IC 9471

INFORMATION CIRCULAR/2004

Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

An Oral History Analysis

of Mine Emergency

Response
Information Circular 9471 

An Oral History Analysis of Mine Emergency 

Response 

By Charles Vaught, Ph.D., CMSP, Michael J. Brnich, Jr., 

 CMSP, and Launa G. Mallett, Ph.D. 

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

Public Health Service 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Pittsburgh Research Laboratory

Pittsburgh, PA

April 2004 
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DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2004-145
CONTENTS

Page 

Abstract .................................................................................................... 1 

Acknowledgment........................................................................................ 2 

Introduction................................................................................................. 3 

Chapter 1.—Using narrative as a method to capture response veterans' 

 knowledge................................................................................................ 5 

Chapter 2.—The narrators' involvement with mine emergency response .. 14 

Chapter 3.—The decisions made during a mine emergency response........ 30 

Chapter 4.–Some specific aspects of mine emergencies that affect 

 responses ................................................................................................. 44 

Chapter 5.—Sharing lessons learned .......................................................... 55 

Chapter 6.—Summary and conclusions...................................................... 66 

Appendix A.—Surface organization of underground mine emergencies: 

 interview guide ........................................................................................ 67 

Appendix B.—Glossary of terms................................................................ 72 
AN ORAL HISTORY ANALYSIS OF MINE 

EMERGENCY RESPONSE 

By Charles Vaught, Ph.D., CMSP,1 Michael J. Brnich, Jr., CMSP,2 

and Launa G. Mallett, Ph.D.1 

ABSTRACT 

Beginning in 1991, scientists at the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory

recorded interviews with individuals who are recognized as experts in mine

emergency response. These 30 veterans related stories and observations from 

events experienced during as many as 47 years of response activities. Overall,

the response veterans averaged 29 years of mine emergency response 

experience and 35 years of mining experience. Interviewees included 

representatives from mining companies, the United Mine Workers of America,

and State and Federal agencies. Most of their comments dealt not so much

with technical aspects of particular mine emergency responses, but rather the

human side of more general topics, including preparedness, experience, people

on-site, mine rescue teams, and decision-making. An analysis of their

interviews provides an overview of lessons learned on-site at some of the 

largest mine disasters since the mid-1940s. This knowledge was gathered so

that it could be provided to today's miners and to tomorrow's emergency

response personnel. It is expected that the collective wisdom obtained can be

used to help train new responders and guide those decisions that will have to 

be made on the scenes of future events. 

1

Sociologist. 

2

Safety and occupational health manager. 

Pittsburgh Research Laboratory, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 

Pittsburgh, PA. 

1 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of James M. Peay

(retired), who was instrumental in the conduct of this research. 

2 
INTRODUCTION 

When an emergency occurs at a coal mine, there are four processes that

come into play: information flow, sense-making, decision-making, and action. 

These processes are the way in which people generally impose a sense of order

on a reality that the psychologist William James called a "buzzing confusion." 

The mental imposition of at least some degree of order on an emergency is 

necessary. Without it, responders would not be able to react in any

meaningful way to the situation that they face. Because organization is 

essential to group action and since emergencies almost always call for 

concerted efforts, a primary goal of information exchange, sense-making, and 

decision-making is very likely to be the formation and use of a temporary

organization.

It is in narratives about past events and their participation in them that 

respondents may reveal how they went about making sense and making 

decisions about how to organize themselves and others in the emergencies that 

they faced. Narrative has not usually been used in the study of organizational 

processes because it is not "scientific." There is little formal logic in narrative 

accounts, and they tend toward the common sense rather than causal 

abstraction [Czarniawska 1998]. However, it is through narrative that human

beings come to possess most of what they know [Bruner 1986, 1990].

Whereas science is explanatory and depends on formal rules, narration is

interpretative and grounded in the rules of everyday life. In all the areas of 

human experience where equations and logic are inadequate or need 

interpretation, therefore, it is narrative that serves to translate the unexpected 

into something intelligible. 

This study portrays the processes of organization building and 

implementation from a historical perspective through an analysis of

responders' narratives. Such an approach fits well with a recent development 

in organizational studies known as "knowledge management." Knowledge 

management applies to information flow, sense-making, and decision-making

at both the individual and organizational levels. Generally, knowledge

management involves some form of getting into people's heads and 

transferring what is there either to other people directly or to some type of 

repository that can be accessed when needed [Bassi et al. 1998]. The rise of 

knowledge management in organizational studies is a significant development 

because it is an implicit acceptance of the value of veteran workers' knowledge 

and supports the attempt to capture it in some structured and more usable way

before it is taken out of the workplace forever. 

The veteran informants for this study were interviewed about their 

experiences while working at mine emergencies. They were asked to discuss

lessons that they had learned through experience. They were also asked to tell 

what they had learned that would cause them to handle similar situations

3 
differently and to tell about things they saw at past events that they would 

warn others not to do in the future. In response, the experts discussed a variety

of things, but touched on some common topics. These included preparedness,

experience, people on-site, mine rescue teams, and decision-making. This

knowledge has been gathered and analyzed so that it can be provided to the

next generation of miners in a concise and systematic manner. 

This analysis is intended to reach as wide an audience as possible. 

Researchers and those who will be charged with training the future generation 

of emergency responders should find both the analytic and narrative portions

helpful. Miners, managers, and enforcement personnel might be most 

interested in the narratives. For ease of use, chapters 2 through 5 address

major questions from each section of the interview schedule. Chapter 2, for 

instance, addresses questions from section A regarding the respondents'

involvement with mine emergency response. Thus, it is possible to skip the 

analysis and read just what the veterans had to say in response to each major

question. Either way it is used, the collective wisdom of these veterans,

presented in the chapters that follow, can be used to help train new responders 

and guide decisions that will have to be made on the scenes of mine 

emergencies in the future—a future in which emergency response will be a 

much less frequent, but nevertheless critical occurrence. 

References

Bassi L, Cheny S, Lewis E [1998]. Trends in workplace learning: supply and demand in 

interesting times. Training & Dev Nov:51-73. 

Bruner J [1986]. Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press.

Bruner J [1990]. Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Czarniawska B [1998]. A narrative approach to organization studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: 

Sage Publications, p. 3. 

4 
simple, there has been much academic discourse regarding the best 

explanations, most appropriate methodologies, and even th

importance of such endeavors given the ascendance of electronic me

 The Greek historian Thucydides noted in The Histor

Peloponnesian War [Crawley 1910] that he was either present him

events that he described or had heard of them from eyewitnes

reports he had checked as thoroughly as possible. Thucydides set 

for the balanced use of individuals' narratives, and practitioners 

have debated the proper way to collect and handle evidence obta

such personal accounts [Hunt 1992]. Ultimately, however, when o

have been present at a historical event, personal narrative is an essen

of preserving the experience and passing it along to a younger gene

the past 50 years, oral accounts have gained greater acceptance as a 

complement to the more conventional sources of scientific and 

record-keeping [Riessman 1993]. Social scientists and historians 

conduct extensive interviews to uncover individual insights and op

are often omitted from written official documents. They have also 

details of the planning and execution of many critical undertaking

largely accomplished through electronic communication, with less in

being committed to paper or put into permanent electronic databa

further emphasizes the growing importance of oral accounts obtain

interviews, because the only place certain key organizational know

exist is in someone's head. 

 Bock [2004] suggests that we look for key knowledge by askin

do we lose when key people leave?" or "What do we have to teach 

person?" The veteran responders interviewed for the present s

viewed as key people who had left, or were leaving, an enterprise 

much of the stock of knowledge resides in the oral tradition rath

paper. In order to capture as much critical information as possible, r

asked them to center their stories upon specific moments in 

progression of a mine emergency. Each account, therefore, follow

the first time I was involved in an emergency response, what it is lik

at a mine during an emergency, the hardest decision I ever had to 

The researchers' task is to then make sense of the veterans' narrative
of each other and project research objectives. Weick [1995] described the 

most significant characteristics of sense-making from the research perspective: 

The answer is, something that preserves plausibility and coherence, 

something that is reasonable and memorable, something that embodies 

past experience and expectations, something that resonates with other

people, something that can be constructed retrospectively but also can

be used prospectively, something that captures both feeling and 

thought. 

In other words, Weick considers sense-making to involve plausibility,

coherence, and reasonableness even if the story must be filtered to make it 

acceptable and credible. It is the authors' intention to present information that 

offers insight, not to relate everything each person said about a particular

topic. In this sense, the information is filtered and will be less comprehensive, 

"but, if the filtering is effective, more understandable" [Starbuck and Milliken

1988]. 

In relying on response veterans' stories to provide insight into past

emergency response activities, the researchers draw upon the rich oral

tradition in mining. They also, however, follow a recent trend toward the use

of workers' stories in organization studies. The workplace became a legitimate

domain for data gathering in the early 1980s [Martin 1982], and collected

accounts were first treated scientifically and analytically [Czarniawska 1998]. 

More recently, according to Czarniawska, workplace stories have been 

presented in context with a minimum of academic intrusion. That is because 

the belief now is that their teaching value is greater if the stories are presented

naturally rather than in a context-free "scientific" format. 

Because organization is essential to group action, a primary goal of 

information exchange, sense-making, and decision-making is very likely to be

the enhancement of organizational effectiveness. By current wisdom, an

organization that can improve its performance the most and/or the fastest is the 

organization that succeeds. When it comes to organizational performance, 

according to Rubenstein-Montano et al. [2001], practitioners of knowledge 

management are already beginning to realize that worker knowledge is as 

fundamental to success as is technology. Given this more holistic approach, it

is not surprising that some thinkers have situated knowledge management

within sociotechnical or systems frameworks. The advantage to a

sociotechnical systems perspective for knowledge management is that it 

delineates problems in their entirety [Hall 1999]. Thus, when knowledge

management and systems thinking are combined, the resulting approach 

synthesizes environmental, technical, organizational, and personal 

perspectives. It also posits human judgment as a critical component of the 

decision-making process, recognizing that it is ingenuity that prevails in the 

6 
unstructured conditions that characterize chaotic settings [Gorry and Scott

Morton 1971]. 

The decision process, which depends upon explicit and/or tacit

knowledge, begins with a problem. From a cognitive perspective, the person

engaged in emergency decision-making about a problem is actively involved

in a process characterized by a number of elements: (1) detection of the

problem, (2) a definition or diagnosis, (3) consideration of available options,

(4) choice of what is perceived to be the best option given recognized

exigencies, and (5) execution of the decision based on what has gone before 

[Flathers et al. 1982; Baumann and Bourbonnais 1982]. At any moment in 

this process, it is possible for the individual to misinterpret elements, either

because of environmental factors or because of his or her state of mind. When 

this happens, solution of the problem becomes more difficult and at some 

point will be rendered impossible. 

Judgment theorists have focused on a limited number of variables that 

have a disproportionate impact on one's ability to achieve workable solutions 

to complex problems under limited time constraints: 

1. The internal state [Hedge and Lawson 1979] is the sum of one's

psychomotor skills, knowledge, attitudes, etc. 

2. Uncertainty [Brecke 1982] is caused by faulty or incomplete 

information received from the external environment. 

3. Stress [Biggs 1968; Jensen and Benel 1977] is generated both by the 

problem at hand and by any background problem that might exist. 

4. Complexity, as it is used here, refers to the number of elements that

must be attended to. 

This model, by no means complete, nevertheless reflects the underlying

demands on decision-makers in most life or death situations.1

 An emergency 

event imposes the necessity of dealing with an enormous quantity of 

sometimes faulty information in a very short timeframe. 

Given the unstructured conditions found in an emergency, these problems 

are of the type that requires access to tacit knowledge [Polanyi 1966]. Tacit 

knowledge refers to the critical information people have in their heads that has 

not been written down. In recent years, organizations have directed a great

deal of interest to tacit knowledge and to discovering ways in which it can be

shared and used [Courtney 2001]. In Courtney's paradigm, the decision

process consists not of leaping to some technically determined analysis, but of 

developing mental models by drawing upon the store of tacit knowledge 

residing in the organization. The key to managing tacit knowledge is an 

ability to start thinking in terms of shared learning [Addleson 2004]. Shared

1

Steinbruner [1974] further discusses decision-making under complexity and uncertainty.

7 
learning is the stuff upon which decisions are based, and these decisions lead

to problem-solving activities. In order for an organization to be able to

respond successfully, at least some of the responders must understand what is 

going on in the environment. By extension, the more rapidly that conditions

change, the more critical shared learning becomes, and the more people are 

necessary to share in the learning process. In particular, workers in an 

emergency environment must be actively involved in developing, refining, and

disseminating the group's shared learning while anticipating and responding to 

the changing conditions. Gray [2001] examined existing frameworks used to 

categorize knowledge management practices in order to explain why a 

problem-solving approach would be of value. He concluded that knowledge 

management is used precisely for the purpose of solving problems. Thus, 

knowledge management can be augmented by theories of judgment and 

decision-making that address problem solving as an activity that can be

enhanced. 

Theoretical debate about how people can be prepared to make decisions 

about the types of problems common to emergency response focuses on the

importance of situation-specific knowledge versus mental process skills. 

Proponents of situation-specific knowledge point out that effective problem 

solving depends strongly on the nature and organization of knowledge

available to individuals. Proponents of the role of mental process skills cite 

many studies that show it is possible to help people improve their abilities to 

think and make good choices in a wide variety of situations. In a mining 

context, both approaches have value and should be considered interrelated.

For example, some miners may possess broad tacit knowledge about their

work and their environment, yet not be able to use what they know in one 

particular situation in order to deal effectively with a similar situation having 

different content. In the same vein, some miners might have good judgment 

and decision-making skills, but know so little about the situation they are 

facing that their skills are of little use. It is when an individual can bring both 

knowledge and skills to bear on a problem that he or she will be truly 

effective. 

Research Design 

To this point, the terms "narrative" and "oral history" have been used 

almost interchangeably. Academicians, however, distinguish between the two, 

or, more accurately, show how one fits with the other. Narrative inquiry, in

brief, is a way to better understand human experience through the use of

people's accounts. "An account is the personal record of an event by the

individual experiencing it, told from his point of view" [Brown and Sime 

1981]. One of the most common applications of narrative accounting is the 

conduct of oral histories, which usually center upon historically significant 

experiences. Thus, an oral history may be seen as part of a larger scientific

8 
effort to understand human experience through the use of narration. Logic and

experience suggest that there are various strategies for collecting an oral

history account depending on the amount of control a researcher needs to exert

over the interview process. If the research goal is to let narrators tell their

stories however they wish, then an interviewer's focus will be on interaction. 

If the goal is information gathering, as in the present research, then

a structured interview is appropriate. That way, the right questions will be 

asked and, although the narrator might digress, he or she will sooner or later 

be brought back to the task at hand. The focus of analysis is the qualitative 

data gleaned from such accounts. 

There are still a few scientists who have not had experience with a

qualitative strategy, which does not seem to fit their conventional notions of 

science, and profess difficulty understanding how the related activities can be

legitimated. These scientists usually raise issues of reliability and validity 

when questioning the soundness of qualitative research. In general, reliability

denotes the tendency of a measuring procedure to behave in a constant manner 

each time it is applied. The concept of validity is that a valid procedure 

measures what it is supposed to measure. For these scientists, the type of

information gathering that depends on subjective responses has some major

flaws. Yet, qualitative methods, which became virtually ignored in most 

disciplines following the rise of computer analysis and sophisticated statistical 

techniques, have had a phenomenal resurgence in the past decade [Miles and 

Huberman 1994]. Perhaps the chief reason for this renewed interest in, and 

use of, open-ended data has been the growing recognition that quantitative 

science leaves gaps in our attempts to answer "how" and "why" questions. In

other words, the data never speaks for itself. No matter how well controlled 

the study is, a scientist who wishes to go beyond the immediate evidence and

make statements about some population or universe must assume he or she 

"knows the relevant laws" [Campbell and Stanley 1966]. The strength of one's

assumptions rests upon knowledge, experience, and creativity. If this seems to

suggest that any type of science is only as good as its practitioners, such is at 

least partly true. 

If there is a place in science for narrative analysis, what might that place

be? Insofar as qualitative studies are concerned, they are usually thought of as 

exploratory or descriptive in nature. Appropriateness of a particular strategy, 

however, should be decided not by its nature but by the purpose for which it is

being used [Kidd et al. 1996]. Yin [1984] listed three conditions that need to 

be considered before choosing a research strategy: (1) the type of research 

question being posed, (2) an investigator's extent of control over actual events,

and (3) whether the events being focused on are current or historical. 

Questions that ask how or why certain contemporary events occur, but over 

which the researcher has no control, are particularly amenable to a qualitative 

analysis. Furthermore, a qualitative study, used as an explanatory mechanism,

9 
"provides evidence to show how both the rule, and its exceptions, operate" 

[Stoecker 1991].

The present research makes no effort to count something or measure a 

quantity. Instead, team members have tried to determine the behavior of 

responders in an emergency setting and then explain its variability in those 

instances where it is seen to exist. The pertinent question, in this case, is 

whether response behavior was studied by the researchers in a way that created a

false reflection of it. Kirk and Miller [1990] suggested the proper response to

that question: "it is incumbent on the scientific investigator to document his or

her procedure." As in reports of quantitative research, the qualitative

methodologist must make explicit the way in which the study was designed and

carried out. In so doing, he or she guarantees that other scientists can determine 

whether or not the methodology is sound. They would then have an occasion to 

replicate the techniques, if appropriate, in other settings. 

In qualitative studies, the fundamental tools used are a researcher's powers 

of observation or an ability to ask appropriate questions at the right time.

