It's not the kind of test a worker would welcome to prove he had been listening during safety meetings, but Ken Martin passed with flying colors. "You hear this safety meeting information over and over. You think you are not listening, but you are. When it comes down to what I went through, I was listening," he says.

Ken Martin, Mine Fire Survivor

Fire in a Potash Mine

During the 12 hours Martin spent alone 3,140 feet (957 meters) underground during a late January 2006 mine fire, the 45-year-old Mosaic Potash Mine worker from Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, Canada, thought a lot about his safety training. He also thought about his wife Jacqueline, their grown sons Bruce, Christopher and Nicholas, and the fact that he might never see them again.

Amazingly, Martin and 71 other workers trapped underground by a plastic pipe fire for more than 30 hours all made it out safely. Investigators believe the fire was caused by a cutting torch being used to remove bolts from a flange near the piping.

12 Long Hours Alone

Martin, who has worked at the mine for almost 25 years, was alone in a lunchroom during the early hours of Jan. 29 when the power went out.

"I picked up the phone to see what the problem was and there was no dial tone," says Martin. "I knew there was something wrong."

Within seconds, smoke began billowing into the room. Relying on his extensive safety training, Martin donned a self-rescue device (filter-type respirator) designed to protect people against carbon monoxide exposure while escaping a fire.

The device only works to protect users against carbon monoxide gas concentrations of up to 10,000 parts per million for one hour. It does not supply oxygen to the user; nor does it protect users against other toxic gases.

By the time the self-rescue device was on his face, Martin couldn't see beyond his hand. Carrying five extra rescue devices with him, he felt his way to some picnic tables in the lunchroom.

After propping two sheets of plywood beside the picnic table, he lay down, waiting to be rescued. Soon his eyes were stinging from the acrid smoke. He wetted some rags with water and placed them over his eyes. After almost two hours, Martin was in extreme discomfort from the heat being generated by the self-rescue device. But he had been trained to not take it off, no matter what.

Martin was thinking about the Sago Mine disaster in Tallmansville, West Virginia, where 12 miners had died from carbon monoxide poisoning only weeks before. With only four self-rescue devices remaining and no sign of rescuers, his future seemed equally bleak.

"I said to myself, 'You're not going to make it'."

Suddenly he felt a breeze in his face. Fresh air fans had come on! Realizing that he had a chance after all, a jubilant Martin donned his third self-rescue device and opened two steel doors leading to the lunchroom to clear the room of smoke.

He could hear the fire crackling, but he couldn't see it. Trained in fire suppression, the miner grabbed two fire extinguishers in an effort to put the fire out. Martin encountered a wall of smoke and felt heat, but still couldn't see flames. He abandoned that plan and returned to the lunchroom.

Getting to the Safe Room

Twelve hours into his ordeal, the room began filling with smoke again. Martin knew his only chance was to try to reach a refuge station - a safe room equipped with oxygen, food and a telephone.

Taking two self-rescuers, water and rags with him, Martin walked 1,500 feet (457 meters) to a steel door. Finding it jammed, he had to trek back to the lunchroom to get a screwdriver and hammer.

"I pried the door open and smelled fresh timber. I knew there was no smoke there," he says.

Half a mile (almost one kilometer) past the steel door, Martin found a safe room. He opened the door.

"They (a large group of trapped workers) thought I was coming to rescue them," he says. "Some of the guys had only been [working] underground for three weeks and weren't used to it. They were getting antsy." It would be another 12 hours before everyone was rescued.

Appreciating Family and Safety

When Martin saw his wife, Jacqueline, both became emotional. "She said, 'Don't ever do that to me again'."

The ordeal, Martin's first serious workplace scare in nearly a quarter-century of mining, left him with a sore throat and a new appreciation for safety training and safe work practices. "I think I will be more observant in any job I am working on and at home, too," he says.

Martin added he has been cured of taking shortcuts at home, such as not bothering to use safety glasses or work gloves. He also appreciates life more. "I'm spending more time with my wife and kids." He adds, chuckling, "... and golfing."

*****

SHARE YOUR STORIES

Do you have a story about survival or rescue? Please, please share it with us. catherinej@bongarde.com.

POP QUIZ
Self-Contained Self-Rescuer (SCSR) Usage

By Catherine Jones

How would you fare if you were in a situation like the one Ken Martin faced? Test your SCSR knowledge with these 4 questions from NIOSH's training material "I Can't Get Enough Air":

Scenario

You're working on the 17 Left longwall development section at the Paula Ann No. 3 mine. The section has been driven about 4,000 feet from 4 West Mains. Your foreman learns that coming into your section is smoke from an unknown source. He tries to contact someone to find out where the smoke is coming from but gets no response, so he starts to take your crew out of the section on the mantrip. When you encounter heavy smoke, your foreman decides the crew will travel on foot in the belt entry, which is on a neutral split of air. After traveling about 6 crosscuts in the belt entry, you encounter heavy smoke again, at which time your foreman tells the crew to don your SCSRs.

Questions

Answers

Source: I Can't Get Enough Air! - Proper Self-contained Self-rescuer Usage. For more information on mining safety training, visit NIOSH's mining topic page.

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