Trapped Below
The O'Reilly family had been mining the coal of Pennsylvania since the first O'Reilly arrived from Ireland and went down into the ground to earn his living. For more than a century, O'Reilly fathers, brothers and sons made that daily journey into the bowels of the earth. Some of them never returned. Others brought a bit of the mines back up to the surface with them in their lungs.
Over the decades, technology made the miners' job safer than it had been in the days when canaries were used to detect the presence of poisonous gases, yet there still existed the ever-present risk of a cave-in. Even in the brave new world of the twenty-first century, a time of cell phones, iPods and GPS systems, men still died hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the earth.
Aidan O'Reilly, the youngest of the clan, had sworn from an early age that he would escape his birthright and seek employment outside the mines. This decision met with the blessing of his entire family who wanted the best for the youngster. Of course, given his family's economic status, he had no hope of becoming a lawyer or a doctor. Notwithstanding these limitations, he believed in the same American dream his Irish ancestors had: that America, despite its faults, was a land of opportunity. There was nothing to prevent him from graduating high school and going on to a community or state college and becoming an accountant, teacher or computer programmer. With so many opportunities on the surface, he reasoned, why should he risk his life in the mines just because the other O'Reilly men did?
* * *
It's a sad fact of life that the best-laid plans of mice, men and young lads hoping to avoid the mines often go awry. Up until the spring of his sixteenth year, Aidan had been content to divide his time between studying and working a part-time job at a nearby gas station so he could put money away for school. Then one day in late April he met Jeannine Moss, a petite, raven-haired beauty with a smile that could melt the heart of a statue.
Although parents often regard the feelings between teenagers as nothing more than puppy love, such emotions often burn hotter than those shared by more mature adults. The love that blossomed between them during the spring and summer prior to the start of Aidan's senior year of high school was as strong a love as was possible between a man and a woman, regardless of age.
The hormones of the young being what they are, the couple's relationship progressed beyond the point of harmless necking; and by the time school started in September, Jeannine had the first inkling that she was pregnant. When Aidan picked her up for a Saturday night date, he noticed she was uncharacteristically quiet and preoccupied.
"Aren't you feeling well?" he asked.
For three days, Jeannine had been debating whether or not to confide in him. She longed to share her burden of fear and guilt with the man she loved, but she was uncertain of how he would react to the news. What if he chose to abandon her just when she needed him most?
"Jeannine, are you okay?" he asked again.
His blue eyes looked into hers, and she read concern, compassion and, above all, love in them.
"I think I'm pregnant," she blurted out.
Aidan was momentarily stunned by the news, but when the shock wore off, he took Jeannine in his arms and tried to comfort her as she sobbed against his chest.
"Everything will be okay," he assured her. "We're not the first two people who've been in this situation, and we sure as hell won't be the last."
"What should we do?" she cried, putting the onus of decision-making on his strong shoulders.
"We'll get married, and you'll have the baby."
His response was so matter-of-fact, so cut-and-dry, it was as though she had asked him a question on a school test. What is the capital of New Mexico? What is the square root of nine? Who wrote The Great Gatsby? What should we do about the pregnancy?
"Babies cost money," Jeannine argued. "How can we afford it?"
Both their families were struggling to get by as it was and did not need the expense of another mouth to feed. Then there was the matter of Aidan's education. He wouldn't be able to afford college and a child, too.
"I'll quit school," he announced in the same emotionless, Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico, three is the square root of nine and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby manner. "I'll get a job with my father."
His solution to their dilemma brought about a fresh onslaught of tears. To support the child she carried, Aidan would have to break the promise he had made to himself to shake off the coal dust of Pennsylvania.
* * *
The O'Reilly family took Aidan's decision badly.
"Why on earth would you want to quit school in your last year?" his mother, Bridget, demanded to know.
"I'm in love with Jeannine, and I want to marry her."
"Then do it after graduation. If she loves you, she'll wait. Better yet, wait another year until she's out of school, and then the two of you can go off to college together."
"We want to get married now."
"Is there something you're not telling me?" Bridget asked shrewdly. "Is there a reason for rushing into this marriage? Is Jeannine pregnant?"