A qualitative researcher often gains confidence in findings by using a

structured instrument to examine an issue or variable of concern. The present

narratives were expected to provide insights about the efficiency of particular 

emergency response efforts. The main data source of this study is a set of

open-ended responses collected during interviews with responders who had

worked mine emergencies at some time in their past. The main instrument

used to gather these data was a structured interview guide (see appendix A). 

Thirty individuals were interviewed in a private room and provided

narratives concerning events in which they had been involved. The guide

requested each individual to give an account of his personal experiences in the 

emergencies to which he had responded. Brown and Sime [1981] addressed the 

appropriateness of such an approach: "Fundamental to the philosophy of an

account methodology is the recognition that people can and do comment on

their experiences, and that these commentaries are acceptable as scientific data." 

If a person making an observation is skilled and his or her instruments properly 

constructed, then any subsequent conclusions ought to be considered accurate. 

In reporting these results, it is important to recount the methods that were used. 

Their appropriateness and proper use can then be evaluated by other researchers. 

Each of these scientists will ultimately decide if the instrument was constructed

correctly and if the researchers were skilled in its use. 

Nobody except one subject and two research scientists was permitted in 

the room during the interview. The rescue veteran was first asked for 

permission to tape record his account. All subjects agreed to be taped. 

A written schedule with a series of open-ended questions and related probes 

was used to guide every account. The exhibit below reproduces the major 

topic areas of this interview schedule. The entire instrument, with all 

questions and probes included, is contained in appendix A. Each interview 

began with an investigator reiterating that participation in this study was 

10
voluntary and that the responder had an option of not answering any particular 

question. After obtaining general demographic information, an interviewer 

next asked the individual the introductory question. Followup questions were 

then used so that specific details about each issue could be included. The 

sessions, which were 60 to 90 minutes long, ended when a researcher had

asked all questions on the interview guide and a narrator did not have any

additional information. 

SURFACE ORGANIZATION OF UNDERGROUND MINE 

EMERGENCIES: INTERVIEW GUIDE 

A. When I start the tape, I will ask you about your involvement with mine emergency response; when and why you

become involved and things that stand out in your mind as 

you think back over your experiences. 

Do you have any questions before we start? 

[Tape on.] [Questions] [Tape Off.]

B. The next set of questions is about the decisions that are 

made during emergency responses. 

Do you have any questions? Are you ready to continue? 

[Tape on.] [Questions] [Tape off.]

C. During the next section of the interview, I will ask for details 

about specific aspects of emergency responses. Whenever you 

can, please answer with examples from your experience. 

Do you have any questions? Are you ready to continue? 

[Tape on.] [Questions] [Tape off.]

D. During this last set of questions, I would like you to think

about all of your emergency response experience. I will be 

asking you about preparing future responders. 

[Tape on.] [Questions] That is all the questions that I have.

Thank you. [Tape off.] 

11
The audiotapes were transcribed and stored on computer disks as textbased data. After the accounts were gathered, a comparative method of 

qualitative analysis was used [Glaser and Strauss 1967]. In the comparative 

method, a researcher develops as many categories as will clarify the problem. 

Next, he or she starts integrating categories and the properties that make them

up, beginning to connect concepts with their indicators [Claster and Schwartz

1972]. After integrating categories and properties, the researcher is then ready

to move toward simplicity and a broader scope [Glaser and Strauss 1967].

Over time, a theory of the event under investigation will emerge and be 

modified as more data get added. As the theory is streamlined, researchers are

able to arrive at an assessment of how typical those occurrences that went into 

its construction are likely to be [Becker 1970]. The logic underlying this 

assessment is the same as that which supports probability: instead of adopting 

an either/or stance about the accuracy of particular assertions, one addresses 

the likelihood that his or her conclusions are correct. The magnitude of 

evidence from various data sources enables an observer to advance a particular

conclusion with a greater or lesser degree of confidence. In the chapters that 

follow, the researchers will try to derive usable conclusions about some of the 

activities that may generally be observed in mine emergencies. 

References

Addleson M [2004]. What is a learning organization? Fairfax, VA: George Mason University, 

Program on Social and Organization Learning. [http://psol.gmu.edu]. Date accessed: January 2004. 

Baumann A, Bourbonnais F [1982]. Nursing decision-making in critical care areas. J Adv

Nurs 7(5):435-446. 

Becker H [1970]. Problems of inference and proof in participant observation. In: Filstead

W, ed. Qualitative methodology. Chicago, IL: Markham Publishing Company, p. 194. 

Biggs JB [1968]. Information and human learning. North Melbourne, Australia: Cassell 

Australia, Ltd. 

Bock W [2004]. Knowledge management basics. [http://www.bockinfo.com/docs/kmbasics.htm].

Date accessed: January 2004. 

Brecke F [1982]. Instructional design for aircrew judgment training. Aviat Space Environ

Med 53(10):951-957. 

Brown J, Sime J [1981]. A methodology for accounts. In: Brenner M, ed. Social method

and social life. New York: Academic Press, p. 160. 

Campbell DT, Stanley JC [1966]. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for

research. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally and Company, p. 17. 

Claster D, Schwartz H [1972]. Strategies of participation in participant observation. Soc

Methods Res 1(1).

Courtney J [2001]. Decision making and knowledge management in inquiring organizations: 

toward a new decision making paradigm for DSS. Decis Support Syst 31:17-38. 

Crawley R, transl. [1910]. The history of the Peloponnesian war. [http://classics.mit.edu/

Thucydides/pelopwar.html]. Date accessed: January 2004. 

Czarniawska B [1998]. A narrative approach to organization studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: 

Sage Publications. 

Flathers GW, Giffin WC, Rockwell TH [1982]. A study of decision-making behavior of 

pilots deviating from a planned flight. Aviat Space Environ Med 53(10):958-963. 

12
skills. Vol. 2: Compliance and excellence. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press, 

 Hunt RA [1992]. Foreword. In: Everett SE. Oral history techniques and 

[http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/oral.htm]. Date accessed: January 2004. 

 Jensen RS, Benel RA [1977]. Judgment evaluation and instruction in civil p

Report No. FAA-RD-78-24. Savoy, IL: University of Illinois Aviation Research 

NTIS No. AD A057 440. 

 Kidd P, Scharf T, Veazie M [1996]. Linking stress and injury in the farming 

a secondary analysis of qualitative data. Health Educ Q 23(2):224-237. 

 Kirk J, Miller ML [1990]. Reliability and validity in qualitative research. B

CA: Sage Publications, p. 72. 

 Martin J [1982]. Stories and scripts in organizational settings. In: Hastrof A

Cognitive social psychology. New York, NY: North Holland-Elsevier, pp. 165-194

 Miles MB, Huberman AM [1994]. Qualitative data analysis: an expanded 

2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 

 Polanyi M [1966]. The tacit dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co

 Riessman CK [1993]. Narrative analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publicatio

 Rubenstein-Montano B, Liebowitz J, Buchwalter J, McCaw D, Newman B, R

al. [2001]. A systems thinking framework for knowledge management. Decis 

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 Starbuck W, Milliken F [1988]. Executives' perceptual filters: what they no

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top managers. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, p. 41. 

 Steinbruner J [1974]. The cybernetic theory of decision: new dimensions 

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pp. 60-61. 

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Publications, p. 16. 
CHAPTER 2.—THE NARRATORS' INVOLVEMENT WITH MINE 

EMERGENCY RESPONSE 

Mine rescue work is voluntary. Although there are many individual 

reasons that a person might join a volunteer organization, they can be placed

under three overarching elements: (1) instrumental, (2) affective, and 

(3) altruistic. Instrumentality usually refers to the rational use of one's relationships with other people to achieve personal goals. An example might be 

a person who joins a mine rescue team in order to enhance his or her skill set

and move up in the organization. 

SPEAKER: It was something I was interested in and, at that time,

there was a lot of fires in the mines and jobs were kinda hard to get,

and if you had the mine rescue experience and first aid experience,

then you could just about get a job in one of the mines here, that and

with mining papers. So I figured...my education like it was I had to do

something to kinda bridge the gap. 

SPEAKER: My dad started me, talking about it, and I really done it to 

make more money. That's exactly why I did it. 

Affect is a condition in which one's relationships with others are valued in 

and of themselves. A person might join a mine rescue team in order to share 

in the camaraderie such an experience offers and not be too concerned with

advancement or other "rational" goals. 

SPEAKER: I trusted, definitely trusted, the people that I was actually 

working [with] at the time and they also trusted me. 

SPEAKER: The training program and the equipment that you use and

the team membership camaraderie that was established at that time,

I think that pretty well drove me on the path to where I am today, is 

that experience. 

Altruism describes a rationale for conduct in which the good of others is 

the ultimate end for one's actions. In theories of ethics, altruism is the 

opposite of self-interest. A person motivated by altruism might join a mine

rescue team in order to "give something back" to the organization or the

community whether or not advancement was a possibility and perhaps despite 

having a low need to bond with his or her buddies. 

SPEAKER: I was always interested in mine rescue and Peabody 40, 

which is in the southeast part of Illinois, near Harrisburg, was low coal. 

14
It ranged from 40 to 48 inches. And the State rescue teams at that time

were using the McCaa, which is a backpack apparatus, and it could not

be used in low coal effectively. So Peabody developed their own team

and we were trained with a McCaa, but we were also trained with the

all-purpose gas mask, and the Chemox apparatus, which was a breast

apparatus that you could wear in low coal. So they wanted their own 

team which could respond to an emergency in the mine. Also, you had

to be conditioned for low coal and most of the teams, the State teams,

who worked high coal could not come down there and function very 

well as a rescue team with the backpacks on. This was in 1950 when 

I went on that team. 

Obviously, as can be seen even in the examples above, an individual is 

more likely to have mixed motives about becoming involved in rescue and

recovery work, so that his or her explanation for volunteering is less clear-cut

than it might be otherwise. 

SPEAKER: I feel like I have excelled in mine safety, and I hope I've 

left some type of mark. The superintendent who hired me...had one 

eye, and most people referred to him as being able to see more with

one eye than most people could with two, but he told me that studies

have been made that the more you learned about mining and the more 

training you had, that the less potential you had to have an accident. 

And he also told me that the more I knew, the better opportunity I had 

to keep in work, because in the coal industry you had the ups and 

downs and the layoffs and so forth, and from the first day I made an 

effort to get involved in as much as I could. I was immediately 

requested to go on a first-aid team and today's miners, you see them

being paid time-and-a-half, or extra work for being on a first-aid team 

or mine rescue. In those days, if you was on it, you had to do it on 

your own time. And I put my own time in, and I was on a competition 

first-aid team, and then later on, I think it was 2 to 3 years later, I got

on the mine rescue team, and I got deeply pretty involved in mine 

rescue after that. 

Regardless of their motives for volunteering initially, however, the reasons 

individuals remain in mine rescue are more likely to be found in the rewards 

of their immediate work experience [Pearce 1983]. In other words, there must 

be something about the emergency situations themselves that provide

incentives to continue in the activity. Researchers tried to uncover some of

these motivations by asking about the first time the responder had witnessed

an emergency situation at a mine. 

15
SPEAKER: I was at a mine in 1978 and I was at one end of the mine

performing a regular inspection and I received a call. I hadn't been on

the section very long, and I received a call that my ride was ready to 

take me out of the mine. And I said, "I just got here; I'm not ready to

go." I noticed people were real antsy, jittery, and I continued on with 

inspection work, then one of the people that I knew there grabbed me

by the arm and said, "your ride is ready," and I knew then that he had 

something to tell me that he didn't want to repeat in the whole group of 

people. So we got to a place where he could talk. And he said, "We've

had a mine accident in the other side of the mine and we think we have 

three people killed—covered up in a roof fall." He said, "They want 

you to go to that area right quick." And I said, "Okay, we'll leave." So

we got on a conveyance that took us to the other part of the mine, 

which I'd say was probably 4 miles away underground. And we got to

the accident site, and by the time we had gotten to the accident site a 

person had already been taken out that had been killed. And there was 

a person trapped under a rock fall, and we could talk to him and

everything was in a real confusion. 

I knew that I should start taking notes and start documenting all the 

events that took place, and I played a role as I just sat back and 

monitored what was going on. And as [I] watched the recovery effort 

trying to get the miner out, [there was] a lot of confusion going on and 

I got the head guy that was in charge and I took him aside and I told

him about a lot of the confusion that was taking place, and I advised

him that, you know, you might do better if you delegate some of the 

responsibilities out or organize it and also start working on backup 

efforts, that this thing may go on for an extended period of time, that 

he needs to be thinking about new fresh people, supplies, and taking

care of what might take place on the other shifts and things, and then 

they started that. I can't tell you how it happened, but it ended up that

I just quit taking notes and became involved directly in the recovery 

effort, and it ended up being divided up into two teams. And one team 

attacked, again we could talk to the gentleman, we couldn't see him,

we knew fairly close to where he was, but we really couldn't identify 

him. They ended up digging a trench to this gentleman. 

He had been inside of the cab of the continuous miner, and when 

the rocks started to fall, the rock generally fell in one large chunk. And 

it was approximately from 0, from a knife point, up to 7 feet thick and 

20 by 20 feet large. And when the rock fall fell, it mashed the cab or

the canopy of the continuous miner, but he had exited the cab area and

tried to run and what it did, he made it to the rear bumper of the

continuous miner and he was laying, well, the frame of the continuous 

miner supported the major part of the rock. And it had broken right at 

the end of the boom of the continuous miner and he was laying in an

16
area that supported the major part of the weight but that rock, the break

on the rock at the end of the boom, had crushed his hat and had his left 

hand trapped under the rock fall. So he was mashed, and the weight of 

the rock had pushed the continuous miner down into the soft floor 

structure and he was trapped there in a very restrictive position—he 

couldn't even get a full breath of air. And we had two groups. One 

was trying to break the rock that was closest to him with hammers and

stuff like that—just chip the rock. They already had the area

resupported with timbers to keep more roof from coming in, protecting 

the guy. And we were on the other side of the continuous miner and, 

by luck, it happened to be that the floor was a very loose material and 

[I] took a wedge that was used to tighten up timbers and that's what 

I used to scrape and I actually scraped a trough, a little indentation in 

the floor bottom, and I crawled. As I belly-crawled forward, I would

scrape it, then I would kick, scrape the material back to my knees and

then take my knees and feet and kick the material behind me. I was

like a mole. And then the people who were behind me took that

material and got it out of the way by the same method as we ended up

going in. And I ended up creating a, again, this mole way, if you want, 

around the end of the boom and I got to this individual and I was able 

to talk to him and he was facing away from me with his right hand 

trapped back along the side of his body and his left hand out over his 

head like this with the roof fall trapping his hand. 

I got to where I could see and I could hear him talking, you know, 

and he would respond to me. I remember talking constantly and what 

I was trying to do was keep him from going into shock or from

listening to what was going on. His name was Ollie Bryant and—all

kinds of things—time stands still when you're involved in it. And 

I remember talking to him and I was trying to figure out what am

I going to do with this guy. His hand is trapped and am I going to have 

to cut his hand off to get him out from under this rock? And the first 

thing I did, I took my right hand and I started pulling, clawing material 

and I reached in under his neck to right where his mouth was and just

raked material out of that way, and I felt a gooey mess and I thought he 

had internal injuries and he was bleeding and that is what had created 

this gooey mess, and when I pulled it back and looked, it was tobacco

juice. The guy still had tobacco in his mouth and had not gotten rid of 

it. He was still doing this talking. So, you know, I was really relieved

at that. Then I wondered what am I going to do about his hand being

trapped. I just kept clawing material out from under and I got his hand

free, but still, because of the way he was, he was trapped and couldn't

get free. Then, I clawed loose material [and] made a trough right along

beside the length of his body. [He] had a new belt, a big, wide miner's 

belt, leather belt, and I said, "I'm gonna have to cut this belt off of you

17
in order to get you out of here." And he said, "Don't cut my belt off."

And I said, "I've got to." I said, "Why don't you want me to cut that 

belt off?" I said, "The superintendent will give you a new belt." He 

said, "The hell with that superintendent, I made that belt." He didn't 

want it cut, but I cut it off of him anyway. And it had his self-rescuer

and his miner's light on it. And I took my knife and cut that belt off of 

him and he had bib overalls on. And I told him I'm gonna count to

three and I want you to exhale all you can 'cause I'm gonna yank you 

out from where you are. And I said, "One, two, three." And he

exhaled out and I just grabbed his bib overalls and I just pulled him 

over into that little indentation I created for him. And he said, "Boy, 

that feels good." And I said, "Come on. We're getting out of here." 

And he said, "Just a minute, I got to get a breath of air." He said, "I

haven't been able to breathe." I said, "Get you one and we're gone." 

And I got hold of his bib overalls, about like this, and I told the people 

outby me, I said, "Pull my legs." And it ended up being there were 

three of us. They grabbed, it was like a train, they grabbed my legs 

and I grabbed his bib overalls and they pulled us, snaked us out of that

area, and I had more scrapes and scratches on me than he did. The 

minute we came out from under where the rock had fallen, he sat up

and he said, "Boy, you all look good." And I was tending all the 

scrapes and stuff 'cause when they pulled me out, it just scraped me all

real good up to here. And you know, they brought a scoop up there 

and, boy, we were like heroes then. They escorted us out of the mine,

and [we] all went to the surface. 

By the time we got to the surface, the company president was out 

there and all kinds of press. Boy, they were calling in and all kinds of 

really crazy reports were coming in that a president was sitting out

there. And he was just out of control really, he didn't know what to do

and I told him, I said, he had a secretary that I knew 'cause it was one 

of the mine rescue team member's wife was secretary there, and I knew

her and I told him, I says, "What you need to do is call her, give her a 

general statement to make, to report." And I said, "Let her handle all 

that, we can continue with whatever business you have to take care of 

here." 

