The Sentinel=record., 1915-04-04
COAL MINE RESCUE
 TYPE OF HEROISM
SAVING OF FORTY-SEVEN MINERS FROM LIVING TOMB PLANNED
 WITH GREAT PRECISION.
Stories Of Some Of the Men Who Were Taken Out Tell of the Ter. ribe Experiences Encountered.


 from terrible death of 4 miners en- tomber for four days and four nights in the eXplosionsw mine of the New Rtveg and Pocahontas Consofi. dated Coal Company. at Lay and. W. Va, recently by trained rescuers from the United States Bureau of Mines and other volunteers. discloses typr Of heroism that is not equaued anywhere in the annals of industrial history, a heroism of almost everyday sort in the isolated mining villages of the country. but hardly known to the outside world.
 The bravery Of men who go down to the sea in snips has been sung in pros and poetry since the world be- gan, probably because there is hardly a person who has not witnessed the cruelty of the sea at some time or other, but the mines are in out of the way places, in th7 rugged fasmesses of the country, and the men who per. form the heroic deeds work in the darkness of the underground where the eye of the average citizen has never penetrated
 It is of little wonder then that the news of an explosion in coal mine with a hundred or two hundred men hil,d carries but a tleeting interest to the reader and that he has forgot ten about if long before the walls of the widows and orphans cease to echo through the little mining village. But the million or more miners of the United States who follow this most hazardous of callinge are not entirely forgotten, for Uncle Sam. through the Federal Bureau of Mines. has at the miners disposal, when ever catastrophe occurs, highly or. gani2ed corps of trained rascuers who carry oxygen breathing apparatus which permits them to enter Q mine immediately after an explosion and to penetrate poisonous gases that would otherwise kin in tha twinking of an eye
 IL was on the morning of March :. that word was received by D. J. Par ker. engineer in charge of mine res cue car No. 8, at Glenalum, W Va, that an explosion had occurred in the mine of the New River and Poca- hontas Consolidated Coal Company Fifteen minutes later the Norfolk and Western railroad had stopped all trains between Glenalum and KenOva, distance of l0i miles, and had clear ed the track. A special engine was attached and the rescue car was ta- ken the entire distance to Kenova in three hours At that point the car was turned over the Chesapeake X Ohio, which had also prepared for a clear track. With the second largest engine in the world attached to tho rescue car, the l33 miles between k nova and Qunnimont nine miles from the scene of the disaster, was reached in three hours and sixteen minutes, which is said to be the rec. ord time on this mountain road.
 From there the rescue car was taken to Layland in short time and few minutes later the resCuers were on the ground ready for serious work.
 By the time the buraau's rescuers reached the scene, State Mine ln- spectOr Ear Henry and a number of his assistants were already there with the work of rescue started, the mine inspectors having general charge of the work Shortly after wards II miners from the mines of the United States Coal Company at Gary W. Va. who had previously been trained in rescue work by the Bureau of Mines men arrived and also James w. Paul of Pittsburg Pa. engineer in charge of all the rescue work of the Bureau of Mines. Paul at once organized the bureaus res cuers and the trained men from Gary w. Va., into three corps and offered the services of the men to Chiel State Mine Inspector Henry and tl the management of the mine. The efforts of the state inspectors ant the bureaus men were directed al once toward repairing the damage done by the explosion and thus restor ing the mine to normal conditions Brattices or doors which guide tho currents-of fresh air had been blowr down and these were reestabishet so that the fan might blow the DO; sonous gases from the mine.
 It was a definite, serious campaign with the rescuers. Restore the mint as you went along and you would bc in a position to rescue entomber men The old method of rushing madly into a gas-choked mine to be eith overcome by the deadly fumes o killed, had gone. The men in charge of the rescuers stood outside of tn, ming with q map of the interior 1T their hands and studied it intently They planned like the general staf