Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1912 — BURIED MINERS SHOUT FOR AID [ARTICLE]

BURIED MINERS SHOUT FOR AID

Seventy- Five Victims Still Trapped in Mine. FOURTEEN MEN ARE RESCUED Little Air Pipe Brings to Surface Pitiful Cries of Imprisoned Men Endeavoring to Guide and Hasten Rescue Work. McCurtain, Okla., March 22. Conveyed to the surface through a small air pipe, pitiful cries for help were distinctly heard from the shaft of the San Bois mines, where seventy-five men are still imprisoned. For several hours the imprisoned men, 300 feet below the shaft opening, could be heard as they attempted to tell their exact plight and location to the rescuers on the ground above. Every means was taken to understand the words, but nothing more than the cries and murmured jumble of conversation was audible. Tappings, the sound of which was conveyed along another air pipe, resulted in the rescue of fourteen more survivors of the terrible explosion. This makes twenty-five miners brought to the surface since the rescuers started work, and still leaves in the vicinity of seventy-five men battling for their lives against the poisonous gases and black damp in the crowded shafts. No way is known to tell the number who have already succumbed to the lack of oxygen. Huge electric lights have been installed at the entrance of the shaft, and a flood of light penetrates the black hole where the victims of the explosion were imprisoned. But even the most powerful searchlight cannot penetrate the inky darkness more than fifty feet, and the rescuing party still depends upon the old-fashioned mine lamp in keeping up its work. Thirty-nine bodies x so far have been taken from the pit.