But that was the event. There has always been an oddity about it

because the next day for the investigation I was able to go down, but 

I've never got asked anything about the roof fall. I always, since 1978,

was never asked in any official capacity about that event. I never had 

to sit down and really, really, go through it. I got to go down, [but]

I didn't get to meet all those people that took part in it. For the next 

3 years as I went back to my regular inspection activities, I would run 

across individuals, some of them even changed jobs and went to other 

mines that remembered, and I was able to meet a lot of that crew and 

18
found out a lot of the behind-the-scenes things that took place and stuff 

like that. But it was just a really odd experience to go through. 

The account given here fits well with the general activity model of 

participation [Smith and Macauley 1980], which holds that the more one

participates in a socially approved activity, the more likely he or she is to 

remain a participant. This is especially true if the volunteer is emotionally

stable, has a strong ego, and is assertive. The narrator of this account was able 

to put aside his official role and assert himself, not only with the trapped 

miner, but with the company president as well. He was able to problem solve

throughout the event, received ego gratification by being treated as a hero, and 

social recognition for several years thereafter from those who had been at the

scene. All of these factors together undoubtedly played a part in his

continuing mine rescue involvement. 

Smith [1994] noted that perceived group effectiveness and positive 

outcomes are two key determinants in volunteer retention. The following

account of a rescue in a U.K. conventional longwall operation is a case in 

point. 

SPEAKER: I'd already taken the mine rescue training. I was part of

the team, and it was my first experience as a mine rescue team member

in an emergency situation. What had happened, there was a methane

outburst at the neighboring colliery. And the full-time brigadesmen 

had already been called in, and we were called in as volunteers from

the neighboring mine to assist in that rescue attempt. I was on the third 

team underground, and this was a conventional longwall. The methane 

outburst was to the magnitude where it completely stopped the 

ventilation.1

 There was that much methane coming out of the

surrounding strata. The assignment that we were given was to go into

the tailgate or the return airway and travel that return airway, taking 

samples and looking for any survivors. The intake airway had been

damaged to the point where some ground support had to be put in, and

there were teams working on achieving that. When we entered that

return airway, the first samples we took gave us a 56. If my memory

serves me right, about 56% methane and the rest was associated gases. 

So we knew we were in a real inert atmosphere that wouldn't support

life. And traveling in methane at that percentages were very, very 

unnerving. The travel that we had to undertake was approximately

1,200 feet. So, in distances, it wasn't too far. There was no smoke.

Obviously, the visibility was really good. 

 1Ventilation is an essential factor in safety, health, and working efficiency. It is also 

necessary to dilute and remove noxious or flammable gases and to abate problems such as dust 

and high temperatures.

19
I was the No. 2 man on the team right behind the captain. We 

were carrying two Survivair rescue packages. We was carrying an old 

Army-style, foldup canvas stretcher and first aid equipment, along with 

mine gas detecting equipment. I remember the first feeling that I had

in relationship to the life support system [possibly failing] came into 

my mind around 15 minutes after we entered that return airway. And

that was a very, very uneasy feeling at the time, knowing that if that

apparatus failed, your team members would have to be pretty quick to

get you onto one of the rescue apparatus that we were carrying. After 

about half an hour travel, we, the captain stopped. We were wearing 

the ProtoMark IV, which you have to wear a mouthpiece, you have no 

face mask. So communications were all done on a little writing tablet

the captain carried. And the captain stopped and he halted the team

and he did a team check. When he turned around and looked up

towards the longwall face, he saw light and I saw light, a cap lamp.

And he wrote on his little pad and he said, "Did you see that light 

move?" And I just shook my head and said, "No." So he stopped and 

he wrote on there, "Let's take a little bit of time and watch and see." 

And sure enough that light did move. 

Now, we had a situation where we were working in a high 

concentration of methane. And here, in the distance up the roadway, 

we could see this light moving. The thought that had come into the 

team captain's mind, and my mind, was the fact that we would now, if 

an atmosphere further ahead is supporting life, have to come down

through the exploding range of the methane. We discussed that by 

writing the little notes, and the captain said, "Well, should we continue

or should we go back and report this? We've still got another hour and 

15 minutes left on a 2-hour oxygen tank that we're on." And that was 

the assignment, to go as far up to the longwall as we could to see if we 

could rescue anybody that may be alive. Again, that was another 

experience that is very hard and very difficult to explain, insomuch that 

nothing could support life. But here again, you see this light moving. 

So we decided that we were going to continue. A sense of urgency 

was there now. The uneasiness was there, not knowing what to expect,

and we did continue. 

We arrived at the, what we call the "ripping lip." It's a 3-foot seam 

of coal, and the coal would be mined out underneath the gate or the 

roadway, and there was a compressed air line that run in to drive the 

undercutting machine. There was two individuals, one was a 

gentleman of, in his early 60s I would imagine, and the other young

man was 16 or 17 years of age. And their main job was to take 

supplies off this drift-in roadway to the longwall face for the miners to

use—timbers, roof supports, and whatever. Now, what this elderly 

miner had done was he took some plastic, when he heard the bump and 

20
he heard people up the longwall hollering and screaming he knew there 

was something wrong, so he took the clear plastic and threw it over the

top of both him and his coworker, and took his knife and cut the 

compressed air hose that was going to the cutting machine. So now, 

they were more or less sitting in this little bubble and surviving off the 

compressed air that was down in the area. 

Management's decision not to turn off the compressed air was

made unaware to me at the time. The mine manager made that 

decision that the compressed air that runs down that longwall, we have 

to maintain, because somebody may be using that to survive on. They 

knew that the compressors weren't dumping enough loading. So they 

knew this compressed air was leaking or going someplace. On arriving 

at the scene, trying to communicate with these individuals was very, 

very difficult. The younger man was in some sense of shock, some

extreme anxiety. The older miner was calming him down and saying,

"We'll be fine." The captain wrote underneath, "We have two 

breathing apparatus, and we're going to put them underneath, and we 

want you to put them on. Here is how we do it." And he wrote them a 

step-by-step explanation on how to do that. One of the apparatus

unfortunately didn't function. The one that the elderly miner put on

wouldn't function. There was some problem with it. The other one did 

function. So what we did was, we explained to the elderly guy, "Stay

there. We will get another team to come in to get you. You're fine. 

The compressed air has been maintained." And he just said, "That's 

fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about it." So we took out the young victim

and we got him out to the area, and another team went in and brought

the elderly guy out. That was my first experience in mine rescue, and 

it is a little difficult to try and explain to people the thoughts that were 

going through your mind at the time. But that experience was so 

enlightening, so fulfilling, that you would be able to take that training 

and then apply it and rescue somebody who needed your help. 

Notably, most of the accounts of initial rescue activities contain themes of 

problem-solving, fortuitous occurrences, and the expectation that an 

individual's efforts may bring good results. In short, while money might be an

initial prime motivator for some of those who engage in mine rescue work, it

is more likely the "enlightening," "fulfilling" application of one's training to 

help a fellow miner that keeps a person engaged. 

It is unfortunate that in mine rescue the notion of achieving good results

must extend to the safe recovery of bodies at least as often as to the rescue of

live workers or to sealing the mine as often as extinguishing a fire. Most 

rescue veterans were attuned to the fact that whether a response was likely to 

have desirable outcomes or not, they should "hope for the best but prepare for 

the worst." In his book Sensemaking in Organizations, Weick [1995] noted

that people use strategy as a framework to help them minimize surprises. In 

instances where strategy is not well laid out, the "worst" has not been prepared

for, and surprises may abound. 

21
SPEAKER: The explosion at West Frankfort was in December of 

‘51, I believe. At that time, I wasn't the team captain, [but had] been 

on the team since the Centralia explosion.2

 But the team captain 

didn't know whether he could handle it or not; he'd worked the mine. 

So before we went below, they made me team captain. And our team 

found about 67 of the 119 people that was in there. At that time, they

would lay out what we were to do, or where we was supposed to be,

and where we might find some people. It wasn't that well organized

because some of the teams that come in to relieve us went back out 

with us at times. Our team and the Du Quoin team spent an average

of 12 hours a day there for a week. That's inside doing the rescue

work. The teams that we worked with were pretty good rescue 

people. What we tried to do is keep one team at the fresh air base 

and stay there till this other team came. Now at one time they come in

and wanted us to go spray some bodies in a panel off to the right. This is 

about the third or fourth day and we wouldn't go till we saw a team come 

back. And one of the men that went down to spray them took two guys,

and they got down. So as soon as we saw a team, counted the lights 

coming back, we did go and get these two guys that got down over there. 

But with that, they didn't come back anymore, the company took ‘em 

and told ‘em not to come back. But you have to have faith in the people 

that you're working with. 

It was kinda disorganized, which you can see why. There was 119 

people missing. And our team was a mixed team that got the last man

out of there that was found alive. And I drew the map of the place 

where we found these nine dead ones and one live one. And that live 

one was on top of a rock fall, and these other nine around him was 

dead. But he said, "Here. Here. I knew you'd come." And then there 

was one big red-headed fellow sitting next to the rib looking right at 

me. I spoke to him just like he was [alive]. But he was [dead]. And

we had to take him out around a bunch of cribs and stuff and rigor 

mortis had set in. We had to unload him a couple of times to get him 

out of there, even. There was so many people coming; just sightseers.

They were supposed to come in and pack the bodies out. Well, they 

might come in and you'd see them maybe coming to the first body—

they might bring him out [or] they might turn around and go back. 

Well, they didn't have that too well organized. 

SPEAKER: We got a call—we had won several contests as a mine

rescue team—so when Cargill had their fire in the shaft, it was 

recommended that the team from Dekoven and the Island Creek team 

from Madisonville would come down. They had an airplane sitting at 

Madisonville, and they called us from underground. We went to

Madisonville and loaded all our equipment on, and they flew us to

2

Centralia No. 5 Mine, Centralia, IL, March 25, 1947; 111 killed.

22
They finally got a rope on, and we first made a square platform 

on the rope to go in and out, decided to try it, and it got down 

feet and hung up, so we knew that wouldn't work. Then we en

making use of a piece of pipe, 36 inches in diameter, on the rop

people up and down. And that's the way we got in and out of the 

 Of course, the rules say that you won't travel more than a th

feet without fresh air. And its 1,285 feet to the bottom of the s

what do you do? Do you stop? Not really. So we made sever

before we could ever get to the bottom, because everything was 

out of it. And once we got to the bottom, an extension going do

filled with water. It's about 35 feet deep. And we had to manag

the bucket from the center of the shaft over to get out. So eve

that you try to do seemed as though it was working against yo

we finally did get into the mine, and we explored the entire min

McCaa machines and gas masks. And once we located the 21 

they was scattered all over the mine. 

 We did not feel that it was a good idea to have so many 

underground [to recover bodies] with no fresh air. Carbon dioxi

still there; the air was not that good. So we wanted the oil 

companies to come in and put a 6-inch line down 1,285 fe

I happened to be one of them that constructed a fresh air base. 

everything, put it together outside, and took it apart, we 

everything, and we carried that along with the people down th

and over a short distance from the bottom. Put it back to

covered it in plastic. In the meantime, they dropped the 6-inch 

put an air compressor on the outside, and that's the way we had 

air base at the bottom of the shaft. At that particular time, I ha

to be the one that they felt could put it together. I did it outsid

I went underground and I worked 6 hours using gas masks 

ground, which again you're not supposed to do—when they b

me up in the bucket I couldn't get out of it, I was that exhaust

that's the kind of things that you actually do when there's a need 

It took us 7 days. From the day we got there until the day we 

was 7 days. 

 
Almost one-third of the interviewees suggested that preparing for the

worst meant having responders who were properly trained. They also 

considered it critical to have appropriate preparations in place at the mine site. 

After questions about their initial involvement in mine rescue and their

involvement in an event that did not go so well, researchers asked the 

respondents about an incident that was handled particularly well. One 

informant cautioned, "None of them start out as models. In the emergency

itself, in the initial stages, there's always a lot of confusion." However, with

well-trained responders and appropriate preparation, confusion can be

minimized. 

SPEAKER: Our subdistrict received the report, and there was 

immediate response from management going to the site and beginning

to set up the emergency situation, and I was called in as a part of the

team that was to organize and to carry out the surface responsibilities 

of the functions of the emergency team. And I served in three or four

different capacities. I served at mine fans where we were taking gas

samples from the ventilation [and] reporting them in to the control 

center. I served as a recorder [for] the call-ins from these sampling 

sites to have the information available for the senior official to make

decisions on whether or not the situation was worsening or remaining 

stable or improving. And I served as a guard at the mine entrance,

checking people in and out that was going underground, making sure 

that we did not allow people who were not officially [cleared] to go 

underground. We had a checklist that we went by. There was 

supposed to be a list of those who were approved by the control center 

to go underground. It was to come with the group. And, in some 

cases, there was a failure to get the list. And we'd be told in advance 

that No. 2 team was going down from Jim Walters. But there'd be one 

or two that would be going with them. And we could not allow them

to go down without clearance, and this caused some confusion. We 

had to get, you know, some information from control center before we 

could allow them to go down, because someone coming up and saying 

they were told to go down, you just couldn't accept. But there was a

failure at times to have the proper list of people that was cleared to go 

underground, and this caused a little confusion. But other than that, 

everything went basically smooth. 

A system that we set up, which is outlined in the "Fundamentals of

Mine Emergency Training," works real smooth. And we were going

by that procedure, and this is what really set up the thought that we 

needed to get this type of thing in writing. And this led to the book,

"Fundamentals of Mine Emergency Training," that was written as a 

guideline for our subdistrict area. And this is being used quite often by

people in other areas as well. 

24
SPEAKER: I guess probably the most successful ones that I was

involved in were the mine fires and explosions at those shaft mines in 

Virginia. I mean, from the standpoint that we didn't lose any people,

and even though there was tremendous damage to the mine, we didn't 

have a single person hurt in any of those instances. The Beatrice Mine

[had] a fire—it was sealed. The mine was successfully recovered. VP 

No. 3 was sealed either two or three different times from mine fires; 

they were successfully recovered. The VP No. 5 Mine, a fire started in 

it, and I've forgotten how many explosions we had during that period

of time before we could finally get it sealed, and then after we got it

sealed, of course, it was a matter of waiting till the atmosphere was 

right, and then the mine was recovered, once again, with no fatalities.

You know, I think you have to say that's successful. 

I think a lot of it was due to the planning of the coal company. I'll 

have to say that honestly, because at the shaft mines of Island Creek or

Virginia Pocahontas Company in Grundy, they already had formal 

plans for all of the materials that would be required, dimensions,

everything to seal their shafts, and once something happened, it was

just a matter of implementing those plans and getting them sealed.

I was fortunate enough to be working with a group of damn good 

people. I mean, people that were knowledgeable and who had some 

good common horse sense, and we were immediately able to set up a 

good organization at the mine site and, of course, that helped 

tremendously. And then another thing that is of utmost importance in

any of these is the assistance of Tech Support3

 from Pittsburgh with 

their sampling equipment and all of the techniques that they have to

assist you. Without them, it would be a losing situation. 

In sum, the most common lesson that experts reported having learned dealt 

with aspects of preparedness. One veteran suggested to responders: "Get a 

good procedure. Work on it. Everybody agree on it and write it up and practice, practice, practice." Another said, "It's just a matter to me of organization, 

and if you have the right organization, you don't have that many problems with 

it." 

There was particular concern expressed about the need to develop a strategy

for having appropriate personnel available when required. To accomplish this,

staff needs must be determined. 

SPEAKER: [I learned that] I would staff different. And as an 

example, this last accident that we had, we sent individuals up to 

handle the mine site, but we didn't think of our own needs within that 

office. As an example, we had a secretary there, this secretary, we 

should have sent backup for her. She ended up being the secretary, the 

phone answerer, the coffee pot girl, frankly, girl Friday. And we didn't

worry one iota about wearing her out, the hours that she worked. 

3

Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). 

25
[It] didn't enter our minds, and I said if we ever did anything again,

that has demands like that, I would staff from the, not just the top 

people, but you got to staff down below. You got to prepare for that, 

too. 

Once staffing needs have been determined, it is critical that responders 

know what is expected of them before they arrive on a scene. As one expert 

said, "I think everybody needs to understand exactly what you're trying to do, 

whatever it may be." Preplanning, for both personnel and other resources, is a 

means of saving time. 

SPEAKER: One of the biggest lessons I learned is once you've arrived

on the site, get your backup, get your support, and call for help. You

are not invincible. You need help. And get your resources, and get

your backup behind you...You will need them. All your resource and 

material, not necessarily to have the equipment on the property—

underground. I mean, you can overload with a whole bunch of

equipment you may never need. But you should have your resources, 

your checklist. If you want to call [to determine] where this equipment 

is and how soon can I get it here? Do I need it? That first fire that 

I was involved in, and I said that I was going to be the big hero, and 

I was going to be there. And I was there until 12:00 at night before 

I called for help. And then, when I called for help, it was a mad 

scramble, and I should have been calling for that help at 8 o'clock in

the morning. When I arrived on the property, I should have made 

those phone calls. 

As the above narrative suggests, time saved by forethought and preparation

can become valuable during a response. 

Regardless of how well prepared a person might be, there are always

moments in an emergency when one encounters the unexpected. The 

informants were asked if they had seen anything during a response or had 

anything happen to them for which they were not prepared. 

SPEAKER: We Bureau people [operated] on the theory that a majority

of the methane in the place was burned out by the explosion, and

I think that's another thing Scotia taught us—that doesn't necessarily

happen. There's too many variables to even consider that I guess, but

I think that was an assumption made by an awful lot of people. That 

depending upon the weight of liberation of that mine, you have a 

considerable amount of time to do some things before you had an 

explosive mixture reoccur. Well, that's not true. I guess that was a

surprise. 

