The Miner's Mile-Long Chase
A coal miner faces a harrowing race for his life when a falling slab of coal forces him into a pitch-black tunnel escape.
David M. Griffith, a miner, had a narrow escape from being crushed to death while at work in the Franklin mine last Thursday. Griffith was at work on the slope when pieces of coal, weighing about 1,000 pounds, became detached above him and started down the slope toward him. His only escape lay in running down the slope ahead of the coal. It soon became a race for life, with the coal increasing its speed at every bound. Halfway down the slope, the speed at which Griffith was running extinguished the lamp in his hat and left him in the dark. He continued his flight, stumbling on one of the side beams and falling. The coal came on and was checked by the timber, but in jamming, caught one of Griffith's legs against the beam, breaking the bone in two places. He was eventually carried out and cared for.
“It soon became a race for life.”
The Franklin coal mines were a major industrial site in King County at the time. This incident underscores the extreme physical dangers faced by workers in the regional coal industry that fueled Seattle's early growth.
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