The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1911-03-09
INCONSISTENCIES OUT
TRAGEDY DETAILS

The inquest being held relative to
the disaster in the Belmont mine at
Tonopah. whereby IL miners lost their
lives. is not yet ended. The first two
DAVIS of the inquest were spent in
technically examining the sub-officials
of the Belmont company as to the mine
workings. the various exits, safety
and yentilating equipment, etc, and
also trying to fix responsibility for
sending SO many men into the mine
when It was afire. One day was spent
in examining the men who had gone
Underground to fight the fire, and while
some of the men were not clear as to
whose orders they obeyed in going in
TO the mine, the balance of the testi-
mony seemed to show that the men
were sent into the property rather
than going down as volunteers.
The survivors told a graphic story Of
their struggle for life in the smoke and
gas-filled workings of the mine, and
how, when they crowded onto the
cages to come to the surface men were
overcome by the smoke and gas, lost
their balance only to be ground to
pieces between the cage and the wall
plates Of the shaft.
JOiAi0 " u tVid VI ouVuI6 " hClD
and screams of despair coming from
comrades in various parts of the work
ings.
One of the men, John Pereti, told a
graphic story of his escape from the
1000 level after being nearly over
come by smoke. He had been with Mike
Hannigan, who lost his life. He tells
that the smoke was so dense that no
49, a4.11 go arl H. -a..I. l-1 l.
grope their way along. When he ar
rived at the 1O00-foot station on his
way out of the mine he found the up
per cage full and three men got into
the lower cage. AS the eage started
men were shouting and screaming for
it to be held until they could arrive,
and one man came charging through
he smoke, struck the station bars with
his head and fell. He was not seen
again.
When the cage was hauled to the
top of the shaft Pereti says he shouted
that men were dying on the 1000 and
100 levels, and for them to send the
cage back to those levels. He did not
know whether this was done or not.
He knew that there were quite a mum
Der of men on the 100 level.
1t developed that eager Allen had
been to a dance the night before the
fire, and had been asleep in the morn
ing, only waking up in time to go
down and bring up one Gag full of
men and to help the men off the last
cage that came up.
John Spencer, a miner who was in
jured, told of crawling to the cage and
finding it already filed with the pros
trate bodies of his compaions. He
crawled over them and secured a grip
on the truss piece of the cage, stand
ing on their bodies. When the cage
was nearly to the top there was a
crash and one of the men on whom he
was standing was dragged from the
cage and crushed against the shaft
plates. Two more were dragged off the
same way. The engineer dropped the
cage again and then started il up and
he was shaken from his hold and fell
to his hands and knees on the floor
of the cage. There were only Spencer
and another man on the cage when it
reached the top.
The testimony goes 10 show that
Frank Burke, n dead shift boss, had
telephoned from the lower workings to
send the men down, and that Superin-
tendent Fitzgerald accepted this de-
cision and then sent a large number Of
men below, assigning certain duties to
than Nauu