26
SPEAKER: Probably the one that hits me the most is the explosion we 

had at Mathies. That was the first time that something happened to a 

mine rescue team when we thought we had everything watched. And 

we thought we knew what we were doing. At that point, it was like 

everybody wanted to seal the mine up. I mean, their opinion was,

"Lets seal it right now." And what went through my mind was, "Hey, 

everybody's okay. Yes, they're burnt. Something happened. Should

we act drastically, or should we sit back and think about this for a little 

bit?" I mean, "Is there another way of going back in? Is there

something that we can do?" 

If I can, I prefer working with safety, instead of making snap 

decisions. When that happened, everybody was starting to say, "Let's

seal it up, let's seal it up." And my comment was that, "I just don't 

know what to do." At this point, I don't know what to do, and I think

we just need to take about an hour and think about this and see if

there's any other things we can do. And that's what we ended up doing. 

And we did come up with a plan. And at first, man, everybody was 

getting gun-shy. And it's like, "Don't we face this everyday?" I mean, 

"Yes." This is the first time it happened. It scared the hell out of me,

because it's the first time I experienced mine rescue team members in a

flare-up or an explosion, and it was something that I never want to see 

again. But every day that we go ahead, every time we send mine 

rescue team members in a mine fire or an explosion, we can't control 

every location. We can't tell them that it's 100% safe, that we know

where the gases are at all times. We can tell them where we are

evaluating them, and we feel it's the most accurate locations, you 

know, and we feel that this is where the fire is at. But there's no 

guarantees to all that, and that happened to be a bad experience. 

I sit back and look at it now, and it's like, it was a bad experience 

because, number one: they didn't have an updated map at the mine.

We were looking at something that was so outdated. The persons that 

was there dealing with it from management, maybe they knew what 

they were doing. We were looking at what they were doing on that 

map that wasn't properly marked up. If we would have knew that all 

these situations or conditions existed, we would have probably said,

"Oh no, don't do that." But they created a monster when they changed 

the ventilation. They did things that they didn't tell us that they were 

gonna do. So it could have been prevented. I hope it could have been

prevented. If everything would have been done and I go back to the 

cooperation, not that they were uncooperative at Mathies, they were 

cooperative. I mean, there was a good working relationship between 

all the parties down there, but there was a breakdown because of 

inadequate maps. And the fact that nobody pointed out to us that these 

27
maps were inadequate, and the only people that were dealing with this 

issue was management. And we thought they were right. 

Of course, mine rescue team members did some things they 

weren't supposed to do, too. But it's only, they didn't tell us. We didn't 

realize that much air was going through there. We didn't realize that

there was only one entry for the air to go through, because it looked 

like it was all open, and air could have went in numerous directions. 

So it didn't look that critical. But when you narrow it down, this is the 

only way it could go. And right here, there was another door going 

back here into the shop. It's pretty obvious that you got to force all this 

air somewhere, and it's gonna go through that shop, and it's probably

gonna take gases with it. It's gonna build up in that shop. And 

eventually, the fire's gonna get there, and you've got an explosion. 

This is hindsight, Monday morning quarterback. 

SPEAKER: We had to locate five bodies, and during this time we 

were communicating with the surface and basically taking our 

instructions from the surface as we communicated. The decision was

made to bring those five bodies out. We didn't have body bags—we 

put them in the back of a trailer and covered them with brattice cloth. 

When we got to the surface, I was really surprised 'cause it was dark by 

that time, and there was this floodlight glaring right in my eyes. You 

can imagine me being in this dark area with a mining lamp and then 

coming outside with my eyes dilated and then this floodlight glaring in

my eyes. I couldn't quite understand what was taking place, but very

shortly I realized that it was the news media with the cameras and the 

floodlight, that just as soon as we came out the door they had the 

cameras on us and immediately began to ask questions. By that time,

the State police were there and they were very helpful. The Governor 

arrived, and the family members were there, too. There was some

bonfires, and family members were there. I don't really understand 

why, but this surprised me. I guess I just really wasn't expecting this. 

Family members were there, obviously very apprehensive, wanting to 

know and really afraid to know. Anyway, I was not on the surface 

very long. I went back into the mine. That was my job, but I was 

anxious to get back into the mine. I wanted to get back in the mine—it 

was really easier there. 

The above excerpts suggest something about coupling and communication. "Coupling," a term used by Perrow [1984], refers to the complex

interactions that develop in an organization facing crisis. As pressures

increase, people often neglect peripheral communications in order to focus on 

core task performance. The resulting increased responsiveness also increases 

organizational coupling. As pressure increases further, people in this more 

28
tightly coupled organizational mode start to ignore communication that is 

central to task performance. As key information is lost as a result, interactions 

become misunderstood, forgotten, or ignored. Thus, the absence of critical 

knowledge, such as ventilation arrangements or who has gotten onto mine 

property, escalates the complexity of interactions. Weick [1995] asserts that 

the culprit is just as much human limitation as the technological complexity on 

which Perrow focused. 

Interestingly, Weick, though not an oral historian, argued that good stories 

are the key to minimizing pressure and improving sense-making during 

emergencies. In other words, if responders have learned through others' 

narratives some of the things they might encounter during an event, they will 

be better prepared. A few of the respondents in the present study also voiced 

such a sentiment. One individual proposed that mine operators have mine 

emergency response veterans come to their mine and talk about their past 

experiences, especially those regarding critical phases of events. He suggested 

that mine operators could videotape the presentations and then show them to

personnel who would be responding to emergencies. Another expert 

suggested that a text-based document, providing recommendations for 

handling emergencies, be compiled and distributed to mine operators. This 

veteran believed that such a manuscript might be developed as a "how-to"

manual and taken to the finest detail to ensure that all possible elements are 

covered. He believed that such a document would be helpful, especially if

written for use by any size or type of mine. Three response experts suggested 

that narratives in the form of paper-and-pencil simulations of actual mine 

emergencies would be useful as training aids. They suggested that these

simulations could be conducted in a classroom or in the offices at a mine site

and used to train both command center personnel and other individuals who

might be involved in the response. One expert talked about the efficacy of

using such simulations of actual mine emergencies to train personnel at his

company: "All the little things that seem to be taken for granted—you run 

personnel through a couple of exercises and you suddenly find out, 'I never 

thought of that.' And [the exercise] brings all these little things to the front." 

References

Pearce J [1983]. Participation in voluntary associations: how membership in a formal 

organization changes the rewards of participation. In: Smith D, Van Til J, eds. International

perspectives on voluntary action research. Washington, DC: University Press of America. 

Perrow C [1984]. Normal accidents. New York: Basic Books. 

Smith DH [1994]. Determinants of voluntary association participation and volunteering: 

a literature review. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Q 23(3):243-263. 

Smith DH, Macaulay J, eds. [1980]. Participation in political and social activities. San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Weick K [1995]. Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 

29
CHAPTER 3.—THE DECISIONS MADE DURING A MINE 

EMERGENCY RESPONSE 

One set of questions on the interview guide covered decision-making. 

Regardless of how well prepared one might be, there will likely come a time 

when situational pressure makes decision-making increasingly difficult. Each 

respondent was first asked about the most difficult situation he had ever found 

himself in (or decision he had to make) during his work with mine emergency

response. 

SPEAKER: That one is very simple. At the same time we were trying

to recover a roof fall fatality victim at Cherokee Mining Company, we 

had a victim trapped by a roof fall on a shuttle car at Canada Coal, and 

I had to split the mine rescue team, and I took half of them and went to 

Canada. We left Cherokee, and I left half the men trying to recover 

that one. We knew we had a live man trapped. We worked about 

5 hours trying to get him out, and the roof was so unstable that we 

experienced three more roof falls on the shuttle car while we were 

attempting to get the victim out. At one time, I made a decision that 

I'm glad that I didn't have to do. The only way that I thought we could

get the man out was to take a torch and cut the deck off the shuttle car 

and let it set down. Hindsight, 20-20, I see now that I would probably 

have killed the man. And I asked my team, I said, "Let's try one more 

time" to get him out, and everything from that minute fell in place. We

went straight down through the rock, and within a half-hour—after 

41⁄2 hours of fighting it—within a half-hour we had him out. But that 

was one of the toughest decisions, and I sit back and think now, had 

I gone ahead and followed the initial decision I made to try to cut the 

end of the car out with a cutting torch, I would have killed a man. 

There's no doubt in my mind, and we were lucky. We managed to get 

him out, and he's alive and well today. 

SPEAKER: I think the one that was the most emotionally charged was 

the one in 1984. We went down, and this poor chap was pinned. It 

took us almost 24 hours to dig him out. And knowing full well that 

when you dug him out, you're not going to save him anyway 'cause he 

was crushed to the point that all that was keeping him alive was the 

fact that he was crushed in. And as soon as you release that pressure, 

once the body tries to come back to normal, unless you got those 

pressure trousers ready to put on him, you're going to lose him. And

we can all still hear that poor boy, you know. He never screamed. He 

never yelled. Never, never screamed, but just [pleaded], "Take me

out." I was the most emotional. It's hard. I get emotional now just 

30
thinking about it. You know, there were a lot tears shed that day. I'm 

almost ready to cry. But again, that's what it's all about, isn't it? 

You're going around to rescue someone.

SPEAKER: When I went on surface, what happened is the silo

collapsed on an employee and he was injured fatally. It was the first

time this ever happened, and it took a little while to get organized. The 

delay wouldn't have cost the man's life because he was dead on the

time, so he did not suffer. But it did take a while because we weren't

used to having emergencies on surface; underground only. And all of a 

sudden, this was on surface. Do we use the fire crew? Do we use the 

mine rescue? By the time decisions were made, you're talking about

several hours. Not blaming the company, not blaming individuals, but 

it took that experience to learn by it. 

We know that we can't reach him. All we know, we've seen him.

Well, we finally got a hold on him—we know he's dead. But we can't

get him out, because he's crushed. And now we've got to make

decisions to use torches or different types of equipment. And you still 

don't want to, you know. You've got to make a decision. You can get 

him out real fast if you cut him apart. He's dead anyway. He's been 

dead for 3 days. But I know I didn't want the body unintact. Therefore, it took us a good 12 hours to get the person out without damaging 

that person itself, using different types of emergency equipment to get

him out. 

SPEAKER: The situation that I had to face is when I had to call a 

guy's family. I can think of that today, and it still bothers me. You 

pretty well know that this guy is dead, but you don't want to say that,

and you can't say that, if you don't know 100% positive. And then it's 

not my—I don't think it's my—I shouldn't be the one saying that 

anyway. Not at that time. Before I'd say that to the family, I'd have to 

sit down and think for a few minutes to see what words I'm going to 

put that in. So that was the hardest thing that I done during the whole 

[response] was calling the family and letting them know that this guy's 

not going to—he's trapped. Well, he's not trapped—he's unaccounted

for. I tried to use words that had the same meaning. 

SPEAKER: The hardest decision that I ever made, and I had to do it

instantly, was withdrawing the miners from Wilberg1 when the fire had 

gotten out of control. The way that stuation was set up, we were 

actually fighting the fire from the inby side of it. We were traveling up

1

Wilberg Mine, Emery Mining Corp., Orangeville, UT, December 19, 1984; 27 killed. 

31
by the fire, circling, and coming on the back side of the fire to fight it.

And the fire was breaking out in several places in our area. Our reports 

from the fresh air base was, "CO's going up in the fresh air base. We 

got 40 some parts per million in this fresh air base." I'm going from

memory; I may have it a little bit out of line. Then they said, "People 

are panicking up here. What do you want us to do?" Coal miners and 

support people who were in there actually left that area running 

towards the outside in a panic, and we're talking about 50 or 60 people 

was in there at that time. We had several bodies in the fresh air base at 

that time that we had brought down, and the people that we had in 

there did not take time to pick them up and bring them out because 

they didn't feel like they had time to do that. I mean, they had actually 

left there in a panic. As a matter of fact, when they left there they were

running towards the outside of the mines, and they were underground, 

oh, a little over a mile. I gave instructions to bring all my people to the

surface, and the company opposed it on the spot. The company said,

"If you bring them out, we'll lose the mines." I said, "Well, you're

going to lose them all, if you leave them there." 

The vice president of the company met them at the portal, trying to

get them to go back into the coal mines, and our people wouldn't go till

I met with them, and we gave them instructions that we would go up to

the fire and fight the fire from the outby side like we should've been all 

along, and we'd furnish them with anybody that they needed to do

that—support, but we would not allow our people to go inby the fire, 

because they were not mine rescue team members, and the mine rescue

team members would have to make their own decisions—we don't 

make decisions for mine rescue teams, but our people was not trained 

in [the use of] apparatus, and we wanted them out in the safe area. 

SPEAKER: I would say the hardest decision was the sealing of the fire 

area at the Orient No. 5 fire when we knew there were three people 

unaccounted for. This was a tough decision. It was tough for the 

families. It was tough to come out and face the families and say, 

"We've sealed the mine down there." And they had three people—very 

frustrating to the families and very frustrating to the people there at the 

mine, especially when it's people that you've worked with. 

 

SPEAKER: To seal a mine—with people in it. Yeah, Scotia. After

the second explosion, we were able to get in through a shaft, and the 

bodies were observed, but we didn't know what our available 

ventilation controls in the mine were like. We didn't know what had

caused the second explosion. There were just too many unknowns at 

the time, and that was the reason we decided to go ahead and seal it

and stabilize everything. I guess I was probably the strongest for it. 

32
But, we just felt like we were doing the right thing and the safe thing. 

I think the first day, we spent trying to see what we could find out 

underground, and in the second day, we made this decision to seal and 

began sealing. 

SPEAKER: The most difficult one was at Fire Creek, when we sealed 

the mine and left people in there. The reason that was more difficult 

than Wilberg is because we had a fire raging at Wilberg, and there was

a lot of people making the decisions, you know. There was only three 

people making the decisions at Fire Creek, and I was one of them. 

And even though it was short-term, about 48 hours until we got a hole 

drilled down and could get back in there, that was the toughest one to 

make. But it didn't take me long to make it. I didn't really hesitate. 

I thought about it maybe. I thought about it before we ever made it. 

And within 5 minutes after we started talking about it, I was in

agreement to do it. Because, one thing, I thought we could get back. It 

was easy in one way 'cause I thought, "Well, we could get back in there 

pretty quick if we need to 'cause they're not very far back, and it's not a

massive mine like we had at Wilberg." 

SPEAKER: I was notified, and by the time I got over there it was 

about midnight, and they had just gotten everybody out, and of course 

the discussion was going on. You know, "What do we do now? What 

do we do now?" And the safety director said, "Well, what I would like 

to do is wait until the morning and go in and take another look at it." 

My response was, "With the amount of methane that's in this mine, 

with the fact that you have a fire out of control, there is no way that 

you're going to go in there in the morning and take a look at it." The 

president of the company and the safety director came about that time 

and we discussed it, and they said, "Well, what are you saying?" I'm 

saying, "Well, you seal the mine. There's no way out of it." Now, this 

is not a decision that's made concerning life, but it is a decision that's

made concerning economics. I mean, here is a mine employing several 

hundred people and you're saying, "Seal it—period." You can't make 

decisions like that lightly, and even though they don't involve life,

there's a lot of stress and strain in making decisions like that. 

This set of accounts suggests that situations concerning people (either 

alive or dead) and livelihoods are seen as the hardest conditions under which 

to make decisions: "There are tough decisions made concerning people, but

there are also tough decisions made concerning other things in a situation such 

as that." As the literature suggests [Weick 1995], not only do complex tasks 

start to become senseless as arousal increases, people tend to abandon newly 

learned behaviors (such as those acquired in recent training) and fall back on

33
older responses: "When something like this happens, and you get there, you're 

not a damn bit smarter than you were the day before. You don't know a bit 

more than you did the day before, and the only thing that you can do is use 

some good old common horse sense." Other factors that affect the decisionmaking aspect of responder involvement will be explored in the remainder of 

this chapter. 

Several of the interviewees thought that the focus should be on 

interactions between responsible individuals in the command center. When

asked how decisions are usually made and who makes them, the veterans 

generally responded as follows: 

SPEAKER: Central. In other words, there will be the mine manager, 

the one in charge. But he doesn't make no decisions without

consultation. If it's ventilation, it's the ventilation technician. If it has 

to do with blasting, then the blasting foreman comes in. If it's mine 

rescue, then it's myself. He's never made a decision without consulting 

the people well trained in that situation. So it's very good. There's not 

just one man making completely a decision, which, you know, could

not be, it wouldn't be fair for that individual to make all major 

decisions. He's doing it in consultation with the people that are trained. 

SPEAKER: I am in charge until the arrival of the Commissioner of the 

Department of Mines, according to our State law. I solicit ideas. I am

nowhere near the smartest guy there. I realize that. There's always

MSHA personnel on-site. They have some very qualified people

[including] the one I told you about. Hargus and I've worked closely 

on several recovery operations. I have great respect for his opinion. 

I solicit ideas from even my mine rescue team members. Most of the

time, I will incorporate an idea that somebody else comes up with. 

SPEAKER: Well, every one I worked at, you always have somebody

in charge of each group. There's somebody in charge of the union's 

people. There's somebody in charge of the company. Somebody's in

charge of the State and Federal. And the best way that's handled is, it's 

the company's coal mines, and if you got the people there that can

make those decisions, it's better to allow them to draw up the plans.

And sometimes we even meet and discuss options. You know, "What 

do we want to do next," and we all sit down and discuss what needs to 

be accomplished, and usually a good company who has got the

personnel to do it, and expertise, will say, "Okay, I've got a pretty good 

idea on what I think most of the people in this room wants to do and 

how," and they'll go out and adopt a plan and put it in writing. Now, 

that's the plan of what you want to accomplish and how we're going to 

do it in broad outline, but usually when you throw that into place, 

34
you've got to change and roll with what you're finding. Be able to

adapt to it, you know. I found out that what really makes it hard is if 

the company tries to get all the details and do it exactly the way they 

say, to start with. If you just say, "We're going to start a team 

exploring—the fresh air base is going to be here, and we'll act

accordingly," it expedites things. 

