After reading all this I remembered one time when I was about 12 or 13 years old my cousin and I were in Bluestone State Park and we were hiking. Some of the trails there are really grown over, and it’s easy to get lost. We were walking the wrong way and on top of a ledge (the colored shapes on trees tell you which way you’re supposed to be going) and a bunch of dirt and rocks slipped out from under us and went tumbling about a hundred feet down the side of the mountain. If it had been one of us, we’d probably still been there. Neither of us are professional hikers or anything, and we were just kids and didn’t tell anybody where we were going (I doubt anybody cared), and we didn’t have any protection or tools. I realised we did everything wrong now.
Yeah, I can see both sides of the agrument. I heard on the news that he didn’t really tell anyone exactly where he was going, he almost did, but brushed it aside, taking the chance. It was only after he didn’t show up to work that people got wondering where he was at and a search began. Yes, it’s good to take precautions. But I don’t blame the guy for going out alone. Sometimes it’s just so nice to get out away from everyone. Course, I take my cell phone with me just in case. On the other hand, cell phones don’t work well in some places. Twenty-twenty hind sight in this case though. One may say he made an error, but who hasn’t? And the rock falling on him was just complete bad luck. I can only imagine how hard the choice at that point was. Stay put and hope by some chance someone finds you before you die… maybe they do, or maybe they find you only when it’s too late. Or… yuck… cut yourself loose while you still are concious have strengh left to do it. Cutting though your own bone with a pocket knife. shudder That’s gotta be real tough no matter what state of mind you are in. Guess it’s a good lesson to learn from, but of course, there is always that chance of something happening no matter how careful you are. It’s part of life. (Makes note to get a really nice, sharp pocket knife when getting camping/fishing gear this summer… not that I plan on getting stuck like that guy did, but knives come in handy for a variety of things other than cutting your own arm off.)
Cranberry, your story reminds me of a really dumb thing that happend to me and some friends of mine when we were teens. We went for a drive up a canyon to see a cave. Just because. We did let eveyone know where we were going, and we took water and stuff, but things happen. We climbed up the steep hill to check out the cave and had a picnic… the cave wasn’t very deep, no dark tunnels, just a cave. Well, the cave was no problem. The problem happend when my one friend decided to see if she could find a way to get above the cave, on top of the cliffy area. I am majorly acrophobic, climbing up the steep hill and looking down to see the road winding it’s way far below was bad enough for me at the time. But she insisted on going higher. Before I knew it she was gone, and after a few minutes I started thinking this was a really bad idea. It had started raining. I called out, but got no answer. Finally, my friend popped her head over the cliff above… with comments on the great view. It was raining more, so she said she was going to head back, turns to leave, just out of view comes a scream. We could talk to eachother at that distance. Apparently, she stepped into a hole that went into a bit of a cavern below. Stuck one leg though the rocky hole to the hip. So my other friend took off around the hill and up to go help our stuck friend. I stayed put and kept talking to my friend until the help arrived. A few minutes later it did and then they headed back down and around. It took longer for them to get back than it did for them to get there, so starting to wonder I headed down to the road and starting calling up the mountain looking for signs of them comming down. Just then they stumbled out from behind some trees. My one friend, while helping my hurt friend, twisted her ankle on the way down. Just great. :roll: So both of them were pretty bruised, one leg hurt and limping each… and they took to the back seat leaving me to drive as the car we were in was stick shift which ideally needed two working legs. I had never really driven stick shift, though I had I vague idea how. So off we went through the rain down the narrow winding road… it was a really, really bumpy ride home. Good thing it was mostly country road all the way, with few stops. Fortunatly, neither one of them broke anything, just ouchy bruises that started feeling better after a few days. Well, that was about as adventurous as we got when we were young. Yeah, my childhood was a bit on the dull side compared to some I suppose. 
Lessons learned? When you have no idea what you are doing don’t go climbing slippery rocky areas in the rain, don’t let your friend just take off into the unknown by themselves like that, and learn how to drive a stick shift. Mmmmm… I still never really learned how to drive stick shift…
Sara
I was rock climbing in Los Alamos once and lowered myself down to a ledge. Then I realized there was no way down (20 ft drop). The rock there is high in volcanic ash and is really crumbly. There were no foot or toe holds on either side, and I couldn’t get back up because the rock kept crumbling. 
