Cape Breton's Magazine

explosion, they didn't have to deal with the carbon monoxide. You know, things were completely different in Westray.... And I don't know whether that's right or wrong to give somebody that hope, you know. I don't know the best way to handle that. (Announcer: But something beyond hope was driving George Muise. On Sunday evening he went back to the mine and successfully pushed to be part of the advance team. Their task then was to find a way into the next working ar? ea of the Westray mine, the north main. The tun? nel that led into the north main starts several hundred feet beyond 11 crosscut. It's a tunnel 5500 feet into the mine. It connects the two main tunnels of Westray. (There were also new wor? ries for George. Two of his old team members were sent back to their jobs in Cape Breton. And George wasn't so sure about his new team.) George: This team--I had four men that had never been into a rescue situation before. I started to feel maybe a little uneasy because the two men that left, I knew their experiences, I dealt with them be? fore, I trained with them. And now here I was, going to take four brand new men down into an area that was probably as bad as they'll ever see. Our job Sunday night was explained to us on the surface. Along with Glenn Jones's team from Westray, we would begin to ex- -., • ' plore areas of the north main in order to look for a possible entrance into the north main. We left 8 crosscut at that time under oxygen, went down to 10 cross? cut. We went through 10 crosscut over into the Number 2 deep. Number 2 deep was the belt deep. And the destruction there was the same that we saw in the southwest. The conveyor belt was completely collapsed. Steel H-beams--12-inch H-beams--in some areas were completely col? lapsed and folded down. At one area just below 10 crosscut, we had to get down and crawl on our sides and squeeze through two of these roof supports in order to get further down into the mine. George Muise is also a member of the Glace Bay Volunteer Fire Department Jacques-Cartier Motel kitchenette units available / telephones in all rooms P. O. Box 555, Sydney, N. S. B1P 6H4 (902) 539-4375 or 539-4378 or 539-4379 SYDNEY - GLACE BAY HIGHWAY FRANCAIS 2 Kilometres de I'Aeroport ENGLISH SKI BEN EOIN 5000 sq. ft. of new base facilities • 100% snow making • 100% lighting for night skiing • quality grooming TME FAlVIILlt" SK:X yVR'E'' Ski Ben Eoin • Route 4, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia • Completely Serviced • 20 minutes from Sydney Once we did that, we went down to 11 cross? cut. At 11 crosscut was a major roof fall. The debris was a height of about 40 or 50 feet. We couldn't see over the top of the debris to see if we had an opening to con? tinue to enter the north main. Myself, Glenn Jones, and Jay Dooley proceeded to climb up on top of this fall and debris, to see if we had an entrance into the north main. It was determined at that time that we thought we could get down into north main at that level. But the area was still working very heavy. The roof material was falling around us. There were pieces of roof material that were hanging over our heads. By working, I mean that the roof, being unsupported, is still continuing to col? lapse. At times a half a ton or maybe a ton of rock would come down at once. The rock size at that time wasn't that great, but the amount of material that would come down would certainly, you know, hurt one of the mine rescue people if they had have been in con? tact with that. When the roof is working. Ski Weekends Packages Available at the • SNO-PHONE: 902-828-2222