SPEAKER: At that particular event, you had a group of people who

were a district manager and a couple of subdistrict managers, and there 

was a representative from the company, the operator, that ended up

coming together in a group. And they were the more senior, experienced

officials, and they would congregate and talk about what it was that they

were facing. They would bring [MSHA] Tech Support in, and Tech

Support would provide them with advice on their analysis of data 

gathered from fans, from air bottles, from whatever it was that they were

particularly doing. And they, frankly, just got together around the table 

and they just talked, and generally one person would come to the front

and be in charge. I had a neighbor who says in the absence of 

leadership, leadership will appear. And he's right, that no matter, you 

don't have to have any title or anything, but some strong person, some 

forceful person will come in and he will be recognized as this, and he 

will be the leader. You can't do it by title, they don't care if you're a

district manager or whatever it is, but this person will come forward, and

there it happened to be John Weekly. And the others fell in line behind 

him as a team that became advisors, because he was pretty much in

control. He was just a person that was recognized as in charge. He 

didn't wear a hat, you know, there were senior people to him at the mine

site that were district managers and stuff, but he was just recognized as 

that. For whatever reason, some person will come, will be forwarded,

and he may not step forward, it may be that others step back and leave

him in a leadership position, but that always happens. 

The above comments on how decisions are generally made during an

emergency response coincide remarkably with the characteristics of effective

leadership derived by Kowalski from studies of mine fire escape behavior 

conducted at the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (PRL) [Kowalski et al. 1994;

Vaught et al. 2000]. The leader in each case was described as an individual 

alert to his environment, attentive, and discerning. It was also thought that this

person might excel at incidental learning, retaining information that was 

instrumental to the escapes. A second characteristic of each leader was the 

manner in which he took charge. The emerging leader did not "muscle in"; his 

leadership developed in a natural way. Third, the leaders were decisive, yet 

flexible. They made decisions, yet if circumstances changed, they adapted. 

Fourth, the leaders were open to input from others. Fifth, there was a logic to

35
the leadership. Decisions were appropriate and congruent with the available

information. 

Decisive leadership and appropriate decision-making become crucial at 

certain moments during a response. It was hypothesized that these instances

might be common to most emergency events. The veterans were therefore

asked: "Are there certain critical points common to many mine responses,

times when certain actions should be done or decisions made?" They were 

further requested to discuss some of the most important decisions that have to 

be made. 

SPEAKER: I'm not sure that there are times; there's probably

timeframes, you know, that after a while a decision has to be made. 

My response to that would be: yes, there are times that decisions have

to be made that would be within a particular timeframe, that you 

realize that not making a decision is really a decision not to act, and the 

question is, "Do we need to act, do we need to act a particular way?" 

SPEAKER: I was talking about a window of opportunity. And when 

these do occur, you've got to grab the opportunity and to do what it is 

you have to do. You have to be constantly watching conditions to

make sure that your people aren't being put in harm's way. So the 

people involved who have responsibility for making decisions, this is 

the most critical thing they have to do. And it's one of the things that 

we have so much trouble teaching people, is to watch trends, not 

numbers. Everybody gets excited by a number, and it's so hard to get 

them to understand that very low numbers can be extremely dangerous 

if they're increasing. I told you about the pseudofire we had at Jim 

Walters. Almost a year later, close to the same area, we had a real fire

on a longwall. And you'd hear the pops in the gob as pockets of gas 

would get ignited as we were sealing. But we had a rule that we use 

our Zabetakis nose-curve as our guide. And when we had three 

consecutive rises, no matter where they were, we pulled back. And it's

interesting to see hairs grow gray when you've had two consecutive 

rises. And everybody's waiting for that third, because when you take 

three rises at 20-minute intervals, [you] should intervene. There's 

certain things that you can do. You're buying time. And people, if 

you're following what the trends mean, you can make the proper 

remedial effort. And so, it's so necessary to teach people trending. 

Yeah, these are decision-making devices. 

SPEAKER: Levels of gases get to a critical stage—a decision has to 

be made. Do we pull ‘em out of the mine? Do we pull ‘em back to a 

certain location? When changes occur, like ventilation changes, what 

protections are we going to follow? How are we gonna do it? Where 

36
are we going to bring them back to? So I guess anytime there's a

change in what's happening, it's very touchy. And you have to make 

the right decision and get ‘em out. Of course, when you have the pops, 

and it happens to be that everybody is still there, then you start

wondering, because the samples didn't come until a half an hour later

that showed what happened a half an hour ago. It was too late, and that 

has happened. Maybe it was a lack of manpower or lack of whatever, 

but it seemed like somebody in the computer room that they had set up 

right at the mine may have been getting this information on a regular, 

quick basis, but everybody wasn't. And that's one of the most

important things that I think that we have to deal with as persons that 

are in charge of an operation, is to make sure that those persons that are

underground are safe. And the best way to make sure they're safe is to 

evaluate those gases in the best possible location. 

SPEAKER: Well, I guess when certain things occur, you got to make 

a decision, you know. If you have a team that's working and

something is discovered, then you got to make a decision in order to go

on, or to withdraw. Now, some of the times they don't do it according 

to the book. In other words, the rescue teams have got certain rules,

but you don't go by those things. You do to a degree, but there's a lot 

of times you do things that I don't guess you want to write home about. 

You know what I'm saying. 

SPEAKER: I guess one of the cardinal rules is: you don't do anything 

about ventilation until you know where your men are. You don't shut

it down, you don't disrupt it—you just leave it alone. Do nothing, and

then go down and find out where your men are, what the situation is.

Another mine rescue rule is that you never split a team. You're always

traveling as a five-man team. That one seems to be a kind of a touchy

one, because the rule is, a fire call comes to the mine, nobody moves 

until you've got two teams on the property. You got a team for 

underground and a team for standing by. And sometimes it takes a fair 

amount of time to round up 10 men. And we've always said to

ourselves, "Well, what happens if there's somebody's life at stake, and 

you've only got three men?" And the answer to that one is: the 

circumstances will dictate what you have to do. And if this guy is a 

couple hundred feet, and you know he's a couple of hundred feet away 

from the shaft station, well, you're going to go get him. If he's a couple 

thousand feet away, and you are going to jeopardize those three men to

go and get him, then that's a cold, hard decision that we have to make. 

You've probably lost one man, and let's keep it at one man. We're not 

jeopardizing any more with the remote chance you might save him.

Those are some cold, hard rules of mine rescue, because I've always

37
said, "You can call these men from home; they were safe at home. 

You call them out, and you send them down to fight that fire, and they

better come back to you." If we're going to lose anybody,

unfortunately, and this is a very hard thing to say, if we're going to lose

anybody, it's going to be the poor man that's down there, not the mine 

rescue man going to get him. But those are the kind of rules that we

pretty well stick to. 

SPEAKER: I have never seen two the same—there's no way you can

have a rule of thumb on any recovery operation. Every one I've ever 

been on, even if it's roof falls, each one is different. You have to look 

at the situation you have, decide the best approach. Sometimes you 

don't even know where the body's located. 

SPEAKER: I think each and every emergency situation stands on its 

own merits, and the decision-making [at] that particular one may not 

be compatible with another one. You'll find that they're practically all 

different. It's like a head-on collision out here on the highway. No two

are going to be the same, even though they're head-on collisions. 

There's some pattern, but I think every mine fire you have, every 

explosion you have, has to be handled as a different situation. I don't 

think that you could set a pattern and say if there's a mine fire or 

explosion here, here's what I'm going to do. 

SPEAKER: Every one of them is totally different, but still in all, there 

is a pattern that you go by. But, statistics is what guides your decisionmaking. It's reaction to an action. That is the best way that I can tell 

you about it. If the gas is building in certain places and you can 

control them, then control them. If you can't, then you have to make a 

decision to go at it a different way. This is generally decided by

whoever's leading, but I can assure you that he don't make it on his

own. I always have a backup group that's sitting there telling me

what's going to happen next. They're predicting from a set of facts—

air readings, gas testings, procedures—there's something going on that 

they're guiding me. It's up to them, when they see an action, to make

sure I react to it. The only way I could react to it is by knowing what's 

going on, and that's the way I have handled [any] that I've ever 

handled, and I have handled them for years. 

The individuals responding to this question expressed themselves much as 

one would in grappling with the differences between art, which is a skill

obtained by the study and practice of certain principles, and science, which

involves activity based on methodology and discipline. Each emergency is

unique, but there is a pattern to go by. There isn't a "time" to act, but there

38
are timeframes within which particular actions have to be taken. One must 

follow the rules, but be alert for windows of opportunity. The "book" is 

sacred, but we don't always go by the book. As in most realms of activity

where art and science are intermingled, there must be some means of 

orchestrating the two. 

Cognitive psychologists, in trying to understand the way in which 

expertise is acquired and used, developed two related theories that explain 

how this orchestration might work. The first theory of expertise is called

"chunking theory." Chase and Simon [1973] defined a chunk as information

that has been grouped in some meaningful way in the subject's long-term 

memory so that it can be remembered as a single unit. Therefore, 

a multichunk unit will take up no more room in a person's short-term memory

than a single unit of unchunked information. Because the short-term memory

is only capable of storing a half-dozen or so units, space is limited. It is thus 

to one's benefit to chunk. The difference between a novice and an expert, 

then, resides in the fact that the latter has acquired a large database of chunks 

so that he or she does not have to respond to a situation using one single unit at 

a time, and therefore has superior problem-solving abilities. Still, some 

psychologists believed that these notions did not explain how an expert can

solve problems in chaotic surroundings. To address this aspect of expertise, 

Gobet and Simon [1996] introduced the notion of "templates," which are 

retrieval structures with an unchanging core of chunks and a set of slots that 

can be altered rapidly as they are filled in by context or by additional 

information from the environment. New information is processed according to 

how it fits into these slots. The resulting schema can be used not only to 

interpret a situation, but also to predict what is likely to occur in the 

environment. 

Template theory explains how an experienced person can arrive at the 

scene of an emergency, take a quick reading, and begin problem solving. He

or she already has part of the picture stored in templates, so it is just a matter 

of picking a template that best fits the situation and filling in the slots with

information specific to the problem at hand. Klein [1989] noted that experts at 

an emergency do not consider a broad array of possibilities, but rather focus 

on what "type" of situation they are facing based on past cases (in other words, 

their templates). They are thus able to embark on decision-making strategies

that allow them to cope with a host of ill-defined contingencies in a timeframe 

that would not allow for deliberate and judicious steps to discover and 

implement the "best" choices [Perdue et al. 1995]. In essence, the expert, in 

choosing a template, selects one that is "good enough." The template is then

used to guide decisions that are "good enough" to work in the circumstances 

that he or she presently faces. 

Whether guided by templates or some other cognitive schema, decisions 

are not made in a vacuum. The veterans were asked how decisions are made

during an emergency response, and who makes them. 

39
SPEAKER: Well, we touched on that. Usually, it's a unified situation 

with State, Federal, union, or representative of the miners, whoever it 

might be, and management. But again, the bottom line is management. 

They're responsible for everybody and everything. Even though there 

might be Federal or State people, they're still responsible for them. 

SPEAKER: Ideally, you would like the State, the representative of the

miners, or the union representative, whichever it might be, and the 

company, and an MSHA official. Now, it doesn't always work out that

way. Generally speaking from my experience, the people who make 

the decisions are generally the MSHA people and the State people, 

and, all too often, it winds up with MSHA making the decision. 

I remember several years ago when we had sealed the Beatrice Mine.

What I'm going to say doesn't refer to the Virginia Department of

Mines and Minerals now, because the gentleman that they have there 

as chief inspector is a very cooperative person, and he and MSHA 

work beautifully together. But this was prior to his time. I remember 

that we were to have a meeting to discuss reopening the mine, and 

I had Jim down from [MSHA] Tech Support in Pittsburgh. We had 

gone over all of the samples there, how everything looked, and made 

the decision that now just was not the time to open the mine.

I remember calling the Chief of the Virginia Department of Mines and

discussing it with him, and he said, "I'm right with you. That's exactly

the way we will do it." We went over there the next day, and I saw 

him before the meeting started, and his attitude was exactly the same

way. "That's it; we just won't open it now." Well, we get in the 

meeting, and the company goes over all of their thoughts and theories 

on it: why they think that it should be open and gave their conclusions 

as to the decisions that they had arrived at, how they had arrived at 

them, and so forth, and they asked the Chief of the Department of

Mines what he thought about it, and he said, "Well, if that's what you

want to do, that suits me fine." He looked at me and said, "What do

you think?" I said, "No way are you going to open this mine now." 

So, I mean, those are some of the situations that you get into. I've had 

that happen to me several times. And those are tough, those are tough. 

Sometimes, according to the respondents, decision-making goes fairly

smoothly; in other cases, it doesn't. 

Decisions are made more easily when they are informed by moments that 

have gone before. During their interviews with PRL researchers, the experts 

argued this topic area should include not only training in the development of

an emergency response plan, but the training of personnel in its 

implementation as well. Implicit in their observations was the notion that it is 

critical to arrive at a well-designed document that has been put to the test. 

40
SPEAKER: Greenwich Mine—they had a plan in place. They had an 

explosion. They started neatly, called the rescue people, had them on

scene. They called ambulances in, paramedics, and I support that. 

Alerted people for supplies that was going to be needed, especially a

large amount of supplies. Again, it depends where the explosion's at, 

how far it's in the mine. But generally, when you have an explosion, it

takes out stoppings, and you need canvas, you need lumber to put this, 

the canvas checks up, you need the foam spray that you spray on it to

keep it from leaking. 'Cause when you put these things up around the 

ribs, or sides, they leak a good bit, and you take this foam and spray it

around so that you can keep your air, when you get up there a certain 

distance with all this leakage, you finally end up with no air. I think 

that what they did at these mines, they had places where rescue people

were assigned to stay so they could get their rest. The worst thing is to 

keep rescue people in the lamp house where people's walking around,

people are hammering, people's talking, making noise where the rescue 

teams can't get their rest, where you have the press running around, 

where you have families running around. I think that a person should

be assigned and say, "I will take the responsibility to see where the 

rescue team's going to stay at. We will have a place for the families to 

stay." Generally, you have the Salvation Army or the Red Cross come

in, and you want some place for them to stay, and you try to get them

away from where the action's at, 'cause if you start bringing a large

group there, everybody's running around and they just interfere with 

one another. If you can, [move] trailers in, or use the warehouse or 

supply house, or something to get them away from right where the 

shaft's at, and the main office where people are calling the shots. 

Greenwich—they had the State police there to fence off the area.

I think that at Greenwich, it was. I didn't totally agree with it. They

didn't let anyone in, but they didn't talk to the press, and I think that 

they should have had a company person go down and talk to them. 

I think that you've got to make arrangements to have trucking

companies available to pick stuff up that's flew in to an airport, so you 

can move the material immediately. Again, it depends on the number 

of bodies, but if you have a large number of bodies that you're bringing

out of the mine, I think they should be moved from the mine 

immediately, not even put in a room, that there should be an 

ambulance there, and put in the ambulance and taken to wherever 

they're going to perform the autopsy, or someplace. When you keep 

them at the mine site, it's a problem. 

In addition, the importance of practice was reiterated as a basic theme.

The veterans suggested that some valuable experience could be gotten during 

41
activities such as mock emergencies, although at least one felt compelled to 

differentiate between experience and proper training.

SPEAKER: I'm a great believer in plans if they're flexible enough,

good enough. But what good's the plan if we don't have the training

associated with it? We had [a] mine explosion down here in southern 

West Virginia. And you have one of the best companies in the United 

States there. You've got MSHA down there, and no one went into the 

bleeders, to monitor the bleeders. They claimed, "Well, we were

monitoring at this point." But you look at the ventilation, and I'm not 

sure what you're monitoring at that point. But we allow them to

change the ventilation without having to check the bleeder. This fire, 

the explosion, and the flames involved the gob. It's like looking at a 

coin on one side. If it's a false coin, it's got heads on both sides, or tails 

on both sides. And that's this day; we're talking about 1992. This 

company has wonderful plans. I happen to know that they've been

involved in these mine emergency training programs where they have 

this mock stuff going on. The time came, they make ventilation

changes—a basic no-no. Scotia's another good example of people

doing things that shouldn't be done. Very sad—I cry about that. At the

same [time] we were going into court on Sunshine, and I was in Boise, 

Idaho, testifying in court, we had our second explosion. And I cursed, 

because none of us who should have been there were there. So we feel

very guilty about that today. But you see this going on constantly, and

I don't expect changes. In fact, a number of us expect only the worst in 

the future. 

With regard to the last statement about expecting the worst, experts were 

asked about issues that should be passed on to future responders. It is 

interesting to note that, during this discussion as well, mine emergency

veterans stressed the significance of preparedness with respect to (1) having a

well-designed emergency response plan and (2) practicing for emergencies. 

References

Chase W, Simon H [1973]. Perception in chess. Cognit Psychol 4:55-81. 

Gobet F, Simon H [1996]. Templates in chess memory: a mechanism for recalling several 

boards. Cognit Psychol 31:1-40. 

Klein G [1989]. Recognition-primed decisions. In: Rouse W, ed. Advances in manmachine systems research. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, pp. 47-92. 

Kowalski KM, Mallett LG, Brnich MJ Jr. [1994]. The emergence of leadership in a crisis: 

a study of group escapes from fire in underground coal mines. Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department 

of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, IC 9385. NTIS No. PB94-176435. 

