On most days, things were pretty smooth. But you never knew, from day to day, what would happen. Maybe there would be an explosion, or a cave in. And if I derailed coal cars off the tracks they could knock out the timbers that were holding up the roof; that was BIG trouble. Not only that, but it could take us hours to get the cars back on the track.

I was usually pretty cautious though, I didn’t take big risks like some of the other guys, but I learned one day that even small risks can be too big when you work in a dangerous place like a coal mine. I had been hauling cars in and out of the mine all day and everything was going as usual. The only thing that was different this time was that it had been cold and rainy all day, so the cars that I brought into the mine were all wet and slippery.

I was working with my brakey, Abe, that day and I told him I was going to run back and check to make sure the cars were ok. I ran along the top of the cars to check them out, you weren’t supposed to do that, but it was quicker and I had done it 100 times before. The only difference this time, was that when I hopped off the last car I stepped onto the last hitch. I never did that before, so I don’t know why I did it that time. The hitch was wet from the rain and my boot slipped right off of it and I fell half on the track and half off. My helmet fell off and the light was shining right in my face. The trip was moving at the time and there was nothing I could do to get out of the way. I knew I was in trouble, big trouble, and I felt that as soon as the first coal car ran over me!

The pain was out of this world, but that was just the beginning because the next car came and somehow my foot got caught in the spokes of the wheel and took a turn or two around. It pushed my knee right up to my chest and there I was, pinned by my own leg, unable to breathe. Abe came running and he could see from the light shining on my face that I was still alive but I was hurt pretty bad.

The Fireboss, who had been riding the front of the locomotive, was the next on scene and it was Abe and him who lifted the coal car off of me. I don’t know where they got the strength to do it, because those cars are heavy, but if not for them, I probably wouldn’t be here to tell this story. I had to pull myself out from under the cars because they were busy holding the car and there was no one else around. I grabbed onto a timber along the side and dragged my body out while they held the car up. I was paralyzed from the waist down; I couldn’t move my legs.

They called to get an ambulance to come and get me and that was an adventure in itself. The ambulance usually came up the side of the hill to the mine entrance, but it was so rainy and slippery that day that it couldn’t make it up the hill. So it parked at the bottom and they had to take me down the conveyor belt that they used to get the coal from the mine to the tipple. I was on a backboard but it still was one heck of a bumpy ride.

The doctors didn’t think that I was going to make it; they thought I was bleeding from the inside and that I wouldn’t make it through the night. But I didn’t die! And the next day they took x-rays and found that I had a broken ankle, broken pelvis and the first vertebrae in my back was cracked and the second was broken. I was in traction, unable to move for 2 months until my back healed!

After two months they got me out of bed and I had a real hard time learning to walk again. My muscles were weak from not using them and so it took me a long time to walk normal. But I worked hard at it, I was too young to be stuck to a bed for the rest of my life.

Just 18 months after my accident, I decided to go back and work in the mine again. It felt different to me though. I sure was nervous, and I was nervous for a long time. I didn’t take the risks that I used to because I had learned the hard way how one bad move could change your life. You know, there were a lot of guys before me who had been injured, but I never thought it would happen to me. But when it did, it changed how I looked at the mine…I guess I just learned to respect her more.

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