Aidan looked his mother in the eye and—God forgive him—lied, "No."
Doyle O'Reilly, Aidan's father, was more direct.
"You damn fool," he swore. "You want to get married, quit school, get a job in the mines and expect to live happily ever after. This isn't one of those novels you read for your English class. This is real life where love doesn't conquer all."
"You and mom seem pretty happy."
"Yes, we are. We're two of the lucky ones. Against all the odds, our love has lasted through the ups and down of being poor, and just maybe you and Jeannine will be lucky, too. Maybe she'll stand by you when the union goes on strike and you don't have money coming in for food and rent. Maybe she'll be happy with a small house, an old car and a wardrobe from Walmart."
"You make it sound as though life is all about money, but it's family that matters most," his son argued with all the innocence and conviction of youth.
"It's a hell of a lot easier to take care of your family when you've got a good-paying job."
Aidan saw the logic of his father's argument, and if given a choice, he would have preferred to wait to marry Jeannine until he finished college and found suitable employment, but the baby altered the timeframe. Jeannine's pregnancy test had been positive, and the child could not be put on hold. So, despite his family's disapproval, the following week Aidan and Jeannine were married. The day after the wedding, the bridegroom punched the clock at 7:00 a.m. and headed toward the entrance of the main shaft to begin work as a miner.
* * *
Since Jeannine was only fifteen years old, she could not quit school to go to work. The day after their brief, informal wedding ceremony, while Aidan was beginning his first day on the job, Jeannine rode the old yellow school bus to the high school. During homeroom, as the attendance was being taken and the daily announcements were being read over the public address system, she thought about being pregnant. Would she have to take gym? Would she be excused from first period biology if she suffered from morning sickness?
It was difficult, but she managed to keep her mind on the anatomy of the earthworm for forty minutes. Her next class, civics, was a different matter. Mr. Johnston was going to give a lecture on the Bill of Rights, which promised to be about as exciting as listening to her math teacher explain the formula for computing compound interest. Between first and second periods, she stopped at her locker and exchanged her biology textbook for her civics workbook. She then closed the metal door with a clang and fastened it with a combination lock.
Suddenly, she felt a vibration under her feet.
"Did you feel that?" one of her classmates asked. "You don't think it was an earthquake, do you?"
The others students in the hallway, who had all been born and raised in the small Pennsylvania mining town, knew what the tremor signified. Jeannine dropped her civics book on the floor as one hand went to her abdomen and the other to her mouth to keep from screaming. There had been a cave-in at the mine, and Aidan was down there with his father and his uncles.
School was dismissed early, and the students, most of whom had families in the mines, went home to wait for news. Jeannine and Bridget, her mother-in-law for just over thirty-two hours, waited by the phone, their eyes glued to CNN's coverage of the cave-in. As men came out of the main shaft, their families were immediately notified of their loved ones' safety. Meanwhile, rescue workers attempted to free the men trapped below.
An hour passed; then two and three. The phone in the O'Reilly household stubbornly refused to ring. When the TV news crews showed the last of the miners returning to the surface, Mrs. O'Reilly caught her breath. There had been no word of either her husband or her son.
"Get your jacket," she told Jeannine. "We're going down there and see for ourselves what's going on."
There were other O'Reilly family members at the mine office, including Aidan's three aunts and their children.
"Not Doyle and Aidan, too?" one of the aunts cried when she saw Bridget walk through the door with Jeannine.
"I haven't heard anything one way or the other," Mrs. O'Reilly explained.
"No one has. The supervisor assured us that when he learns anything definite, he'll let us know."
Until that time, they had to wait, and waiting without knowing was excruciating.
It was after three when a spokesman for the owner of the mine read a list of names of the men who were unaccounted for, a list of seven men: Aidan O'Reilly, his father, his three uncles and two others who were close friends of the family. When the names were read, nearly four dozen people cried or fell to their knees, imploring God to protect their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons from harm. After the anxious men and women exhausted their tears and prayers, an uncomfortable silence descended on the room.