Perdue CW, Kowalski KM, Barrett EA [1995]. Hazard recognition in mining: 

a psychological perspective. Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines,

IC 9422. NTIS No. PB95-220844. 

42
Vaught C, Brnich MJ Jr., Mallett LG, Cole HP, Wiehagen WJ, Conti RS, et al. [2000]. 

Behavioral and organizational dimensions of underground mine fires. Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. 

Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH)

Publication No. 2000-126, IC 9450, pp. 170-171. 

Weick K [1995]. Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 

p. 102. 

43
CHAPTER 4.—SOME SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF MINE 

EMERGENCIES THAT AFFECT RESPONSES1

Chapter 3 discussed moments in an emergency response during which 

decision-making strategies have to be used. This chapter details several 

specific aspects of any given response that might properly be called

"background problems" or distractors. These variables, while not primarily

instrumental in the response process, are nevertheless stressors that impact not

only the quality of decision-making, but also how well the emergency

organization functions. 

The emergency response organization is not solely a technical system or a

social system, but a structural integration of human activities around various

technologies. This portrayal of organization casts its management as a process 

of maximizing the system's chances for success by facilitating internal and 

external relations while promoting organizational effectiveness. However else

it might be characterized, an emergency scene is, for most or all of its 

participants, a workplace. The fact that it is such a dynamic environment has 

often obscured this truism from researchers. 

Emergency personnel, like all workers, carry out their duties within a 

context composed of discrete elements. First, there is the event itself, which

presents responders with a need to behave in a proactive manner. The 

simplest way to express this notion without delving into a discussion of 

dialectics is to state that such a situation constrains workers to be as much 

"actors" as "acted upon." Second, the emergency occurs within an existing

societal structure that is composed of specific social units with rules and forms

of association. Within this framework there must be, of necessity, an 

emergent organization functionally dedicated to the accomplishment of a

relatively narrow and short-term mission. A response, then, may take place

within a nonmaterial context of values, norms, beliefs, and behavioral

expectations that are often in conflict with each other. Third, there is a

technology that must be understood and used appropriately in order to

accomplish collective goals. 

It has already been suggested that demands on a person acting as one of 

the directors of an emergency response are many and varied. The leaders are

exposed to numerous stressors such as time constraints, information overload,

and, especially during the initial organizing stages, a rapidly accumulating

array of subtasks. In major operations, as the study informants have pointed

out, decision-making is shared so that no single individual has complete

control over the current situation. Salas et al. [1996] characterized this state as 

a condition possessing work entailments that "evoke an appraisal process in 

 1Some sections of this chapter were originally authored in collaboration with Dana C. 

Reinke, sociologist, Pittsburgh Research Laboratory, National Institute for Occupational Safety

and Health, Pittsburgh, PA. 

44
which perceived demands exceed resources and result in undesirable 

physiological, emotional, cognitive and social changes." The notion of

demand versus resource (as it applies to human resources) is key to emergency

management. Many demands upon the available participants stem not so 

much from the response problem itself, but from background problems that 

may or may not become critical yet must nevertheless be sorted through. The 

more efficiently and effectively this is done, the more successful a given

response is likely to be. 

In any mine emergency, as Mitchell [1990] so succinctly pointed out 

regarding fire, "time is not your friend." Except for those individuals who

happened to be on-site when an event began, all other responders would have 

had to first be notified and then might be required to travel significant

distances to the rural area where the emergency was taking place. The 

informants were asked a series of questions regarding the elements of time

with which they would have had to be concerned: How long after the 

discovery of a problem at a mine site were you usually contacted? Who

contacted you? How long after you were contacted did you usually arrive on

the scene? How long did you usually stay on-site? 

SPEAKER: Within minutes, within hours—it's never the same. But 

usually, if I'm on the property, it's within minutes. If I'm off the 

property, then it's within 15 to 20 minutes. I'm the second one on the 

list that they call out for any emergency.

SPEAKER: It could be as little as 45 minutes and as long as 21⁄2 hours, 

maybe, if I had to drive. 

SPEAKER: At the Grundy disaster, I was contacted probably within 

4 hours, and it was approximately 12 hours to 16 hours when I actually 

made it on-site because it was 150 miles away. 

One mine fire, I was within 15 minutes of the mine site itself and 

we were, we were contacted. And it was an odd thing on it. We were 

doing chest x-rays. There was a program from the, I think the National 

Institute of Health about doing chest x-rays on coal miners. And we 

were instructed to go to this, and it so happened that this site was set up 

at a union hall. And they were doing union members, too. So we, 

would go to this to do this chest x-ray and while we're there one of the 

guys that we, that ends up knowing us says, "Have you been contacted

yet? They've been hunting you." I said, "No, we didn't know anything 

about it." So we go in and get on the telephone, and we are less than

15 minutes from the mine site itself, and they said, "Well, we got the 

mine on fire." So I said, we go out and get in the car and there was 

four of us, we go get the car and drive there. So we're there within 

15 minutes. 

45
SPEAKER: Calling the mine rescue station is one of the first phone 

calls that come from the mine. It usually goes Mine Manager, Safety 

Department, Mine Rescue. We have a policy that when the team does 

arrive on the property, we expect them to be ready to go underground 

in 15 minutes. I've been called. I arrived one evening, one call in 

particular. I was called 12:30 at night. It's about a 5-minute drive to

get to the mine site. The men arrived there at five to 1:00. Twentyfive minutes later the first team was, what we call, "ready for briefing." 

A couple of other incidents, the one, the latest one, which is only about

a year ago, we were called out at 3 o'clock in the morning. And at

3:30, the first team was ready for briefing, but the company officials

weren't ready for the team. We were ready before they were, so we're 

called out relatively early. 

In the immediate area where I'm in—on up in that area and all of

the mines in that immediate area are within 10 minutes. I can be at any 

of the mines in 10 minutes. Now, there are other mines that will take 

me 25 to 30 minutes away. I think that I can safely say in the mines

that are in the immediate area right now that are operating, are within 

30 minutes. In fact, I can be to any of the mines in less than 

30 minutes. 

SPEAKER: If I had responsibility in that geographic area, I would 

have known about it right away, one of the first. If it was an area that 

I didn't have immediate responsibility, then it would have been later. 

Like example, Finley, which our field office didn't cover, but they 

needed some help, so they called us. I learned about it as soon as I got 

in from the mine, but they had just received a call there in the office 

just a few minutes before that. So this—the explosion occurred just a

few minutes after 12:00, and the reason I remember that, it sort of

shocked me when I realized that I noticed the wristwatches that some

of the guys had on, and I don't understand this but they had stopped, 

and I don't know whether it was just a tremendous amount of force that 

had done that, and I noticed that several of them had stopped at, like, 8

minutes after 12:00, 10 minutes after 12:00, something like that. So 

this would have been probably 2 hours, 21⁄2 hours after the explosion

occurred that we knew about it at Hazard. And the call had come from 

Joe Malesky's office here in Norton. Although the explosion was over

in Kentucky, this was their district headquarters. So it would range 

from immediate notification to 2, 3, or 4 hours later depending on the

area of responsibility.

SPEAKER: I'm usually contacted when all else fails. I'd say that's the 

general rule. Because you really don't need me until you can't do the 

46
job yourself. If you can do it, you don't need me. I do have a couple 

of companies who call me fairly early in the game, Mapco being one of

them—probably now, three times—immediately. And Ziegler Coal's

another that does that. 

Well, I'd say anywhere east of the Mississippi, I can be there

within 5 hours. 

SPEAKER: We had a procedure when I worked for the company.

That was a standing thing at all the mines that the head safety man and 

the head operations man were to be notified pronto—right away. And 

we usually got there as quick as we could. Naturally, if we were out of 

town, you know, that wouldn't work, but it was quick. 

SPEAKER: We are within 1 hour of travel time of virtually every 

mine in our district. So notification, if it's given to the office, we can

be to almost every mine in the district within an hour. 

SPEAKER: We were generally contacted by the company within just 

a very short period of time, and I can't really give any timeframe, but 

I mean it was very soon after the things have happened that I've been

contacted. Well, you know, that depends strictly on where it was. 

Over in Buckhannon County, it would take us about 2 hours. To get 

over there, and that's where most of our problems, of course, McClure 

is about an hour drive. I'd say from an hour to 2 hours from the time 

you were notified. 

The above answers to questions about notification and arrival times point

to two differences between rural mine emergencies and urban emergencies: 

(1) a mine emergency often unfolds over a longer period of time and (2) most 

resources to deal with a mine emergency, both human and material, will need

to be imported over sometimes long distances. Nevertheless, as their

responses show, the time from discovery of an event to notification and the

time from notification to arrival on the scene were highly variable background 

factors for the veterans. 

Another dimension of time that may be problematic at mine emergencies 

is what often seems to be less-than-optimal work scheduling. To get some

sense of this aspect of organizational behavior, the subjects were asked how

long they usually stayed at the scene once they arrived. 

SPEAKER: I had gone like 28 hours and not left. But I don't think 

that's a good idea. I think, probably from 12 to 14 hours. That's when 

the change needs to take place is within that time period. And that

doesn't mean I need to go down to a hotel 20 miles away. That means, 

I go to a back room where nobody will bother me. Just sleep 4 hours. 

47
Then something happens. Somebody comes wakes me up in 2 hours. 

And I say, I'm good for another 2 hours, but that will be it. That's all 

I'd be good for. So usually 12- to 14-hour shift is, I think, probably 

anybody should be around. It's hard making all the, you know, the 

tough decisions. But if your things are slow, then I'm not, I may be 

there 3 hours, and things are going to be slow. People are taking

readings. We're waiting for people to bring bottle samples back.

I know nothing's going to happen for the next 3 hours. And I've only 

been there 2 hours. I'm going to go somewhere right then and rest. I'm 

going to tie myself up on the front end as well as in the back end. 

SPEAKER: Well, I'm the type of guy, you can't compare that. I'm the 

type of guy that will stay as long as I feel comfortable. But sometimes 

the decision has to be made by management that I've been there long 

enough. It's time to go home. We try and organize, and we try and 

make sure that we figure in 8 hours, more than enough. But in a few 

circumstances, it had to extend a bit, only because of, you know, of the 

circumstance. But now, we're trying to work very hard. Every time

we have a response, we do not, definitely do not want people more

than 8 hours there. We figure the decision-making are better fresh

within the 8 hours. Anybody that has to stay 24 to 30 to 40 hours, you 

know, there's no way that you could be able to make a [good decision], 

and we know that. So I don't say it never did happen. No, it did. But 

we try every time to [avoid] it. That's where the guy in the control 

center has to come and say, "Hey, you're going home." The next guy

comes in. 

SPEAKER: Well, I watched J. W. go into 72 hours at one time, and

that's too long. He would tell you that's too long, too. It's almost 

emergency-dependent. If it's someone trapped, if it's a mine fire, if it's 

something else. We, from burnout, from doing things like that, have 

tried to establish that you won't stay longer than 12 hours. And if I had

to recommend it, I would recommend it to 12-hour shifts. If you do 8-

hour shifts, you got three sets of individuals that have to be briefed and

so 12-hour shifts leaves two groups of individuals running something. 

I think 12 hours, if it's going to be many, many days, can really get old,

too. But 12 hours we've handled, and very well, on several occasions 

now. 

SPEAKER: Command center people are pretty much 12-hour 

individuals; others, depending on how harsh your task is. If you were 

going to go with the mine rescue team, we only work with mine rescue 

teams under oxygen. We try to limit that to a maximum of 2 hours in, 

in every 12-hour period 'cause you can really wear mine rescue teams 

48
out, because working under an apparatus is very, very physically 

demanding. And if you're going to go on something for several days,

you can exhaust your people very quickly. So you're trying to stay 

aware of all of that, and you go on scheduling. MSHA people, again, 

I think it's dependent upon what their jobs are. We have been fairly

successful with 12-hour shifts about this changing MSHA people out. 

What you're kind of expected to do is to come there an hour early so 

that you can get briefed about the person that you're replacing. So it

may almost even get to be a 14-hour. But once the initial 2 or 3 days

of it takes place, the transition will be a lot easier. 

SPEAKER: We work on a shift cycle. If it's going to be, I arrive on

the property, and I'll be there usually about 8 hours, and then my

replacement will come in. Usually, I work on an 8-hour cycle. 

A couple of incidents, I've been there longer, but we've learned the

lesson that after 8 hours, you should be bringing in fresh troops. You 

get tired and you're not thinking clearly. You'll make a—maybe make 

bad decisions, and we—I've learned that lesson very quickly. There 

wasn't a backfire. I was going to be the big hero; I was going to stay

there. So I arrived there at 8:00 in the morning and I didn't call for

help till midnight. And by the time help arrived, I was pretty well

exhausted and that was wrong. It's not good. You need to have that

rest. If you're going to save some mine rescue men that you go on a 6-

hour or a 12-hour cycle, then you better do the same thing. 

SPEAKER: Don't stay as long as we used to because our agency's

taken a pretty strong stand on people not staying too long at the site 

because of the probability of making bad decisions after being on the

site, being tired. When we, in District 6 when I was over there, when 

we first formulated our plan, the decision was made at that time at the 

local level to not stay more than 14 hours and this was under certain

conditions. For example, if this occurred during the shift that I was 

working then and I went to the site, then I needed to realize that 

14 hours would be my max, that there's a good probability that I'd

make bad decisions after that. Since then we don't stay that long. We 

try to change out each shift, and our response plan would indicate this.

So far as the people at the site doing the work, we would want to 

change that out to each shift. Better decisions. 

The key insight to take from the discussions of time is that when time is better 

managed, the responders will have a better chance of making good decisions. 

In addition to time as a stressor, responders have problems with

information gathering and task sharing. This is especially true if they arrive

49
on the scene at a point when first responders have, or should have, their

temporary organization well underway. 

SPEAKER: If I were to use our McClure Mine explosion as an

example, it was as I would have expected it to be if the plan were in 

operation, and the plan was in operation. And it was very efficient 

organization where you set up and move it, and I'm driving an hour and 

a half. That was in the middle of the night. 

I have gone to them in years past when it was absolute chaos, 

where there is no organization whatsoever. Mine management had

little or no knowledge on the things that needed to be done, and there is 

chaos, total disorganization. 

Generally, when I was with the government and I went to a site—

the people that brought me up to date, it was done by one of our own

people, one of the Bureau people. Obviously, they would know how

many people are involved. They generally have a fairly decent idea of 

their location underground. In most cases—in one we did not. They'd

have an idea of the quality of air in the mine, or at least coming from

the mine, and have a halfway decent guess of our opportunities for

getting back in there and getting some recovery efforts done. 

I guess the only one I was involved in when no one really knew 

where people were was an inundation at a place called Holly Falls in

West Virginia back in the middle ‘60s. They cut into an old mine, 

which flooded this mine, and really no one knew where the people 

were. There just wasn't any knowledge at all; they just had no idea. 

They knew where they were supposed to have been. But it was an

interesting situation—for several days. It was done very well, and they 

just began the process of pumping and laying pipe, and moving pumps

down, laying pipe, moving pumps down, and kept pumping the water 

down and also drilled some holes in locations where they thought

people might be. Trying—based upon elevations in the mine. There

weren't any successes as far as finding anybody through the hole, but 

eventually they got the water pumped down and broke the water seal,

and people began to—they were able to find people. Sitting on a little 

bit of high ground, and they were just pure lucky, but they did find, if

I remember, there may have been about 10 survivors and maybe

6 drowned. I don't know, something like that. 

SPEAKER: If I'm the first to arrive, I want to assume all roles. Then, 

as other individuals arrive, I think you should delegate those roles out. 

But like I said earlier, I think there are common roles, such as supplies, 

manpower allotment, feeding people, setting up the information office 

to notify the rest of the MSHA. You know, again, it depends on how, 

50
what the particular event is. So there certainly should be a structure set 

up, and we should train for that structure of organization. 

SPEAKER: I think as I said earlier, I called it "organized confusion." 

You're all onto the property, and you walk in, and everybody's pouring

over their maps. Somebody is, there's usually three or four guys on the 

telephones contacting the underground areas to find out where the men

are. There's two or three men checking out the check-in board to make

certain that the men all are accounted for. And it's my job, of course, 

to make certain that the team get their field test—to get ready. And it's

to be facetious, say, "Panic City," but that's not true, that's not true. 

The fact that everybody is moving, and they know what they have to 

do. Some of them are a little slow. They've got to get their book out.

"Hey, what am I supposed to do here?" And they go down the list, 

"Oh, yeah." And then, as soon as they know what they have to do, and 

then it gets done. Fortunately, we haven't been in a situation where a

life has been at stake. 

I was called to one incident, and the man had been exposed to

smoke inhalation, and he was in the refuge station, and he was in a safe 

area. He had been exposed. He was coughing and choking a little bit. 

But the rest of the mine hadn't been accounted for yet. And we were 

slow to respond to this guy because he's in the refuge station. He's in

fresh air. He can do nothing but get better. And we were hesitant to 

send the team after him, when there could have been the possibility of 

somebody else in a greater danger than he was. And if the man would

have collapsed or went down, then, of course, it would have been a 

case to go down immediately. But it was well organized. And there

was a decision there that we were just hesitant to go after this guy

when we didn't know where everybody else was. I think that's when, 

again, repeating what we said earlier, one of the rules that we have. 

The first and foremost is, "Where are the men?" Nobody moves until 

we find out where the men are. If there's somebody missing, then

we're going to go after them. The incident that I've already mentioned, 

that Frug fire, that was a situation where the fire in the early stage of

the fire and the communications went out. So we couldn't contact 

anybody, and there were 40 men that you couldn't contact. And you

could call my corner "Panic City," because there were three teams

going underground. There were three approaches to that area, and 

there was a team going down each approach to get to that area. We 

had to find where those 40 men were. The fire was the least of our 

concern at this stage of the game, "Where are those men?" Then when 

we went down and found that it was just a lack of communications, 

and the men were safe in their [refuge] station—fine. Now, we'll go

fight the fire, and we're very proud of our organization. There is the

51
decisions that have to be made, but they're usually made quick—

usually. 

