like from an inch-and-a-half water tap. You can understand why we soon came to a decision not to bother about that pipe. We weren't hungry anyway. That is, hungry for anything ex-

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cept the sound of the human voice, and the sounds of human action, the drills, the blasting. Some day I hope to be able to tell you ali the strange and curious happenings. The contests we had—shivering contests, groaning contests; the names of the songs I sang; the curious conversations; the fancies that came to us; the dreams we suffered. Tt will interest you to know \hat in all the time we were down the-a suffering to the full stretch of our nerves, none of the three of us emitted a single curse-word. If I had searched the whole wide world—and I have been to the war and down in Florida in the boom days and have mixed with men in many parts of the world—if I had searched the whole world I do not believe I could have found two men with whom I could better have faced that tragedy than Dr. Robertson and Herman Magill. a a a TVAR. MAGILL was distressed because he thought he had got us tw'o into the mess. But we soon mended that. Even when he was dying in pain, every time he recovered enough consciousness to know what was happening to him, it was to beg our pardon for troubling us. They were plendid, and after Mr. Magill died, and I had fears for the doctor, I promised myself that I would not be left alone, if he went. It w'ould be the three of us, all the way, and I know r I meant it. These are only a few of the

things that occur to me as needing explanation as far as I am concerned. Each one of use did just the best he could. I had no conception, not even in the war, of the full meaning of human comradeship as it was revealed in this tragic affair. When I am well enough I will try to do justice U> it. I hope every one understands that every man who came down to rescue us not only was placing himself in the same danger we were in. but what is more, every one of them knew' it. For countless messages from

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friends known and unknown, I want to say thanks. For countless kindnesses showered on us, on my wife, mother and brother, I don’t know how to express our gratitude fully enough. Just give me your prayers once

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i in a while until these feet remember what they are for again, and maybe I will come and see you and thank you every one—though, I guess, that would take me all over the world. (W'orld Copyright, 193* bv thR Red Cress of Canada Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.i.