Sunshine Mine
Kellogg, Shoshone County, Idaho
May 2,1972 - 91 killed
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They reached the 820 drift and proceeded about 100 feet into the smoke before being driven out. Harvey Dionne and Jim Bush decided to evacuate the men. Harvey Dionne then went back to make sure the air door was closed and prepare for evacuation at the Jewell Shaft. Jim Bush then headed back toward the 910 raise where he encountered Bob Bush, Wayne Blalock, and Pat Hobson, who were in a state of near exhaustion. Jim Bush then attempted to remove the three men from the mine. Jim Bush carried Bob Bush and Hobson under each of their shoulders and pushed Blalock in front of him. About halfway to the Jewell Shaft, Jim Bush himself was near exhaustion and had to leave all three men and go to the Jewell Shaft to try to get assistance. Harvey Dionne, after returning to the Jewell Shaft, made the decision to remove restrictions over the No. 12 borehole to allow more fresh air to reach the lower levels.
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Immediately afterward, according to the depositions made by survivors, Fred (Gene) Johnson, a shift boss, while at the 3700 level No. 10 Shaft, telephoned the mine maintenance foreman, Tom Harrah, at his office in the surface machine shop at about 12 noon, and requested (1) that the stench warning system be activated and that (2) oxygen breathing apparatus be sent into the mine. At this time, he also ordered the hoist man to prepare the cage for moving the men up to the 3100 level to get them out of the mine. The stench warning system was activated at 12:05 p.m. and the apparatus was gathered and trans- ported down Jewell Shaft to the 3100 level station. Because of the dense smoke between the 910 raise and No. 10 Shaft, the man (Don Wood) operating the No. 10 Shaft "chippy" hoist on the 3700 level was forced to abandon the hoist room.
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Consequently, the "chippy" hoist was never used for evacuating men. Survivors, who later stated that their signals to the "chippy" hoist room went unanswered and therefore assumed the signal system was inoperative, did not realize that the hoist room could not be occupied. According to the hoist log taken from the No. 10 double-drum hoist on the 3100 level, the first load of men was hoisted at 12: 13 p.m. About 12 men rode the cage from the 3700 level to the 3100 level, including two cagers and three other men who had ridden up from the 4500 level. The cage arrived at the 3100 level at 12: 15 p.m. and returned to the 3700 level where the remaining men boarded. They left the 3700 level at 12:16 p.m. and arrived at 3100 level at 12:17 p.m. Greg Dionne re boarded the cage and went down to the 4600 level with short stops on the 3700 level and 4400 level to pick up additional men including Delbert (Dusty) Rhoads, who, among others, had ridden the "chippy" cage down after lunch.
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A full cage-load of men was sent up to the 3100 level from the 4600 level at 12:24 p.m. Greg Dionne remained on the 4600 level station. Byron Schultz, cager, re boarded the cage and went back down to 4600, arriving at 12:27 p.m., where another load of men boarded. Dionne remained at the station and Schulz rode up to the 3100 level, arriving at 12:30 p.m. Schulz re boarded at 3100 level and went to the 5000 level with a stop at 4600 to pick up Dionne and additional men. The cage then traveled back to the 3100 level arriving at 12:35 p.m. Delbert (Dusty) Rhoads and Arnold Anderson, mechanical and electrical lead men, possibly returned on this trip to the 3400 level. Another trip was made back to the 5000 level and returned at 12:44 p.m. Schulz and Dionne both returned to the 3100 level on this trip. The cage went back to the 5000 level and remained 12 minutes. The cage then went to the 5400 level and made a trip back to 3100 station. All hoisting at No. 10 Shaft ceased at 1 :02 p.m. While on the 3400 level, Rhoads and Anderson were standing by and requesting permission to cut off the main exhaust fans on that level.
