August Carnock, the first man to enter the mine after Saturday's fatal blast, returned to the surface with a grim tale of suffering and horror among the trapped victims.
Carnock was a member of the first relief squad to enter the air shaft, about five miles from the main entry, only to find four flights of stairs demolished. Carnock slid down a pipe without a light.
"I stood still and listened," he said, "and I heard some one calling for help. Groping about, I came across one fellow who was just about all in. He died as I reached him and I heard another call. pg 14
"Crawling on my hands and knees for a little distance, I stopped again and was nearly scared to death when I heard a voice directly under my feet.
"The poor fellow was buried under a pile of slate and coal. I dug him out and carried him back to the shaft.
"A trip of cars was standing in the main heading, so I made my way along it looking for others. Alongside of the motor were two men, one lying across the other. They were dead.
"I went a little further and found another man sitting in one of the cars, his arms at his side, as if he were sleeping. I shook him and found he was dead too.
"It was the same everywhere. Dead men were all about, most of them burned to death, or suffocated. Sometimes the victim's body had been crushed by slate. Some of them were buried.
"The air was getting bad and I had to leave. I shall never forget the horror of that black pit."
As Carnock finished, one of his fellow workers called to him.
"So long," he called back. "Got to go down again and help clean up."
Sun - Telegraph, Monday 21 May, 1928
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FIRST DAY pg 15
The radio has long since sounded the alarm of the mine explosion. Rumors and wild, speculative stories spread throughout the village since Saturday. Most of the night shift failed to come out of the pit by Sunday morning. The feeling grew, that something had happened. People kept vigil at the mouth shaft all night, hoping for some bit of information that would tell that all was well. In the morning the small crowd grew into a huge patch-mass of humans, anxious and news hungry. Eyes were focused on the cage which hoisted men and material down into the pit. Occassionally, the cage would halt at the surface and a few miners would debark. Some of them would be stopped and questioned by suspense waiting onlookers. Only a few mumbled words, yet ten minutes later these words were relayed from mouth to mouth to thousands of people. The Sun-Telegraph newspaper article published Sunday stated many feared lost in the explosion in Green County.
Aid was rushed to miners that were caught by the blast. Emergency calls were sent to hospitals. Over 200 miners were trapped in the Mather Collieries mine at Mather, when a gas explosion rent one of the lower workings late Saturday afternoon.
Five men were rescued shortly after the blast; sixteen were known to be alive, but pg 16
little hope was held for the others, who were trapped 4,000 feet back from the shaft.
J. H. Evans, general superintendent, went down in the mine with rescue workers late Saturday night and reported, on his return, that they had found the bodies of twenty miners within a half-mile of the shaft. He said the bodies would not be removed until late Sunday.
One of the rescued men, Albert Fowler, 45, was believed in serious condition from the effects of the gas. He was rushed to Waynesburg Hospital with Tony Miller, 30; Field Whitney, 30; Charles Boswood, 42; and Stanley Sacoskey, 50; all of whom had been overcome by gas as they descended into the mine for the night shift.
A crew of 16, including the assistant mine foreman Tom Callahan, were caught in an "office" beneath the surface, but were able to telephone, "We're alive and waiting for help."
Rescue workers from Pittsburgh and other points had penetrated a few hundred feet from the shaft before midnight, when they were turned back by "black damp." However, they were expected to renew their efforts after a short intermission.
Fire was reported to have followed the explosion in the coal mine, but employees of the coal company denied the report. They refused, however, to estimate the number of men caught in the mine and no indication as to whether the trapped miners were alive. pg 18
The explosion occurred as the dayshift was leaving the mine. Most of the men, it was believed, had lleft the lower workings and were on their way to the surface.
One indication that hope was still held for the entombed men was furnished when hurried calls were sent forth for physicians and ambulances.
Two mine rescue teams from the Bureau of Mines at Pittsburgh, under George R. Forbes, were rushed to the scene, and a mine rescue car at Nanty Glo was reported enroute.
The Mather mine operated non-union at the time and employed 800 men at capacity.
The last men to escape alive from the mine were believed to be C. A. Benjamin and C. R. Beatty, who reached the surface early Sunday morning.
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Joyful Reunion --- C. R. Beatty, one of the fourteen men known to have escaped alive, went straight to his home, a thick coating of coal dust over his clothing, face, and hands.
Mrs. Beatty, hysterical with joy threw her arms around her husband, laughing in short bursts of staccato verbal ejaculations of relief, between the kisses she showered on her husband's face.
Soon Mrs. Beatty's arms, dress and face were covered with the black grime from her husband's face and clothing.
The relief of Mrs. Beatty was shared only by a few other families in the village, because, according to the latest figures Sunday afternoon, it could be definitely established that only 13 other men had escaped from the searing flame of the blast that caught the men on their way home to their loved ones.
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