SPEAKER: Well, when you get there, usually you're covered up with

spectators. And then, soon after that, you're covered up with the news 

media, and those people have to be controlled, and you have to set up 

to deal with the—to deal with those people, and also, the people that 

are underground. 

I guess the first; it's kind of a confusion, and then after you get 

there and get things settled, then it settles down. But there's a time 

when it would be in any emergency, because you got to get people 

there. 

Another way of stating the notions advanced above is to point out that a

scene may be a "buzzing confusion" to a new arrival, but make perfect sense

to someone who has been there for several hours. 

The veterans were asked the following questions about the criticality of

information: "Throughout a response, what information is needed? What kind

of technical support is important to gather this information? Who provides 

this support?" A selection of their answers follows. 

SPEAKER: It's all in the control center. One, we've had separate

lines. Phones that are not even connected with other lines. It's just on

the one-to-one basis pager phone. And everything is given either by

communication, or the log is given in writing, also. Copies are issued

out. So we keep people informed what's happening. And also, even 

then during that situation, to inform the employees where they're going 

on to that are not involved in the emergency. So they made them feel

more comfortable, especially if it's people that they work with that are 

still underground. There's a way of informing the people in the family,

et cetera. 

It's a guess to get material needed, you know. Trying to, what all 

the situation brings in safety, where you'd be. Have to call to get the 

situation. It's not here in town. You got to call out of town, so you got

to try to get it here the fastest way the, air, et cetera. So, that is a little 

bit frustration of waiting. But that's the situation here, you know. 

SPEAKER: I'll explain it, and it takes some explanation. It happened 

right at the beginning of a mine fire. The people that were at the mine

fire, that were fighting it, had all their energies focused on putting the 

fire out. You had people in the command center that were able to 

analyze all this other information. Fan samples, analysis of air, all the

other things that were taking place around putting a hose on the fire.

And these outside people, the command center people, knew from this 

52
other information, that an unsafe condition was being created. So they

ordered this group to come out of the mine. Well, the group did not 

want to come out. They almost flatly refused to leave, 'cause they said 

if we leave, we've lost our jobs; they close the mine. Well, it wasn't the 

mine rescue team, it was just a group of miners and foremen whose 

livelihoods were dependent, directly dependent. They weren't 

concerned with life or death, they were concerned with livelihoods of 

their families and stuff. The decision to evacuate was made by a senior 

MSHA person. I saw him put a halt, and just stop, like mid-sentence. 

And he covered the phone up and he turned around to the senior 

company official, and he said, "I'm telling you, those people are 

potentially going to get killed." Now, and he explained the situation to

them, and then this senior official, who these men trusted, got on the

phone and said, "It's not worth it. Come out." And they came out. 

I watched that event and I greatly admired [the MSHA official],

because he had the forethought to know that those people down there 

didn't trust his decision-making. What he had to do was put someone 

in communication with them that they trusted. And [he] didn't have a 

lot of time to waste, and that's what makes things successful. And 

that's why somewhere in this whole process you have to build this trust 

'cause you don't have a lot of time to have a vote about it. 

SPEAKER: I'll give you my procedure and what I teach the other

representatives to do when they get there. Report to the health and 

safety committee chairman—the chairman of the health and safety

committee, which is a local union officer. Then, immediately report to 

the command center to let them know that you're there, and get a 

briefing on the map, what you've got, because basically, the senior 

person there from the union is automatically in charge where you 

assume it or not. I mean, it's life, so I teach them to get a briefing from 

the union people. [Then], go to the company and get a briefing, and go

to the command center and have somebody, either in the command 

center or off to the side, normally off to the side if you can work it out, 

to explain to you what you've got. And my procedure is that, when

I get there, I try to avoid making any decisions or taking charge of our 

end of the operation for an hour or two until I can get the feel and 

know what everybody else is doing, then roll from there. 'Cause you

go in there and try to initiate your own ideas, you don't know what's 

just happened, and so forth. It confuses everybody. That way you're

not trying to find out what's happening and make decisions at the same

time. So I usually try to take at least a couple hours before I tell the 

company, "Hey, from now` on, I'm in charge." You know, "If you 

want something out of the union, come to me." And up to that point,

53
while I let the safety committee, or whoever's doing that there, I still let 

them do that, and I'll say, "I'm here to guide you." 

Typically, I ask them what's going on, the status of the miners, if 

anybody's trapped or whatever, is anybody missing. And then I'll ask

if they got a map. Never enough maps—first thing. You're always

that first time is hunting for maps, and that's the most essential thing 

that you need on the spot, and then everything depends on 

circumstances from there. Once you get the map, you can look and see

how the mines are laid out, how it's been ventilated, all that stuff. And

then from that point, my next move is to find out what my air readings

are. I want to know what my methane and everything's at. And then 

from there, you want to find out carbon monoxide. Then from there, 

it's just a big puzzle. You got to start putting it together—conditions,

coal height, you know. Are you dealing in crawling coal, walking 

coal, wet conditions, dry conditions? That's a big part of it. 

As the above accounts suggest, there are a lot of simultaneous tasks 

conducted at an emergency event. The better these tasks (and their timing) are 

understood, the better equipped people will be to engage in an effective 

response. 

There is, unfortunately, limited theoretical or empirically derived 

knowledge about how people actually carry out their activities in reference to 

the elements prevalent at emergency worksites. Yet, a breakdown in any of

the elements of an event can result in worker injury, stress, or other health 

problems. Thus, practitioners wishing to develop safety and health 

interventions find a limited stock of useful information to draw upon. This is 

linked partially to a paradigmatic gap that has led researchers to ignore the fact 

that a response scene is really an organized, though short-lived workplace. An

emergency workday passes within an organizational structure that is transitory 

in nature because of the dynamic, evolving quality of an event. As a result, 

studies of completed emergency responses often fail to perceive patterns in the

behavior and practices that occur in the course of an emergency workday. If 

work behaviors and practices are examined holistically, however, examples of

continuity can be found. Thus, the key to effective interventions may be 

revealed in the individual experiences of emergency response participants, as

well as in their shared nonmaterial culture. 

References

Mitchell D [1990]. Mine fires: prevention, detection, fighting. Chicago, IL: Maclean 

Hunter Publishing Co., p. 1. 

Salas E, Driskell JE, Hughes S [1996]. Introduction: The study of stress and human 

performance. In: Driskell JE, Salas E, eds. Stress and human performance. Mahwah, NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 6.

54
CHAPTER 5.—SHARING LESSONS LEARNED 

During the interviews, the emergency response experts were asked to 

discuss lessons they had learned through experience. The interviewers asked 

them to tell what they had learned that would cause them to handle similar 

situations differently and to tell about things they saw at past events that they

would warn others not to do in the future. In response, as the previous 

chapters show, the experts discussed a variety of things. Most of their 

responses, however, touched on some of the same topics, including 

preparedness, experience, people on-site, mine rescue teams, and decisionmaking. A summary of their responses provides an overview of the lessons 

learned on-site at the largest mine disasters in the country. 

Issue

No. of 

interviewees 

Preparedness ................ 9

Experience..................... 5

People on-site................ 4

Mine rescue teams ........ 4

Decision-making ............ 3

Preparedness 

Issues of preparedness were discussed in chapter 2, but will be revisited

here briefly. Almost one-third of the interviewees suggested that future

responders would be better able to handle emergencies if appropriate

preparations have been made at the mine site. These experts argued that 

preparation begins with a viable plan that is practiced repeatedly. 

There are two types of resources covered in a workable plan, each of 

which may have more than one element. First is personnel. The interviews 

pointed out a need for top-to-bottom staffing1

 with, secondarily, role 

definitions for those occupying the various positions: "Everybody should have

a clear-cut understanding of what their responsibilities are, what their role is,

and where they fit into the emergency structure." A number of veterans also

recognized the advisability of setting up work schedules in order to keep

workers reasonably well rested. A second type of resource is material. Time

spent making sure needed supplies are available is time saved during an 

emergency: "'Hey, I'm at the mine. You guys are on standby. Get this stuff 

ready. We may need it.' It doesn't necessarily have to come to the property, 

unless there's a good chance you're going to use it, but at least have it ready." 

 1As much attention should be paid to providing for clerical support, for instance, as to 

providing for emergency managers. 

55
Experience 

All of the experts provided glimpses of what it was like to be on-site 

during responses to major mine emergencies. When asked what they had 

learned that should be passed on to future generations, five of them discussed 

how experience influences the effectiveness of responders. One veteran used

the example of an emergency operation with which he had been involved early

in his career. He concluded that what had taken him 30 hours to complete 

then would require only half the time now because of his experience. The five

individuals also suggested ways to make the most of the learning opportunities 

that responses create. They talked about the hands-on learning that occurs

during a response, about the value of reviewing events and sharing what can 

be learned from them, and about simulating emergency conditions to give

trainees a preview of what they may encounter. 

The five veterans recounted that most of their training occurred during

responses. One individual discussed how learning can take place under these 

circumstances. He was not a decision-maker in his first few responses. 

Instead, he talked with the experienced person who was in charge. This 

experienced responder explained not only what should be done, but also the

technical information that supported each decision. The novice workers asked 

questions throughout the response and gained invaluable knowledge from the 

seasoned "teacher." The interviewee believed that some aspects of mine

emergency response have to be learned on-site through experience. He further

pointed out that while presence during responses provides opportunities for 

learning, it is up to the individuals involved to ensure that teaching and

learning take place. 

Those who stressed experience during their interviews also thought that

learning could and should take place through the review of events. One 

respondent related a story about reviewing an event to determine causation. 

He explained how pieces of the puzzle didn't fit together until well after the 

event when all testimonies had been reviewed and a report was being written. 

When this collected information was put together, an analysis became possible

and recommendations could be developed to prevent a similar situation from

occurring in the future. The significance of summary reports, or formalized 

hindsight, was also mentioned in terms of the importance of sharing these 

documents with others in the industry: "What we do is, we send [our 

association] a report, which they can take then and pass it on to other areas.

Where, by our misfortune, they can learn by it, too." 

It was also suggested that experience can be gained through simulated 

emergencies. One expert argued that there should be available facilities in

which mock emergencies can be staged, exposing trainees to something like a 

real event. Fire training would include responses to burns in controlled

environments, for example. "You learn from your mistakes. Give them

opportunities to make the mistakes where no one is going to get hurt. And 

56
then we'll have people [who've been trained], and this is what we need because 

this is not something you learn in books." 

People On-Site 

Lessons that had been learned regarding who should and should not be

allowed on mine property during a response were passed on by four of the

experts. They expressed concern about people who were not taking active

roles in a response, but who added complexity to the situation by interfering

and/or simply contributing to overcrowding by their presence. These four 

individuals also addressed the special needs of victims' family members. 

Control of site access had been discussed in another portion of the

interview, but the experts believed that this issue was important enough that

future responders should learn from their experiences.

SPEAKER: [There] were situations where people had, I guess,

influence with the company that got into the area that wasn't really 

needed. I think that there should be a very strict policy on the number 

of people that come in. And I don't think that any of them that I know 

about really adhered to that policy rigidly enough. I think maybe that 

in all cases there'd been some people in the area that shouldn't have 

been there. 

The concern of extra people hampering response efforts is one 

consideration. A related (and equally important) issue is the safety of these 

bystanders. 

SPEAKER: [M]aybe [when] there'd been a rock fall, there's a little too 

much chance taken around that rock fall. With too many people when 

you ought to have a little bit less number of people in the area trying to 

get the person cleared of the rock. I don't think you need 8 or 

10 people around trying to clear the rock, when they were in each

other's way. And if there's another fall, you just have that many more 

people killed. 

Generally, it was agreed there should be as many people as needed to 

conduct an efficient and effective response on the mine site and no more. It 

was mentioned, however, that special provisions should be made for the 

family members of missing miners. 

SPEAKER: [With my experience] I would [now] know that family

members are going to be there, and they are going to be very, very

apprehensive. Someone with compassion needs to pay a lot of 

attention to family members and be able to brief them and to make sure 

57
that their pastors, their religious leaders, whoever they may be, [are] 

aware of the situation and invite them to come and be with the family

members. 

One expert agreed with the need to be as supportive as possible with

family members, but warned that it should be clearly established who is and is 

not considered "family." He noted that in one case, family friends who were 

allowed to accompany the family abused their access to mine property in an

attempt to gain more information about the victims. It is not surprising that 

these friends were interested in obtaining as much information as possible, but 

their activities hampered the efforts of responders. None of the veterans 

described this type of problem with actual relatives of victims, and all believed 

that they should be given every consideration possible. 

Mine Rescue Teams 

Four experts had opinions about mine rescue teams that they believed 

should be communicated to future responders. One issue was the problem of 

response times. Because team members may be away from the mine when an 

event occurs or may be called to a mine other than the one where they work,

time is required to assemble a team. One suggestion for dealing with this 

delay is to use a mixed team: "You [aren't] going to call 14 men and 14 of 

them be at home. If I didn't get as many men from one team as I wanted to, 

I took one or two from the other team." This person warned that, although

response time is important, team members (and other responders) should not

endanger themselves by driving to the response in an unsafe manner. "There's 

no need to cause some more injury to yourself or someone else just to get there 

2 seconds or 2 minutes earlier." 

Another important issue relating to mine rescue teams is communication 

between a team and the command center. It was argued that teams sometimes

do not follow directions of the command center and that they sometimes do 

not report back appropriately. 

SPEAKER: If you let [the teams] go and not know what they're doing,

or for them to just call back what they want to tell you, how are you

going to make a decision on the surface? You'll make the wrong 

decision probably three-fourths of the time because you don't know the 

information. And if they don't tell you, there's no way to know. 

According to the interviewees, mine rescue teams should be the eyes and 

hands of their command center, but this has not always happened during

responses. As stated above, roles and responsibilities must be clarified for 

everyone involved in the response before an event occurs. 

58
Decision-Making 

One set of questions on the interview guide covered the area of decisionmaking. Three of the interviewees believed some aspect of this issue should 

also be brought up when speaking of lessons they would like to pass on. In all

three cases, the focus was on interactions between responsible individuals in 

the command center. It was pointed out that interplay between multiple 

people is helpful: "It's best to have somebody that you can talk to because no 

one person [can always know the best thing to do]. They just don't make them

that smart." 

On the other hand, conflict between individuals in the command center 

can be a problem. One person related the story of a "skirmish" that occurred

between representatives of regulatory agencies during a response. Another

pointed out that, as stated above with regard to planning, command center 

personnel must know their roles: "I have no problem with the four agencies 

(company, Federal, State, and union), as long as they understand that it's the 

responsibility of the company to call the shots." This individual stated that the 

government agencies and the union should provide personnel to assist the 

company if it needs help and to discuss any decision that may create a hazard.

He further reflected that when "a person at a coal company has the knowledge 

of rescue and recovery work, it makes the job easier, and I think you get along 

better. Where a person does not have the knowledge, you'll have to question 

him more: 'Why are you doing this?' And the plans generally change [as a 

result of your questions]." A decision-maker whose plans are questioned may

want to remember this advice from one of the interviewees: "Quick decisions

is often bad. Try to count to 10 anyhow before you make a decision. And a 

wise man changes his mind, and a fool never does." 

Training Issues 

This section reports the responses given by these experts when asked how

they think people who may have to respond to a future mine emergency should 

be trained. The interviewees discussed how training should be conducted, 

who should be trained, and what topics should be included. 

The emergency response veterans who mentioned specific methods they 

think should be used for training future responders discussed three types of 

training: mine emergency response development (MERD) exercises, mock 

disasters, and tabletop simulations. Nine of the veterans said that some form

of interactive simulated emergency response training would be the most 

beneficial. Several other ideas were also discussed. 

Three of the experts believed that MERD exercises should be used to train

responders. Historically, MERDs have been fashioned to be approximately

day-long role-play events designed to present a realistic mine emergency

59
scenario in the classroom to personnel who may be responding to an event. 

The overall goal of these exercises is to teach participants how to respond to a 

mine emergency in a correct, timely, well-organized manner that ensures the

safety of all individuals involved in the emergency. At least one expert

believed that every mine, regardless of its size, should conduct a MERD 

exercise. 

SPEAKER: I think we should require each mine, to have them put on 

their own MERD program. I think we could do it right at the mines. 

You know, we go to [classroom settings] and we set up mine offices,

and mine foreman's office and stuff. Out there at the mines, it's the real

thing. I think it would be more real and get more people involved.

Another form of enhanced mine emergency response training is the mock

mine disaster. Like MERDs, mock disasters are role-play exercises designed

to present a realistic mine emergency scenario. The major differences are that

mock disasters make use of actual mine facilities and involve mine personnel

who play their traditional roles at the operation. Three emergency response 

experts believed that conducting periodic mock disasters at mines would be an

ideal way to train personnel. One veteran expressed his views on using mock

disasters as training and assessment tools. 

SPEAKER: To me, training is number one. Continue training the 

people. Renew them again by having mock disasters. Bring in

[consultants] that can actually just sit down and watch, and then come

up with recommendations of what they've noticed during the 

emergency, what was supposed to have been done and was not done, 

where's our downfall, et cetera. 

In addition to the role-play simulations discussed above, three response 

experts suggested that paper-and-pencil simulations of actual mine 

emergencies would be useful as training aids. Interviewees suggested that 

these simulations could be done in a classroom or in the offices at a mine site

and used to train both command center personnel as well as other individuals

who might be involved in the response. One expert described the success of 

using such simulations of actual mine emergencies to train personnel at his

company.