For most of the day, a crew of volunteers cautiously dug through the mountain of rubble that had blocked one end of a lower tunnel, creating a small cave in which the seven miners were trapped with only a limited supply of air. A narrow hole was drilled from the surface into the area where the men were believed to be located. Through the hole, rescuers lowered a small microphone. An elderly man, himself a survivor of the cave-in of '73, manned the radio, hoping to hear signs of life below.
Eyes red and swollen from weeping, Jeannine stared at a Harley Davidson calendar on the wall. Had it only been yesterday that she and Aidan were married? It seemed like a lifetime ago and like an eternity since she had told him she was pregnant. A stab of guilt brought fresh tears to her eyes. If they had only practiced safe sex, Aidan would still be in school, dreaming of the day he would go off to college. Instead, he was almost three hundred feet below the ground, either dead or dying.
Mrs. O'Reilly, fretting over the safety of her husband and son, as well as that of her brothers-in-law and close friends, rose to her feet after she had been sitting in the metal folding chair for several hours.
"Would you like some coffee or a can of soda from the vending machine in the lunchroom?" she asked her daughter-in-law.
"No, but I'll take a bag of potato chips if they have some," the young girl replied.
As Bridget was digging in the bottom of her purse for loose change, she heard static crackle on the radio followed by a faint voice.
"... safe ... enough air ... few more hours ... tell rescue ... to hurry."
Though the reception was poor and the message garbled, cries of joy and relief erupted throughout the mine office. Bridget, in particular, was trembling with emotion, for she had recognized her husband's voice.
"Thank God! They're all right!" she exclaimed, hugging first Jeannine and then her sisters-in-law.
The words Doyle O'Reilly had managed to convey through the tons of rock that entombed the seven miners resurrected hope in the hearts of the desperate family members on the surface.
* * *
The rescue workers changed shifts at midnight. The old man at the radio finally fell asleep around 2:00 a.m., but the families remained awake, eager for any news. Their vigilance was rewarded just before dawn, when the crackle of the radio broke the silence of the mine office again.
"... still alive ... but where ... rescue workers ... get here before ...."
"That's Frank!" one of Aidan O'Reilly's aunts exclaimed and ran to the radio. "Frank, can you hear me?" she cried into the mouthpiece.
The old man, awakened by the commotion, told her that the communication with the miners was one-way only. It was impossible for someone from the surface to speak to the men below.
There was more static crackle, and another voice could be heard on the radio, one that belonged to another of Aidan's uncles.
"... air supply ... still hanging in there ... tell ... love them ...."
Shortly after, the third uncle spoke.
"... too late for ... dead ...."
A collective gasp went up through the room. At least one of the miners was dead, perhaps more.
Jeannine, who had been standing around the radio with the others, returned to her seat. Someone was dead, and she had not heard Aidan's voice. She was not sure if the sudden wrenching pain she felt in the pit of her stomach was from the baby in her womb or the pain of certainty that she would never see her young husband alive again.
An hour after sunrise, the radio sounded one last time. Several men spoke at once, and Jeannine recognized the voices of Aidan's father, his three uncles and the two family friends. Struggling to hear her own husband's voice, she did not comprehend what the men in the mine were trying to tell them. Only a few words could be heard above the static of the radio.
"... sorry ... unavoidable ... so young ...."
One last word seemed to echo through the mine office: Aidan. When the radio fell silent at last, Jeannine collapsed into her mother-in-law's arms.
* * *
At eight o'clock, another group of volunteers headed into the mine to take the place of the rescuers who had worked through the night. Meanwhile, some of the family members slept fitfully in sleeping bags on the floor of the mine office and in the colliery's lunchroom. Jeannine remained with her mother-in-law, refusing to leave her side. She had the urge to confess her pregnancy, to assure Bridget that her son would live on in the child she carried, but caution stilled her tongue. She was only three months pregnant, and there was the possibility she could miscarry. No, it was better not to tell anyone yet, not until she was relatively sure that she would not lose the baby.
Around 9:00 a.m., a group of miners' wives prepared fresh coffee, toast and eggs for the families of the trapped miners. Although most had no appetites, they were encouraged to eat to keep up their strength. Jeannine ate sparingly, just toast and a glass of milk, and hoped she would be able to keep that down. With all that she had to bear, she certainly did not want to deal with morning sickness, too.
