The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-31
SEVEN MEN SUFFOCATED
UNABLE TO ESCAPE FROM A BURN
ING PENNSYLVANIA NINE.
Narrow Escape of Nine Scranton
Firemen-Hay Wagon Upset and n
Party of Young People Injured.

SCRANTON. Pa, Oct. 30.--The most fatal
mine disaster in the Lackawanna or Wyo-
ming coal fields since the Twin shaft horror
at Pittston over year ago was developed
in the fire which gutted the river slope of
the Delaware & Hudson Companys Won
Storch mine in this city to-day. At least
Storch mine in this city to-day Six men
were suffocated by smoke. The dead are:
THOMAS HILL married forty-five years
of age boss.
JOHN FARRELL. widower, forty-five
years old, company man.
JOHN FRANCIS MORAN, twenty-one
MICHAEL WALSH, single, twenty-five
years old, laborer.
JOHN M'DONNELL, single, twenty-sev-
THOMAS PADDEN, single, twenty-fqur
years of age.
The slope extends down through three
veins. The missing men were at work in
the deck and surface veins, the former one
hundred and the latter sixty feet from the
surface. They. had but two avenues of es-
cape. The shorter route was by way of the
slope, which was a sea of flames for nearly
twelve hours and is yet burning near its
foot, and the other route was via cross
cuts to gangways which lead to an air shaft
nearly a mile from the spot where the men
were working. Fire kept them out of the
slope, and the smoke which backed out and
into all the workings prevented escape
through the crosscuts. The supposition is
that the men were suffocated.
Eighteen men, 1t is thought, were in the
mine when Pump Runner Simpkins de-
tected smoke in the slope and ran back in
the workings to give the alarm at 1:2O
O'Clock this morning. Only ten of this num-
ber are known to have been hoisted through
he oi,. oIaf
their efforts to fight the fire in the slope
were handicapped by several extensive falls
of roof, caused by the burning of the tim
bers and by the fear of forcing the air cur
rent downward instead of upward. When
the current was forced inward the flames
were quenched for a distance of six hundred
feet down the slope, but the smoke was
driven into all parts of the mine. The work.
ers were constantly threatened by falls of
the roof and the squeezing of the falls.
| 1t is thought the fire started from a min
er's lamp worn by one of a party of ten
miners who walked up the slope to the sur
face forty minutes before the smoke was
discovered. Chief Hickey, OF the Scranton
fire department, and eight firemen narrowly
escaped death in the slope to-day. They
were driving the smoke before them by the
use of water from big spray nozzle when
the air current was changed at the SHAFT
and the smoke enveloped the party They
groped their way two hundred feet to the
| opening and collapsed in the open air.
Later-Joseph Yomaski, one of the men
entombed in the mine. was rescued at 10
O'Clock tonight. The bodies of the other
men were afterwards found and brought To
the surface. The bodies of Fire Boss Hill
Padden, Farrell and Mcdonnell were found
huddled together about 500 feet from the
spot where YOmask had escaped. Hill
was in kneeiing position, his hands clasped
if in prayer. The bodies of Moran and
Walsh were found separately. The Pole in
an interview explained that when his COM
panions began to suffer the death agones
he at once urged them to follow him, but
they refused. He escaped to an old air
way where he knew of hand fan. over
which he placed a box, and in that he in
serted his head. He then kept the fan go
ing for ten hours and kept himself alive
until rescued. He did not appear to suffer
much from his Incarceration.