Rescuers who drilled a hole 320 feet into a coal mine in Sheppton created an escape route for David Fellin and Henry Throne 50 years ago and a technique used since then to save miners in western Pennsylvania and Chile.

"We've improved on the method and the equipment tremendously, but the philosophy is the same. Now if someone is trapped, we can hear and better assure they are alive," John Urosek, chief of mine emergency operations at the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration in Pittsburgh, said. "In 1963, we didn't have that."

The technology developed at Sheppton and refined since then saved nine miners trapped for four days when a cascade of water blocked their escape from the Quecreek Mine in Lincoln Township, Somerset County, on July 24, 2002.

Again in 2010, in San Jose, Chile, rescuers followed the Sheppton strategy to lift 33 miners to safety after keeping them alive while they were 2,300 feet below ground for 68 days.

When the Sheppton cave-in entombed Fellin, Throne and their co-worker, Louis Bova, at 8:50 a.m. on Aug. 13, 1963, no one on the surface knew if the miners survived the initial crush of rock, dirt and debris.

The first miners and inspectors to arrive after the collapse heard no response when they shouted for the trapped men and banged on rails leading to the bottom of the mine.

Rescuers didn't start drilling for four days.

Even then, they didn't drill on the intended spot. Difficulty moving the rig into position led them to start drilling several feet from an area they staked off.

Using a bit 6 inches in diameter, they drilled for 28 hours before the drill broke into the mine workings at 9:25 p.m. Aug. 18.

When workers removed the steel from the 320-foot-deep hole, which took 90 minutes, Fellin's friend John Biros shouted down to the mine.

To his surprise, he heard an answer.

"They are alive. I hear them. They're alive," Biros hollered as he ran to tell Fellin's wife, Anna, who jumped up and down when she heard the news.

Biros died in 1979, but his son, John, who was 5 when the mine collapsed, remembers his father talking about the moment when he heard from Fellin.

"He actually put his ear down to the well casing. After he yelled, he cupped his hand over his ear and heard his voice. That's when he jumped up and said 'They're alive,'" Biros said.

When Fellin got a microphone a few hours after the drill reached him, he said, "We're not afraid of anything down here."

The final report of the U.S. Bureau of Mines about the Sheppton disaster recounted what Fellin said when rescuers made contact.

"Fellin reported that he and Throne were uninjured and had found refuge on the west side of the slope, and that they had communicated orally with Bova, who was on the east side of the slope and had sustained a hip injury."

News that the men lived electrified the world.

"Trapped Miners Alive," a banner headline on the front page of the Standard-Speaker said.

Reporters from newspapers, radio and television stations crowded into Sheppton to cover the story.

Media accounts referred to hole drilled to the men's location as a miracle.

Even 50 years later when computers align maps and rescuers can mark a point in the mine to a corresponding point on the surface, a drill can miss a target.

"In a perfect world, a drill would go straight down, but when a drill hits different strata it will stray," Urosek said.

Michael Korb, environmental program manager for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation in Wilkes-Barre, said the drillers at Sheppton had to bore through broken strata that can deflect the bit.

"It's quite a feat what they did. I'm still amazed," Korb said.

As the Sheppton rescue unfolded, Korb was studying to be a mining engineer at the University of Pittsburgh. "We did talk about it at school because I was in the mining program," he said.

Difficulties of drilling a second hole into Fellin and Throne's enclosure and failure to locate Bova with drills added to the mystique of the first hole sunk into the mine.

In the second hole, the drill drifted, missing the void where Fellin and Throne waited but going down 335 feet. A third hole drilled to 327 feet by Aug. 20 pierced the east side of the workings, where Bova took refuge during the collapse. Fellin hadn't heard from Bova since the previous day. A microphone and amplifier in the hole picked up no sound from him, either.

For Throne and Fellin, however, the hole bored into the chamber where they took refuge became a lifeline.

Through the hole they received food, drinks and medicine that reduced the swelling in their hands and feet. A microphone and amplifiers let them talk with their families. Doctors using the two-way communications gear advised them what calisthenics to do. Mining officials consulted Fellin and Throne while they drilled another hole into their chamber and widened it enough to pull the men to the surface on Aug. 27, after two weeks underground.

As soon as Fellin and Throne reached the surface, rescuers intensified efforts to find Bova. They drilled more holes and lowered microphones, but never located him. Bova's body remains underground, and his gravestone rests atop the mine.