Naturally, I’d told no one where I was going…
After a brief pause for pondering my options 
, I dropped my backpack down the 20 ft drop, breaking my aluminum canteen. I then took a small pocketknife and started scraping out hand & toe holds along one side. Crumbly was suddenly good! I finally made it to another ledge that had an exit, but I was pressed so close to the side that it must have been friction alone that kept me from falling.
I don’t do that any more…
I don’t like to recall the day that I found out how tough I am. It was years ago, before cell phones, when I got lost on the ninth floor of a large government office building. It was very scary and all the linoleum floors looked the same, making orientation nearly impossible, even for the skilled. The hallways were really long, and I didn’t pace myself well, because I quickly became exhausted. I had forgotten to tell my mother where I was going, and after wandering around, lost and aimless for over ten minutes, I panicked. I had no provisions except a hot pastrami-on-rye (pickle on the side) and a couple of cream sodas. It’s a lesson to all of us never to venture out unprepared. Nobody answered my desparate cries for help, and from what I could tell through the barred windows, the sun was beginning to set. Luckily I was picked up by cleaning staff a couple of hours later. I found out then that I had systematically worked myself closer and closer to the elevator bank and should have reached it well before dawn. So I got off with a fright.
But to this day I have a phobia of federal administration office buildings.
LOL Bloomfield!!!
On a more serious note, I can tell you of one person in a similar circumstance who did not have the basic survival instincts noted previously.
This was back in the 60’s. My Dad was a coal miner. They had a roof fall(top of mine tunnel), several miners were crushed and killed. One was traped back in the fall with only a small opening of access to him.
Now Dad was a small man(the Army kept him stuck as an airplane mechanic in WWII because he could snake all the way through to the end of the wings to check/fix them). He was able to weasle back through the rubble of the roof fall to the man. He freed this miner except for his arm, which was crushed and only attached to his body by a small sliver of flesh. The crushing had kept him from bleeding out. He would not give the ok for the sliver to be cut so they could get him out. The whole mountain was on what was left of his arm but he would not allow them to cut him free. (Keep in mind that while they spent several hours trying to talk him into this, the rest of the roof was popping and cracking and threatening to fall on him and everyone else. Finally they widened the opening to the trapped miner and Dad and got the company doctor back there. He anesthetized the man, then cut him free and they all got out.
He was definately not going to leave his arm, if he’d had his way, even if it cost him his life.
Ok, I’ll be bold. If I’d been pinned to a rock for 5 days, with no hope of rescue, and out of food and water, etc etc, I might give a go at numbing my arm and cutting it… let’s give the guy credit for a couple of extra things though.
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His knife was dull. He spent his 3rd (of 5) days trying to chisel his arm out, and he could barely break skin (his first try at cutting it was on day 4, an he just didn’t have the energy.
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Somebody knew he was out there, because there was a helicopter patrol looking for him. It was dumb luck that he got pinned someplace he couldn’t be seen from the air.
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The guy was a top knotch climber / hiker (ex. engineer, educated, presumably intelligent person) who’s been up abut 50 of the tallest peaks in Colorado, IIRC. This isn’t an ametuer or someone being a bit too bold for their britches. In fact, at one point (day 2, I think) he actually tried rigging a rope and pully system from his climbing gear to try to move the boulder.
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The last thing, and this was the one that I think was real gutsy, was that when he got to the bone, he couldn’t cut it. He snaped his own bone, even n his weakened condition.
He packed his pack before he started the operation, and as soon as he was done, he started trekkin. I’d like to think I’d be bold enough to do some pretty extreme stuff to save my own tush in a tough spot, but this guy’s probably come out unscathed from more tough spots then I’d ever hope to survive, and I won’t hesitate to say that he’s got a heck of a lot more guts than I.
My hat’s off to him. I’d be willing to bet that by this time next year, he’s back on the trail. He sounds like the type who won’t let this slow him down all that much in the long run.
- Ben
The man in Question was on BBC news this morning giving his account of the situation, he was even able to crack jokes about it all!! Brave Guy!
Cowtime I liked your story about your Dad and the Coal Mine. Where I live(ed) in the UK (Derbyshire) it was a massive Coal mining area, and all of the men from around there would be miners.