SPEAKER: All the little things that seem to be taken for granted, you 

run (personnel) through a couple of exercises and you suddenly find 

out, "Hey, I never thought of that." And [the exercise] brings all these 

little things to the front. 

60
Continuing in his discussion about training with tabletop simulations based on 

actual mine emergencies that have occurred, this veteran said: 

SPEAKER: First, it was just hypothetical situations. And they didn't 

seem to prove too much 'cause they were too hypothetical, "Maybe 

this, maybe that." So then we just decided to take incidents—actual

incidents that occurred and relive them. And it really brings things out, 

you know. "Are you prepared for this? Are you prepared for that?" 

When you speak of an actual situation in front of these guys, and they 

start to solve problems, then you can see—you see the panic starting to 

climb. You've got these men missing, and whatever you're doing is 

going wrong. You want to do this to ventilation, and the answer is, 

"No, that won't work, because the ventilation door is burnt up. You

can't shut that door." "Oh, what are we going to do now? I can't shut 

the door." So it really proved it's working. 

Finally, three response experts suggested a like number of alternative

methods for training. One veteran responder proposed that operators have 

mine emergency response veterans come to the mine and make presentations

on their past experiences, especially regarding critical phases of events. He 

suggested that mine operators could videotape the presentations and then show

them to personnel who would be responding to emergencies. A second expert 

believed that training for future responders should begin early in their career, 

preferably at the college level, when students are receiving their formal

training in mining engineering. 

SPEAKER: I strongly believe that's where it's [emergency response 

training] got to start is at the university, where you've got graduate

students that are taking the mining engineering discipline. That 

[should be] a credited part of their required diploma, [where] they have 

to take emergency management training as part of that, so that when 

these engineers or whatever get into the workforce, they end up being 

mine superintendents, they've got that background. 

A third response veteran suggested that a text-based document, providing 

recommendations for handling emergencies, be compiled and distributed to

mine operators. This veteran believed that such a manuscript might be 

developed as a "how-to" manual and taken to the finest detail to ensure that all

possible elements are covered. He believed that a document like this would be 

helpful, especially if written for use by any size or type of mine. 

In sharing their thoughts on training future mine emergency responders, 

veterans mentioned specific groups of individuals they believed should be 

thoroughly trained in mine emergency response procedures. Their target

61
audience included mine management, top (corporate) management, and

regulatory personnel. 

It is clear from their responses that veterans believe that both mine and 

corporate managers would benefit from training in mine emergency response.

A 40-year veteran shared his thoughts on training mine management. 

SPEAKER: I would take the person that is responsible at the mine, 

and the mine foreman on each shift, and [they] would have mine

emergency training continuously. I don't mean a shot of 7 hours, and 

that's it. I would [also] test [them] periodically. 

In terms of training for corporate officials, another veteran responder said: 

SPEAKER: You ought to have a situation where you have primarily 

the top officers of the company involved, with regard to mine

emergencies. Because when the emergency does happen, then they are

the people that do get into that. I think they ought to be prepared more. 

And some of them that you have, probably never been involved in

anything. 

At least five veterans believe that both State and Federal regulatory 

personnel should be thoroughly trained in mine emergency response. One of 

these experts believed that not enough emergency response training is 

provided to mine inspectors. 

SPEAKER: We go to the academy

2

 and we take too many senior 

people, and I think it needs to filter down to the individual inspector,

'cause any mine fire, that individual inspector is the person that's going

to have to go out and really deal with [the emergency] in the initial

quick stages of it. 

Why is the issue of training mine emergency responders so important?

The answer to this question can be found in one veteran's comment: 

SPEAKER: A lot of people's come and gone since 1969. And we're 

having less problems. So, in the next 10 to 15 years, there's just going 

to be a handful of people that's had any experience. 

In short, fewer major mine emergencies are occurring. As seasoned

emergency response personnel depart from the mining industry, there will be

fewer individuals in the future who have first-hand experience in mine 

emergency response. If the suggestions made by mine emergency veterans for 

2

MSHA National Mine Health and Safety Academy.

62
training future responders are followed, the industry will be better prepared to

handle emergencies that arise. 

It is well known that some level of mine emergency response training is 

required by Federal and most State mine safety regulations. This mandated

training is generally for front-line workers who often will be the first

individuals to confront a mine emergency. Underground miners, for example, 

must receive training in escape procedures, first aid, and the use of emergency 

breathing apparatus and available fire-fighting equipment. Where mine 

operators have rescue teams, Federal and some State regulations define

minimum training requirements for these teams. However, no regulations are 

known to exist that require comprehensive training for responding to and

managing mine emergencies. Because there are no regulations in this area, the

experts were asked what they believed decision-makers need to know to 

effectively manage a mine emergency. They identified five major subject

areas: emergency response planning, mine ventilation, mine gas analysis, firefighting, and mine rescue. 

Nine individuals suggested that responders be educated in overall 

emergency response planning. These experts believed this topic area should 

include training in the development of an emergency response plan followed

by training of personnel in the implementation of the plan. Stressing the

importance of training in mine emergency response planning, one veteran

remarked: 

SPEAKER: They [mine management] should understand the 

requirement for preplanning. And they planned production ahead of 

time. They should plan for an emergency ahead of time. Because if 

that emergency occurs, all the planning in the world for your

production, it doesn't mean anything. If you don't plan for the 

emergency, and the emergency occurs, you are not going to be able to

handle it. 

In another section of the interviews, experts were asked about issues that 

should be passed on to future responders. It is interesting to note that mine 

emergency veterans stressed the significance of preparedness with respect to

(1) having a well-designed emergency response plan and (2) practicing for 

emergencies during that discussion as well. 

Seven response experts stressed that responders should be given extensive 

training in mine ventilation, and five suggested training in mine gases. Many 

of these 12 individuals believed that most responders do not fully understand 

ventilation systems and mine gases well enough to make good decisions about

how to proceed. 

SPEAKER: I think one of the most critical things that you encounter 

when you get to a mine is the ventilation system. You know what, 

63
what has happened to the ventilation system, and what you need to do 

to restore the ventilation and, unfortunately, too many of us just don't

know that much about ventilation, and I think that's one of the critical 

areas, whether it be an explosion, or a mine fire, or either one. That's

one of the most critical areas to me, and we aren't that proficient in 

mine ventilation. 

Another expert stressed the importance of emergency response personnel 

being well versed in ventilation. 

SPEAKER: You've got to take care of your ventilation. If you're 

putting a lot of air in the mines and it's going over a fire, you're not

doing anything. You'll never get it out. You may stop it [air] over 

here, but you may build up gas or make it a more dangerous situation 

over [there].

Finally, one veteran emphasized how knowledge of mine ventilation and mine

gases can enhance the decision-making process. 

SPEAKER: Training them, where we have people who can look at a 

mine map, understand ventilation, understand how air [behaves], [and]

what the involvement of ventilation with the incident is, who 

understands what mine gases mean, who will be able to put things 

together and to make decisions that might alleviate this situation. 

Veterans generally believed that future responders, especially the 

decision-makers in the command center, should be trained in, or at least have a 

strong understanding of, fire-fighting and/or mine rescue procedures. As 

suggested by several experts, all too often responders do not know how to

properly attack a mine fire. Delay in figuring out how to handle a mine fire 

can result in the loss of valuable time and potentially the loss of the mine. 

SPEAKER: Fire-fighting—how to fight a fire. A lot of people don't 

know how to fight the fire, particularly with the air, fighting a fire

direct, and getting to it right away. You just can't stand around and 

wait till we call somebody to say, "We got a fire. What do you want us 

to do?" You got to get in and fight the damn thing. And you can't

wait. Once you wait, particularly in the Pittsburgh Seam, you're a dead 

man. You're not going to have a mine. 

Similarly, some response experts believe that decision-makers should be 

familiar with mine rescue procedures. As one veteran suggested, training of

higher-level decision-makers in mine rescue procedures is important. 

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SPEAKER: I don't think that the operating supervision from the, shall 

we say, the nonproduction departments are aware of what the mine 

rescue personnel have to do and what types of situations that they get 

into. I think if they had a session on mine rescue [for the] department

heads so [they] can have a better understanding of the terminology and 

the equipment that was being used, why it was being used, [and] how 

long it could be used. 

Especially with emergencies at larger operations, individuals from 

regional company offices are often called in to help manage the event. 

Knowledge of mine rescue procedures can enhance the decision-making

process. 

65
CHAPTER 6.—SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

This study has highlighted the major aspects of mine emergency response 

through the use of narrative accounts obtained from response veterans. These 

veteran responders were viewed as key people who had left, or were leaving, 

the mining industry. The methodology used in the interviews was to ask each 

person to explain how he came to be involved in response activities and then 

to center his stories upon specific moments in the progression of an 

underground mine emergency. As a result, each account followed certain 

themes that could be compared across situations: how I became involved in 

mine rescue, my first emergency response, what it's like to arrive at a disaster

scene, my hardest decision, etc. It was found that much of the responder's 

cognitive efforts were spent in making sense out of the situation in which he

found himself, whether it was his initial attraction to emergency work or his 

specific activities during an actual response. 

The interviewees were also asked to discuss lessons they had learned 

through experience. The interviewers asked them to tell what they had learned 

that would cause them to handle similar situations differently and to tell about 

things they saw at past events that they would warn others not to do in the 

future. In response, the experts discussed a variety of things, but touched on

some common topics, including preparedness, experience, people on-site, 

mine rescue teams, and decision-making. 

When experts were asked how they would train future mine emergency 

responders, they answered in terms of how training should be conducted and 

who should be trained. Many believed that some form of interactive, 

simulated response training is the best method. Three types of simulation

were discussed: mock disasters, MERD exercises, and tabletop simulations. 

Three major topics that should be included in training for emergency response

decision-makers were identified by experts: future responders should be 

trained in mine emergency response planning and in the testing and revising of

plans; future responders should be trained in mine ventilation and mine gases; 

and future responders should be trained in mine fire-fighting and mine rescue. 

Overall, devoting resources to training for a potential emergency was 

encouraged by all of these experienced responders. 

Why has mine response veterans' knowledge been gathered and analyzed 

so that it can be provided to the next generation of miners in a concise and

systematic manner? In short, fewer major mine emergencies are occurring. 

As seasoned emergency response personnel depart from the mining industry,

there will be fewer individuals in the future who have first-hand experience in 

mine emergency response. Potential responders' experience will be obtained

vicariously or not at all. If the wisdom of mine emergency veterans can be 

passed on and if their suggestions for training future responders are followed, 

the industry will be better prepared to handle the infrequent, but inevitable 

emergencies that arise. 

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APPENDIX A.—SURFACE ORGANIZATION 

OF UNDERGROUND MINE EMERGENCIES: 

INTERVIEW GUIDE 

A. When I start the tape, I will ask you about your involvement with mine 

emergency response: when and why you became involved and things that 

stand out in your mind as you think back over your experiences. 

Do you have any questions before we start? 

[Tape on.]

1. Do you remember the first time that you witnessed an emergency situation 

at a mine? Can you tell me about it? Why were you there? What was your

job at the time? Were you involved in the response? 

2. Can you tell me about a response that you participated in that went

particularly well? Why do you think that was so successful? 

3. Can you tell me about a response that did not go so well? Why do you 

think those problems existed? How could it have been handled differently that

may have been more successful? Why was that not done?

4. Was there anything that happened to you or that you saw during a 

response that you were not prepared for? What could someone do to prepare 

for that kind of situation? 

5. What was the hardest situation that you found yourself in (or decision you 

had to make) during your work with mine emergency response? 

[Tape Off.] 

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B. The next set of questions is about the decisions that are made during

emergency responses. 

Do you have any questions? Are you ready to continue? 

[Tape on.]

6. Are there certain critical points common to many mine responses, times

when certain actions should be done or decisions made? 

What are the most important decisions that have to be made?

7. How are decisions usually made during an emergency response? Who

makes these decisions? How many people (groups) are involved?

8. Can you give me an example of a response when the decision-making

process worked well? What made the process work?

9. Do you remember any specific times that there were problems with

decision-making during a response? What caused those problems? How did 

that affect the response? How could the situation have been handled

differently? 

10. Were you ever involved in a response when there was disagreement about

what should be done? If yes, how was that dispute settled? 

11. Was there a formal (written) response plan or procedure at any of the 

responses you attended? If yes, was it referred to during the response? Was

the response different from responses that did not have formal plans? How?

12. Were you ever involved in a response where a consultant was on-site? 

Does that affect the decision-making? The relationships among the groups? 

[Tape off.] 

68
C. During the next section of the interview, I will ask for details about 

specific aspects of emergency responses. Whenever you can, please answer

with examples from your experience. 

Do you have any questions? Are you ready to continue? 

[Tape on.]

13. How long after the discovery of a problem at a mine site were you usually

contacted? Who contacted you?

14. How long after you were contacted did you usually arrive on the scene? 

15. Can you tell me what it is like to arrive at a mine site during an 

emergency? What is happening? 

16. Who is on-site during a mine emergency? Who should be? What groups

are represented on-site? What is the role of each group? Do these roles ever

change? When and why? 

17. When you arrived at a mine site, did someone bring you up-to-date on

what had already happened? If yes, who usually did that? What information 

is usually available at that point? Was information needed that was often not 

available?

18. Throughout a response, what information is needed? What kind of

technical support is important to gather this information? Who provides this

support?

19. Can you think of any situations when not having certain information

caused problems? Can you think of a specific instance when having key 

information made an important difference? 

20. How can availability of resources (equipment, supplies, people) affect a 

response? Can you tell me about a situation where needed resources were not 

on-site? How was that handled? 

21. Since a number of responders can be involved for a fairly long period of 

time, how are the needs of those people taken care of? Can you give me an

example of a time when those facilities were not adequate and one when this 

aspect of the response was handled well? 

22. How important is a system for site security? Can you tell me of a time 

that site security affected a response? 

69
23. How do media representatives at the scene affect the response? What are

interactions with them like? When and how is information given to them? 

24. Were you ever at a response when there were missing miners

underground? How did that affect the response and the decisions that were 

made? Would things have been done differently if the miners were all 

accounted for? 

25. How does the presence of family members or friends of missing miners

affect the response? What are relations with these individuals like? How and 

when is information given to them? 

26. Did you ever go underground during an emergency response? Why/why 

not? 

27. How long did you usually stay on-site? 

[Tape off.] 

70
D. During this last set of questions, I would like you to think about all of your

emergency response experience. I will be asking you about preparing future 

responders. 

[Tape on.]

28. From your emergency response experience, can you tell me anything that 

you learned that would cause you to handle similar situations differently if you 

were involved in them in the future? 

29. Can you think of anything that you saw done during a response that you 

would warn others not to do in the future? What and why? 

30. Looking back over your career, were any important changes made in the

way that mine emergencies were handled? 

31. If you had all of the authority and resources you needed, how would you

go about preparing members of the mining industry to manage mine 

emergency responses?

What would you recommend that is more practical/realistic? 

32. What topics do you think should be covered in training for emergency 

response decision-makers?

33. Is there anything about emergency response that you would like to add? 

Those are all the questions that I have. Thank you. 

[Tape off.] 

71
APPENDIX B.—GLOSSARY OF TERMS 

Bleeder entries.—Panel entries driven on the perimeter of a block of coal 

that is being mined, and maintained as exhaust airways to remove methane

from the working faces. 

Bottom.—The floor in any underground mining cavity. 

Brattice.—A temporary partition, usually covered with fire-resistant cloth, 

used in any mine passage to confine the air and force it into the working 

places. 

Colliery.—Coal mine. 

Command center.—A work area established in a mine office or other 

outside facility for the use of those directing an emergency response. 

Crosscut.—A passage cut through a coal pillar to allow the ventilating 

current and mining equipment to pass from one entry to another. 

Curtain.—A sheet of material used to direct air to the working faces. 

District.—An administrative unit of the Mine Safety and Health 

Administration (MSHA). 

Entry.—A coal heading or passageway about 20 feet wide and connected 

at intervals by crosscuts. 

Fresh air base.—An underground station, located in the intake airway,

which is used by rescue teams during underground rescue and recovery

operations. 

Gob.—An area of loose waste left in that part of the mine from which coal 

has been worked away. 

Inby.—In a direction toward the working face, or interior of the mine,

from any specific point indicated as the base or starting point. The opposite of 

outby. 

Outby.—In a direction toward the surface from any specific point in the

mine indicated as the base or starting point. The opposite of inby. 

Panel.—A group of working places, usually operated as a unit, and 

separated from other working places by large pillars of coal. 

Recovery.—The restoration of a mine or part of a mine that has been

damaged by explosion, fire, water, or other cause to a working condition. 

Rescue team.—A team of miners, from five to eight strong, trained in the 

use of breathing apparatus and in rescue and recovery operations. 

Rib.—The side of a coal pillar or the wall of an entry.

Roof.—The rock, usually a shale, found immediately above a coal seam. 

Seal.—To secure a mine opening against flowing or escaping gas, air, or 

liquids by injecting grout or building concrete barriers. 

Shaft.—A vertical passage driven from the surface down through the strata 

to provide access to the mine workings. 

Silo.—A tall tower, usually cylindrical and of reinforced concrete 

construction, in which bulk material is stored. 

72
Slope.—An inclined passage driven from the surface down through the 

strata to provide access to the mine workings. 

Stopping.—A wall, usually of concrete blocks and mortar, used to close 

off no longer needed crosscuts to prevent the air from short-circuiting and thus

maintaining ventilation to the working faces. 

Subdistrict.—An administrative unit within a Mine Safety and Health

Administration district. 

Ventilation arrangement.—The planned placement of a system of 

appliances, such as stoppings and curtains, needed to distribute air to a given 

location in the mine. 

Working face.—The place at which work is being done in a heading or

crosscut. 

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