Four decades later when a cascade of water from an abandoned mine blocked escapes from the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, nine trapped men didn't have to wait as long as Throne and Fellin had for rescuers to make contact.

Whereas drilling 320 feet to reach Fellin and Throne took 28 hours, a drill broke through to the Quecreek miners 240 feet below ground in one hour and 45 minutes

Drills hadn't just gotten faster, they had become more versatile, too.

"Today, you can determine where the drill is and angle the drill to get to the mine opening that they're shooting for," said Urosek, who was at Quecreek during the rescue.

Still, a broken drill at Quecreek delayed the rescue while workers in a machine shop fashioned a part to retrieve a section of the drill bit that stuck in the hole. A National Guard helicopter flew the part to the mine.

Similarly, during the Sheppton disaster, jets landed at airports in Hazleton and New York City while delivering bits large enough to drill escape holes.

Urosek said rescuers have more ways to locate trapped miners now than when the Sheppton mine collapsed.

Miners wear tracking devices in their belts or helmets. When they pass electronic tags placed throughout the mine, an antenna below ground sends a reading to a computer above ground.

Even if an accident knocks out transmissions, people on the surface would know the last time miners passed various checkpoints.

"You at least know where to look," Urosek said.

Also, miners train in echolocation, a process that uses earthquake detectors after rescuers drill a hole and discharge an explosive.

"Miners hear the boom, and they're supposed to pound on the roof 10 times. It causes a vibration that the seismic system looks for so you're able to triangulate and look for their location," Urosek said.

At Sheppton, rescuers tested a Geiger counter when gauging where to drill an escape hole for Throne and Fellin. From Aug. 21 to 22, the rescuers drilled 323 feet before discovering they went too far west and hit a solid pillar of coal.

So they lowered radioactive material into the 323-foot-deep hole and then let down a Geiger counter to Fellin through the supply hole. They hoped the Geiger counter would emit a signal and let them pinpoint the men's position.

"These tests were ineffective because of an insufficient source of energy," the U.S. Bureau of Mines report said.

At Quecreek, rescuers used military-grade GPS technology to decide where to drill for miners, but they couldn't offer comfort once they found the trapped men because of another danger:


An abandoned mine that filled with water wasn't properly mapped. Miners who thought they were hundreds of feet away accidentally dug into the old mine, releasing water into their chamber.

Nine men had time to escape, but nine others tried and failed twice to wade through high water to safety.

Soaked and waiting in 50-degree temperatures, they took refuge on a high spot as the water rose.

On the surface, rescuers calculated that the water soon would overtop the miners' position.

So after drilling into the miners' chamber, the rescuers pumped compressed air into the mine. This created a high-pressure chamber around the miners.

"It's like if you held our finger over a straw" in a glass of water. "You have water on the bottom, but not the top," Urosek said.

Rescuers had to maintain air pressure so they didn't lower food or communication equipment through the borehole.

Instead of hearing encouraging words from their families, as Fellin and Throne had, the Quecreek miners listened to the roar of air compressors.

"When we turned the compressed air on, we weren't able to install communications. We knew they were alive, but had no actual contact with them for four days," Urosek said.

Rescuers worried that as soon they broke through the chamber while boring a larger hole to free the miners, the air pressure would plummet and the water would rush up. Fortunately, they pumped out enough water in four days to stop the flow from the abandoned mine into the chamber where the miners took refuge.


At the copper and gold mine in Chile, miners waited 17 days for rescuers to locate them after a collapse on Aug. 5, 2010, cut off the ramp that led in and out of the mine. The 33 miners had a three-day supply of tuna, mackerel and other tins that, with rationing, nearly lasted to Aug. 22 when a drill penetrated 2,257 feet to reach them.

Likewise, Fellin and Throne survived five days without food. They drilled for water. Emulating a news clip that Fellin saw of Mahatma Gandhi during a hunger strike, he and Throne depressed their Adam's apples with one hand while they drank. That suppressed their hunger pangs. They also rocked back and forth and blew air into each other's shirts to keep warm.

At Quecreek, miners found a lunch box floating in the water and retrieved two sodas from a machine to sustain them during their four days underground.

In Chile, the borehole became a supply line that provided the miners with provisions and allowed them to expand popular notions of how many days underground and how many feet below the surface humans can survive.

"You could probably keep someone indefinitely - get them food and water and even get them air," Urosek said while mentioning other safety equipment developed since Sheppton.

