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Overview
Theriault collaborated with his cousin Marjorie Coady to write this book, which contains colour photographs as well as excerpts from the report of a judicial inquiry that called Westray “an accident waiting to happen.” Theriault describes what it was like to work underground in the mine and takes readers through the harrowing rescue, which recovered fifteen of the twenty-six bodies.
Theriault openly discusses his complicated journey in this straightforward, simply written memoir, which begins with the promise of a good job with good pay at Westray.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781771086745 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nimbus Publishing |
| Publication date: | 08/07/2018 |
| Pages: | 176 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.45(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A GOOD JOB WITH GOOD PAY
"The Westray mine is located at Plymouth, near Stellarton, in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Westray was the only operating underground coal mine in Pictou County at the time of the explosion. The Pictou coalfield had been mined for some 200 years, and elements of the disaster rest in the nature of that coalfield with its thick and gassy seams. The Foord seam, which Westray was mining, has hosted at least eight mines."
— the Westray Report
April 1987
I WAS EMPLOYED AT GOOD-WEAR TIRE SHOP LOCATED ON STELLARTON Road in New Glasgow. Jim Livingstone was the manager of the shop and had asked me to join their team. Two years previously I had worked with Jim at Andy's Tire Shop located on the Westville Road, also in New Glasgow. I enjoyed my time working with him; he was an excellent man to work for and with.
While employed at Good-Wear tire, we landed a contract with Westray Coal-Curragh Resources Inc. to supply, repair, and refurbish their tire needs. I can still recall to this day my first time arriving at the mine site. The company was just at the beginning of production and there were only two trailers on-site — one for employees and the other for equipment.
I was instructed to pick up several tires for repair. The road was not fully developed; there was no pavement in sight. It was like taking a camping road through the woods on a non-marked path. The site eventually improved with the addition of a building and the road was better grated. It was paved several years later.
Roman Schule (whose job title was master mechanic) was who I reported to in regards to their tire needs. Our contract was such that I was on call 24/7 and would be able to respond within minutes. Not long after I started going to the mine site on behalf of Good-Wear, I was called in to repair a tire on one of their machines. The machine was located down the tunnel of the Westray mine, but thankfully not too far down.
With my repair kit and tools in hand, I walked down the tunnel and repaired the tire. It was a weird experience — repairing the tire with water dripping on and around me like it was raining out. Roman was a stickler for being punctual; if the agreement was nine, then you were there at nine and not a minute after. I take pride in being dependable both at work and at home. Unfortunately, I would be challenged on this trait.
June 1990
On this particular day, four new tires were purchased for one of Westray's scoop loaders. My co-worker and I were in charge of shipping and receiving tires in the shop. With Westray's order in hand, we worked on the tires all day putting them together and filling them with calcium chloride, finally finishing all four tires in the early evening.
I suggested to my co-worker that we should load the tires on the delivery truck so they would be the first delivery of the day. After a long day, he wanted to load first thing in the morning as it was getting late and he had plans for the evening, which didn't include loading tires on a delivery truck.
Bright and early the next morning we loaded the delivery truck and headed over to the Westray mine site. When we arrived, we pulled up to the garage. We didn't even have a chance to get out of the truck when Roman stomped over. He was furious.
He informed us that since we were so late that he would not accept delivery. I proceeded to walk back to the truck and waited patiently while my co-worker tried to smooth over the ruffled feathers of our irate customer. After what seemed like a long time, with no visible results, my co-worker returned to the delivery truck.
My co-worker was discouraged, so I asked if I could try to persuade the customer to accept delivery. I'm an easygoing, soft-spoken guy, so when I approached the irate customer, he was receptive to my suggestions. Simply put, I gave him my personal guarantee that a situation such as this would not happen again. We were experiencing growing pains, I said, and I would personally take care of his account.
Any questions, concerns, orders, etc., speak with me directly, I told him — I'm your "go-to" guy. After giving Roman my personal guarantee, he accepted delivery of the tires he had ordered. From that day on, we became friends, and all his orders were directed to me. Whenever he called, I was there when I said I would be, sometimes a little early. I'm heavily involved in hockey, both playing and coaching. On one particular night, I was playing hockey in Stellarton when I got a call from the mine. Being a man of my word, I took off my gear, grabbed my keys, and headed out to the Westray mine to repair a tire.
December 1990
We were having our annual Christmas party at the tire shop. It was an informal affair and drop-ins were welcome. A former employee, John Munroe, had joined the gathering, and because it was informal he brought along his brother, George. At the time, George happened to be employed at Westray. Because Westray was a major customer of ours, and I was the "go-to" guy, the conversation turned toward the mine. I informed George that I was a trained welder and was interested in obtaining employment at the mine as a welder. As the discussion progressed, he tried to discourage me from this endeavour.
