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The C Prime Seam ran out to Somerset,
And mining coal was long a practice
there;
The Quecreek mine was but the latest
hole
Where Pennsylvanians laid the black rock
bare.
The team of nine was working Wednesday
night—
A practiced group with decades
underground;
Unwittingly, they cut into a wall,
Where water-filled, abandoned halls they
found.
On maps, the Saxman mine was not too close—
Those maps, through guile or
carelessness, had lied;
One miner ran to find the telephone;
To miners far away, “Get out!”
he
cried.
The passage out led down, then up again,
So men and water shared a swift descent;
But water won the frenzied downward
race,
And men knew what the flooded chamber
meant—
No longer was escape a goal to seek,
For life itself became their only
thought;
To higher ground they crawled back up in
pain;
Against cascading flood, they bravely
fought.
They tied themselves together with a rope,
And so would live or perish as a team;
If dying was to be their lot that day,
They’d find their rest together in that seam.
At last, they reached a summit in the
mine,
Whose ceiling, from the waters, was unwet;
Their pangs of terror turned to thoughts
of death,
Unmindful of events in Somerset.
The miners’ plight, of course, was
known above
By townsfolk yielding not to
dark despair;
They guessed where savvy miners had to
go
And drilled to send compressed and
heated air.
The rescue plan was not a simple one—
They couldn’t let the mine with water
fill,
So pumps would have a crucial role to
play,
And, too, a summoned West Virginia drill.
On Thursday morn, the six-inch bit broke
through,
Below the ground two hundred forty feet,
And banging on the pipe soon
made it
clear:
There was a deep-mine
rescue to complete!
On Thursday afternoon, the big rig came
To drill a shaft a rescue cage could thread;
That job would take a half a day or more
To reach the barely living or the dead.
The miners’ many loved ones
all about
Were gathered up in
Sipesville’s fire hall
To comfort one another, weep,
and hope,
And steel themselves, whatever
might befall.
The world’s attention now was
on that mine—
Reporters pressed for facts that
they could share;
The governor was ready to oblige
With information, confidence,
and prayer.
The rescue hole was started Thursday night,
But trouble struck it well
before the dawn—
The bit had gone one hundred
feet, then broke;
Yet, through it all, the water
pumps pumped on.
The men had heard the drilling
sounds above
And dared to think salvation
close at hand;
When hopeful, distant rumblings
fell away,
Once more, they feared they’d
made their final stand.
They huddled close together for
their heat,
Encouraging, in turn, the faint
of heart;
On scraps, they penned brief
notes to leave behind,
Their feelings for their loved
ones to impart.
Alas, the bit had stuck inside
the shaft,
And hours passed by with
progress at a halt;
Another drill began another hole
Until the first could finish its
assault.
On Saturday, the drill bored ever down,
As pumping made the water level
fall;
With drilling done, a phone was
sent below,
Where miners shouted, “OK! One and all!”
So resurrections followed Sunday
morn,
As, one-by-one, the men were
raised above,
Released from three-days’
prison’s bonds of gloom
And saved by acts of sacrifice
and love.
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