Miners now wear a device on their belts that allows them to breathe for an hour in foul air. The self-contained self-rescuers scrub carbon from the carbon dioxide that miners exhale, which leaves oxygen for them to re-breathe.

"In the cap lamps today, batteries are much stronger so their lighting would be better," Urosek said of another innovation since Sheppton.

The 33 Chilean miners received more than food and beverages through the borehole. They sent samples of blood and urine to the surface for testing. Miners talked with the families by phone, made videos of their underground routine and even watched soccer games on a small screen.

Athletic trainers led them in exercises, and psychologists counseled about how to cope with their long stay underground.

As drills widened a hole enough for a rescue, the miners prepared for a long ascent.

The mechanics of getting them to the surface haven't changed much in 50 years.

A winch hoisted the miners up the escape hole, but the miners traveled to the surface in different styles in Sheppton, Quecreek and Chile.


Fellin and Throne rose to freedom on parachute harnesses sewn to their coveralls. They donned football helmets, greased their suits and stretched their arms over their heads before the winch began turning.

They went up through the borehole with their arms extended so they wouldn't suffocate, said Joseph Michel, a retired engineer whose collection of mining memorabilia includes maps of the Sheppton mines.

Throne's trip took 15 minutes, but Fellin was hauled up in eight minutes.

At Quecreek, the trip to the surface also took about 15 minutes per miner, but each man rode in a capsule.

Capsules had been made for the miners in Sheppton, but rescuers worried that the capsules might get stuck - especially in the lowest section where rocky knuckles left by the drill narrowed the hole to 18 inches across. So the rescuers opted for parachute harnesses instead.

At Quecreek, the diameter of the hole varied where different drill bits had been used and there was no opportunity to line the hole with metal casing.

"We were afraid the capsule would get stuck," Urosek said.

Rescuers also wondered if the miners could fit inside the capsule.

"We knew the size of a couple guys. We got a person who was bigger and had him get in the capsule. It was not easy, but he was able to get in," Urosek said.

The capsule was made of metal mesh so the miners, who had been soaked while trying to wade through flooded tunnels on the day they were trapped, got wet on their ascent, too.

Because the air pressure had equalized with the surface, the miners didn't have to enter hyperbaric chambers that had been brought to Quecreek as a precaution.

For the rescue in Chile, NASA helped design the capsule, which had lights, oxygen, video and voice communications and an escape hatch. Wheels retracted to help smooth the ride up the borehole. A light blinked so miners could see the capsule arrive at the bottom of the shaft.

Korb, the state mining engineer in Wilkes-Barre, saw a replica of the Chilean capsule at a mining show.

"It was just the size for me to get into. A couple larger guys had to squeeze in," Korb said.

Since Sheppton, mine rescuers developed other tools, too.

Urosek has a robot that can travel 3,000 feet below ground. He prepared to send the robot to New Zealand in November 2010 when an explosion occurred in the Pike River Mine while 29 men were underground. The robot's mission was aborted when subsequent explosions made it clear that none of the New Zealand miners could have survived.

Robots can take air samples of photos to determine whether fire or gas makes a space unsafe for rescuers to enter.

"You would send that robot into a situation where you wouldn't be able to send men in," Troy Wolfgang, division chief for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mine Safety in Pottsville, said.

Since Quecreek, Wolfgang said mine companies experimented with technology such as ground-penetrating radar to find voids that could be filled with water but might not show up on maps.

The mining firms also seek to transmit signals through the ground the way text messages travel through the air now.

"That's not here today, but I believe in 10 years that technology will occur," Wolfgang said.

Many mines contain escape routes with ropes leading to the surface. If smoke blinds miners, they can pass their hands along the rope to safety. Tapered cones placed along the rope signal the way to go.

"You slide your hand over the taper. If you hit the wrong end, you'll know you're going in the wrong direction," Wolfgang said.

Laws now require mines to have two exits, but an exception in anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania still allows miners to rob coal from pillars left in old mines that have just one entrance. That's what Fellin, Throne and Bova were doing in Sheppton.

Today, miners planning to rob pillars would first get approval from the state Bureau of Mine Safety, and technology would make their job safer.

"Computer programs allow us to tell whether the pillars remaining are sound enough to support it," Wolfgang said.

The rescue in Sheppton taught a lesson that technology won't make obsolete, Wolfgang said.

"From Sheppton ... we would never give up hope until all hope is lost," he said. "There's always hope as long as there is survivable space in the mine and survivable atmosphere. There is always hope of getting somebody out alive."