Bounces in mine like being inside an explosion

EAST CARBON, Carbon County — Mining officials have called them mountain "bumps." Local miners refer to them instead as "bounces."

Whatever you call them, miners in Utah's coal country are well aware of the seismic activity that takes place deep below the Earth's surface, and they know the damage it can cause.

"Anybody's that's worked around these mines has experienced bounces, but to say that any of us have ever experienced something of this magnitude, I don't think so," said Jeff Palmer, emergency preparedness manager for UtahAmerican Energy Inc., which manages the Crandall Canyon Mine.

Palmer should have been deep inside the mine last Thursday, when a 1.6 magnitude bounce rocked a section being cleared by rescue workers to reach six men trapped in Crandall Canyon for the past two weeks.

An unreliable truck, however, delayed Palmer from leading four members of his rescue team into the mine for a shift change. So instead of being one of the injured, Palmer rushed into the section of the mine and began tending to those hurt by the bounce.

In the five to eight minutes it took Palmer and another man to reach the section impacted by the bounce, most of the dust had already cleared. And what Palmer saw was chaos, men buried beneath piles of coal that had exploded from square pillars and the ribs (the walls) of the mine.

Palmer helped load a stretcher into a truck that he drove to an ambulance waiting outside the mine's entrance, then headed back in to help dig a man out from the rubble with his bare hands. The man he helped uncover survived; the first man did not.

Dale Black, Brandon Kimber and Gary Jensen, two local coal miners and a federal mine safety inspector, died Thursday night. Six others were injured.

Bounces can be scary

Along with the creaks and groans, mountain bounces are just another thing to get used to when working deep below the surface. Usually, they're small, not even worth noticing, really.

Other times, they're much more significant, throwing furniture-size pieces of coal and breaking heavy machinery in half.

"It's like being inside something that's exploding," said Palmer, a 33-year coal miner. "It kind of gives you a 'what's going on."'