November 1991
An employment opportunity arose at Westray for a welder. In 1980, I had trained as a welder in Sydney, Nova Scotia. When I took the Sydney course, I was lucky enough to have relatives who resided in Cape Breton (close to where my course was being held). Therefore, I could go to school during the week and return home to my wife and kids on the weekends. When I was younger, I can remember my grandmother saying, "get a trade so you'll always have something to fall back on." So, on her advice, I pursued a trade and the chance of a better-paying job.
In March 1983, I had the opportunity to upgrade my welding skills (high-pressure welding ticket) closer to home in Pictou County. The second course was held at the Pictou Regional Vocational School, since renamed the Nova Scotia Community College, Pictou Campus, located in Stellarton.
Despite my training, it was hard to find long-term welding work. I did manage to secure work twice at the Trenton car works, which manufactured steel railcars and underwent several name and owner changes over the years before finally closing its doors as a railcar manufacturer in 2007. When I worked there, it was owned by Hawker Siddeley. I was laid off twice and in the interim worked as a gas-station attendant to support my family. I eventually found employment at the tire shop, where wages were slightly higher.
Now in 1991, the job I yearned for had become available. During a routine delivery, Roman and I discussed a job opening. He was interested in my qualifications and wanted to see a sample of my welding skills. We arranged for me to return the following day to demonstrate my skills as a welder.
When I returned the next day, I performed the tasks he requested. When he inspected my work, he was impressed with my skill, informed me that it met with the requirements of the job opening, and that he would let me know of his decision shortly. When the call came at the shop later that day, I was told the opening was filled. Nepotism was in full force — one of the mine managers had hired his brother-in-law.
My disappointment was so transparent that Roman took pity on me and asked me to come see him at the mine site the next day. When I arrived at the site the next day, Roman escorted me to his office. Not knowing what was coming next, I waited for him to tell me what this impromptu meeting was about. He started with saying that there was twenty years' worth of work and the money was good.
The meeting then turned into a job interview when I was asked if I would be interested in becoming a coal miner. Roman was aware that I had a strong work ethic and would work as many hours as the company would give me. I was told that the wages could be up to sixty thousand dollars a year for someone who was willing to work. I was interested in the job but was unsure if I could work underground.
I had been married for eleven years, and by then Marilyn (nee Lennon) and I had three children: Aaron, born in 1981, James, born in 1984, and Lindsey, born in 1987. The oldest of five children, I was born in Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, in 1961.
While considering Roman's proposal, I shared with him my grandfather Roy Oliver's story of working in the mines both before and after the Second World War. Gramps worked in three of the mines in Nova Scotia, including Sydney Mines, Springhill, and Westville.
Although I was very young, I can still remember staying at my grandparents' house one summer in Sydney Mines. Early in the morning, we would meet at the table for breakfast. Gramps had a pet budgie, and the same routine was performed every morning. Gramps would open the cage and the bird would fly down on his plate and eat breakfast with us. We would talk about what the day had in store for us and share stories of what had happened the day before. These are among my fondest memories of my grandfather, and I cherish them to this day.
At the same time every morning, Gramps picked up his lunch box, put on his coat and hat, gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek, and headed out the door. Then Grandma and I would go back to bed for a few more hours of sleep. After sharing these memories with Roman, I asked if I could take a tour of the mine to see how it would affect me. Maybe, since my grandfather worked underground in various mines, I could too; it just very well may be in the blood.
The following day, I returned to the site with the intention of going underground. While nervously waiting for Roman, I was informed he was unavailable. An electrician who worked for the mine, a man named Brian Palmer, whom I knew casually because of my work in and around the mine, asked if I would like to accompany him down to the Number Ten Crossover.
Saying to myself, this is my chance, I agreed. Because of limited illumination and this being my first time underground in the mine, I had to have certain specialized equipment. There had to be a personal light source, so we went into a room to collect the equipment, including a hard hat with a battery-powered light attached (just like you see in the movies). Some work areas were dimly lit by machinery, but some had no machinery at all so the lighted hard hat was your only light source.
The transportation to take us underground was a transformed farm tractor. Because Brian worked in different areas and not for specified periods of time, his tractor was equipped to carry whatever tools he needed for the job at hand, and one to two passengers. The "crew" tractor had a permanently attached cart with built-in benches to seat eight to ten people.
We got on his tractor and headed down into the mine. We drove deeper and deeper until we arrived at an area where some men were working. While Brian was doing repairs to some equipment, I was chatting with the men who were there. When I informed them I was considering employment in their area of the mine, one guy said, "Are you crazy? Why would you want to work underground in a mine?" I thought to myself, then why are you here?
I told him about my conversation with Roman — twenty years' worth of work, good pay with benefits, unlimited overtime. If you're willing to work, which I was, the work was there. I had to return to the tire shop, and Brian couldn't return me to the surface because he wasn't finished with the job at hand. He gave me directions back to the Main tunnel, with instructions that I could wait there till someone came along to give me a drive to the top. Walking along with just my solitary lamplight for company, I wondered what I was getting myself into, and if I could do this for a living.