What I found when i joined the Army, was that all of the guys there would have a military family, and their Grandfathers fathers had been soldiers, but my Family were always coal miners, and never fought in WWII because miners were not allowed to fight, they were needed to dig coal. I always found this alittle shameful for some reason. Until i got a little more mature, and started to speak to my Granddad, and my uncles, these blokes were really really tough…to be a coal miner anywhere in the world is a very demanding and dangerous job. My mums Dad died at the age of 47, apparantly a good age for a miner, my Dads Dad lived until 64, a very old age for a miner. They worked every single day, and their hands and knees digging coal in the most dangerous of places, its really incredable.
The best story came from my uncle John, my mum has 3 older brothers, and all worked down the pit. it turns out that Pete and john two of her brothers, were riding the coal belt, somthing lazy miners would do, which was very dangerous because it made the shaft unstable. so one day doing this the shaft collapsed on them. Upon hearing this Herbert my Granddad, who was the Deputy, went down, and started digging them out, the shaft was still very unstable and mine rescue were on there way to the scene, but before they could get there he had already dug them both out, and was on his way back up the shaft lift, holding both of them by the ear. John said that the only reason he dug them out, was so he could be the first to give them a smack round the head for being so stupid!!!
Today, Iam very proud of my mining family, and have a picture of the Pit(s) hung above the fire place, with my Granddad’s name enscribed on it, I also have their Miners lamps, both made from Brass for years of service to the coal industry, and My granddad herbert Deputys stick, a beutiful stick made from Oak, with a brass tip!!!
Whenever iam feeling sorry for myself because life has dealt me a shit hand, I always take a moment to think about these men, and think about how hard their life was every single day, but like proper Miners, never even though about moaning about it!
Turner
It’s good to meet another coal miner’s kid! 
If I had a nickle for every ton of coal I’ve heard mined I would not have to work! All the men in Dad’s family were miners. Mom’s Dad worked as a child in about 1910 in a mine picking coal for 10 cents a day.
Everyone around here over about 45 has been or is a miner if they are male. It was the main source of a decent income. Most of the coal is mined out now, an most of the mines are non-union which makes it doubley dangerous.
I liked your mining story. I know shoveling belt was the worst job and was given to new miners.
My Dad loved the mines. He started out working “outside” repairing machinery.He wanted to see the machines at work so he went in to watch and never wanted to come back to work outside. If you’ve ever read Homer Hickam’s book(a great coal mining and coming of age book set during the late 50’s) “Stone of Sky” you will understand when I say my Dad was a LOT like his Dad.Except, even though Dad was a maintenance supervisor for the 30 plus years he spent in the mines, he was very pro-union. I guess because he had grown up in West Va in coal camps during the 30’s.(Hey Cranberry, you know where Keystone and Kimball are.)
I think Dad liked the challenge. He even once worked for months in a scuba wet suit because he was working in chest deep cold water because they’d had a flooded section and he wanted to get the machinery out.
The mines brought a diversity to these mountains though. In the early part of the 20th century they paid the cost to immigrate miners and their families from the British Isles, Poland, Hungary and Italy to come over and work in their mines. So those of us whose families went back to the English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/ German immigrants of the late 1600-1700s were exposed to new cultures.
My husband was a coal miner too, until about 20 years ago when they started shutting them down and going to non-union. He was a roof-bolter who went in after the mechanical"miner" made a cut and drilled and sank long steel bolts into the top so it would , ideally, not fall. It was one of the most dangerous jobs inside but also paid the most.
I agree it takes a special person to go to work under a mountain. It is such a dangerous job. I grew up with Dad coming in so often and saying"we lost a man today". Then he would tell how someone had been killed. Lots of my schoolmates lost fathers and grandfathers. I use to worry about that a lot as a kid, and later when my husband went inside.
I never got to go in a mine… I use to have to take Dad food when he’d stay at work for days if some machinery was down and he’d say if I’d dress up like a boy he’d sneak me in(females were never allowed to go inside- bad luck , and the men would strike if they found out). It was one of those things we never got around to doing though…
I have the greatest admiration for anyone who works under a mountain at a job that they know will probably kill them either quickly through accident or eventually by “black lung”.