As the hours slowly passed, the hope that had been awakened by Doyle's first words over the radio began to fade. There had not been a sound from below for some time.
"I wonder how much progress the rescue team has made," one of Aidan's aunts said as she gazed out the lunchroom window at the entrance to the mine.
"They've been working since yesterday morning," Bridget replied. "I would think they're getting close to clearing the rubble out of the passageway."
Time was a precious commodity but not nearly as precious as air. Once the oxygen was gone, the miners would die. As hope diminished, prayers were uttered with greater intensity. A young priest showed up at the mine office to offer solace. Several hours passed with no word from either the trapped men or the rescue workers. Then at 2:55, a shout went up from the miners posted at the entrance to the main shaft. One of the men raced to the office with the good news.
"The rescue team just broke through."
"Are the men all right?" Bridget cried.
"We'll know soon enough."
* * *
"Can anyone hear me?" one of the rescuers shouted through the fist-sized opening in the rock.
His question was met with silence, but the miner's failure to respond did not necessarily mean the worst. The men might just be unconscious, not dead.
"Let's make this opening larger, so we can get those guys out of there."
Emergency medical workers stood by with gurneys, portable oxygen tanks and immediate response gear.
"I can see them," someone shouted.
By 4:30, the opening was large enough for the rescue personnel to enter the tomblike enclosure. They carried the first man to the main shaft where an EMT tried to detect a pulse. Not finding one, he began artificial respiration. A defibrillator was used, but the heart refused to beat. The dead man was taken up to the surface and put in a waiting ambulance as the paramedics continued their attempts to revive him.
Five times this exercise was repeated, with no variation in the outcome. Six men were dead. Only one remained in the ground.
* * *
The family members waiting in the mine office were feeling the strain. Some paced, some wrung their hands, some bit their fingernails and others puffed away on cigarettes.
"Why haven't they told us anything?" one of the aunts cried. "They must have found the men by now."
The tears Jeannine had been valiantly holding back all morning broke through at last. The moment she dreaded was drawing near. It would not be long before someone came through the door to put an end to her dreams and notify her that her husband was ....
"Alive!" the EMT shouted to the rescue team. "This one has a pulse."
Aidan O'Reilly was strapped to the gurney, an oxygen mask was placed over his mouth and he was rushed up to the waiting ambulance. At the sound of the siren, the families raced out of the mine office. Who was being taken to the hospital? they demanded to know. Was it one of the miners or had a rescue worker been injured? To a man, those who knew the truth hung their heads, not able to bear the look of hope in the eyes of the dead miners' loved ones. Rather than dwell on the death of six men, the chief of the rescue crew chose to focus on the miracle that one had survived.
"Mrs. O'Reilly," he said, taking Bridget's hand in his own. "Your son is alive."
Wasn't it ironic, people later asked themselves, that the one man believed to be dead was the only one to come out of the ground alive?
* * *
Aidan was released from the hospital two days later, in time to attend the funerals for his father and his uncles. It was a day of tears, grief and pain, yet it was also a day of thanksgiving because God had seen fit to spare one man's life.
"All the time I was down there I thought about you and our child," Aidan told Jeannine when they were finally alone together. "I kept calling out for you, even though I knew you couldn't hear me."
"We heard the others over the radio."
"Others? What others?"
"The other miners: your father, your uncles and the other two men. We heard them over the microphone that was lowered in the hole. There were several transmissions throughout the night. It's odd, but you were the only one we didn't hear."
"That's impossible," he argued. "The other men died shortly after the mine caved in. I was down there, the only one alive, for close to thirty hours."
Jeannine remembered the bits of sentences she had heard over the radio. She suddenly realized she and the others had not heard the voices of the trapped men over the lowered microphone. Rather the men's pleas were being broadcast from beyond the barrier of life and death. The six men who died in the cave-in had wanted Aidan O'Reilly to be rescued. He was far too young to die in a mining disaster. His father, uncles and family friends had wanted him to return to the surface, to go to college, make his living above the ground and find his happily-ever-after ending with Jeannine and his child.
Image below © Angela Cater's Animal Art and Illustration
Salem was never a miner. He just liked to go into the shafts and chase the canaries.