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Several persons listening on the mine telephone heard the request. A decision was never received. The men hoisted from the lower levels of the mine were directed by Gene Johnson on the 3100 level to travel to the Jewell Shaft via that level to be hoisted to the surface. Gene Johnson had remained at the 3100 station to direct the crews to Jewell Shaft instead of the Silver Summit escape way. According to the depositions, men obtained self rescuers from storage boxes on the shaft stations. Some of the men reported they had difficulty in using the self rescuers and they discarded them. Many men were doubtless quickly overcome by carbon monoxide and smoke, and died before they were able to reach the Jewell Shaft. At about 1 p.m., and within an hour after the stench warning system had been activated, the first group to attempt to locate and rescue additional survivors went underground. An apparatus crew of four men, Robert Launhardt, Larry Hawkins, James Zingler, and Don Beebner, went across the 3100 level from the Jewell Shaft. On the way toward No. 10 Shaft, the crew met Roger Findley, who was on his way out toward the Jewell Shaft. Findley was having difficulty breathing and was given oxygen. Zingler then took Findley out to good air.
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The crew continued toward No. 10 Shaft and met By- Ron Schulz, who appeared in serious trouble and pleaded for oxygen. Beehner responded and gave Schulz his face mask, but went down himself as he attempted to put his mask back on. Then Launhardt tried to assist Schulz, as Hawkins placed his mask over Beehner's face, meanwhile holding his breath as long as he could before taking another breath of air from his mask. When Hawkins tried to place his mask again to Beehner's face, he noticed blood gushing from. Beebner's mouth and nose as he lost consciousness. Hawkins' apparatus then malfunctioned and he at- tempted to make his way out. He went down twice before mustering the strength to jump onto the last car of a train which Launhardt was bringing out with Schulz aboard. All three reached the Jewell Shaft station and were hoisted. While these events were occurring on the 3100 level, moves were undertaken by some of the miners to rescue fellow workers on the 3700 level. Jim Bush, a mine foreman, had called to the attention of some other miners that three men, Robert Bush, Blalock, and Hobson, were on the 3700 level. He, himself, had tried earlier to save them, but was unable to do so. According to depositions from survivors of the disaster, three men on the 3700 Jewell station, Ronald Stansbury, Roberto Diaz, and another man, started out to bring the men to safety.
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They left the station and proceeded along the 3700 level aboard a locomotive and coach. Bearing in mind a previous warning from Jim Bush to be careful and avoid running over one of the victims last seen by him lying across the track, the three men stopped their locomotive short of the fallen man who was later identified as Blalock. They then went ahead on foot. Stansbury went farthest in and located Bob Bush lying on the ground, but he, himself, was fast becoming overcome and therefore started to retreat. On the way back, as he was stumbling along, he saw one of his fellow would-be-rescuers, Roberto Diaz, down on the ground. Alternately crawling and stumbling, he reached some fresh air at No.5 Shaft where he ran across Harvey Dionne, Paul Johnson, and Jasper Beare reentering the drift. Stansbury informed them that, in addition to the three men that his group had tried to rescue, another man (Diaz) was down, making a total of four, one of whom was lying across the track. Johnson and his companions then continued toward No. 10 Shaft. They boarded the locomotive and car which had been used and abandoned by Stansbury and his colleagues, but had to give it up when it struck a body lying across the track and was derailed. Realizing they could not help any of the stricken men, they started to walk back toward the Jewell Shaft.
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During the trip, Johnson, too, went down, adding to the list of persons who had already died in the disaster. Subsequently, Jim Bush, accompanied by Ulrich, made one more rescue attempt, protected only by self rescuers, but they had to abandon their efforts. At 3:06 p.m., in order to eliminate recirculation and facilitate access to No. 10 Shaft, fans on the 3400 level were shut down from the 3700 level switch station. Four more bodies were found at the 3700 cable shop at this time. By 4 p.m., ventilation to the 3100 level No. 10 Shaft station had improved considerably and the air door was opened. At 3:50 p.m., on May 8, an extensive cave-in was discovered in the 910 raise area on the 3700 level. In preparing to send men to the lower mine levels via the No. 12 borehole as part of its plan to carry out rescue and recovery operations through a fourth front, the Bureau had obtained two man-capsules from the AEC Nevada test site together with an engineer, Frank Solaegui, employed by Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Corp., an AEC prime contractor, who supervised use of the man-capsules at the Nevada Test Site, and could provide invaluable help with the rigging and use of the capsules in the Sunshine mine.
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