I patiently waited at the Main tunnel for thirty minutes and no vehicles came by going to the surface. Anxious to get back to GoodWear before they sent a search party looking for me, I decided to return to the surface on my own. It took me a little over an hour, all the while not seeing a person or vehicle.
Because of my reputation for dependability, I was anxious to get back to work at the tire shop. I'd spent half the day at the mine site already. Upon my return to Good-Wear, I called Roman and accepted his job offer. After the call, I gave my employer two weeks' notice.
WORKING IN THE MINE
"The underground workers at Westray ranged from miners with more than 20 years of underground mining experience to new workers fresh out of school. About one-third of the Westray underground workers hired in 1992 had some previous coal mining experience, about one-third had previous underground experience in hard-rock mining, and about one-third had no prior underground work experience."
– the Westray Report
December 1991
After I finished my two-weeks' notice at Good-Wear, I went to Westray and formally filled out an application even though I knew I had the job. In the employment application was a confidentiality agreement. In a nutshell, I couldn't discuss my job or anything about the mine off-site. I had no concerns about signing this agreement at the time.
Day two of orientation was safety training. There were three of us in total. One was a mechanic, the other was a general labourer, and then me, who was classified as a miner-in-training. The first part of orientation was a movie about open-pit mines, a form of surface mining, which I found confusing because Westray was an underground mine. When the movie was over, one of the managers demonstrated how to use a MSA W65 self-rescuer, which was like a respirator, and the proper way to put it over your mouth and nose.
To this day, I still don't know why the movie shown was about an open-pit mine, not an underground mine. Didn't they have any training films of underground? Surely, there must have been somewhere that had underground such as ours so that we could relate to what we were seeing. After the demonstration, we were taken to the locker room, assigned lockers, locks, a wrench, the self-rescuer, and a hard hat capable of attaching a light to. Each individual was responsible for purchasing his own belt to attach the work tools to.
After the locker room, we were then taken to what was called the dry area. Here we were given a hanger, which looked like a steel basket. In the basket you placed any equipment you used during the shift including your boots, tools, and hard hat. The basket was suspended from the ceiling on a hook, with additional hooks on the sides for any work clothing you wore that day. The room temperature was extremely warm and clothing became dry very quickly.
Each basket was equipped with a combination lock that only you and the company had the combination to. After your first shift in the mine, this basket was your primary locker; the one in the other room was for your street clothes. Your work clothes never left the mine site. All washing was done in-house; taking clothes home was not an option. The company took care of your work clothes from beginning to end.
Day three of orientation over, I was now on the job. I showed up for work, put on my work uniform, gathered my tools, and put on my lighted hard hat (this is all done in the dry area before every shift). Ready for work, I walked out to the waiting area with the other men. I attached the battery to my belt and put the light on my hard hat. I was ready to head underground.
We got on a tractor and drove to the area of the mine where we were assigned to work that day. For an inexperienced miner, there were two crews to which they were assigned in order to orient them to working underground. In the beginning, it was only eight-hour shifts, which, over time, increased to twelve hours. During the orientation period new employees were not eligible for overtime.
One crew was responsible for the belts, which transported the coal from underground all the way up to the surface. The main priority was keeping the belts running and free from debris. This job required a lot of walking because there were multiple belts that stretched for large spaces throughout the mine. The other crew, which I became a member of, was responsible for the arches (braces for the roof of the mine).
First on the agenda was to place arches for support of the roof in that area of the mine. The arches were huge — the size of an overpass (one lane) that you would typically drive under. Engineers determined where and how many arches would be placed in each area.
Each arch was made of solid steel — there were three pieces in total, and erected on-site. The straight sides had identical indentations in the sides (like a ladder) to put in additional braces for extra support with a steel plate welded on top. The top arch was one solid piece of steel, with plates welded on the bottom. When the sides were matched up, the two plates came together. The plates were then bolted together to make one structure.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Westray"
by .
Copyright © 2018 James Theriault.
Excerpted by permission of Nimbus Publishing Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword xi
Preface xiii
Introduction 1
Part 1 In The Mine
Chapter 1 A Good Job With Good Pay 5
Chapter 2 Cave-Ins 18
Chapter 3 Dust and Danger 29
Chapter 4 Tragedy Strikes 39
Chapter 5 The Rescue 46
Chapter 6 The Rescue Ends 53
Part 2 The Aftermath
Chapter 7 Nightmares and Survivor's Guilt 61
Chapter 8 Rehabilitation 70
Chapter 9 Surgery 82
Part 3 The Westray Bill
Chapter 10 Seeking Justice 93
Chapter 11 Lobbying the Lawmakers 105
Chapter 12 Learning The Ropes in Ottawa 114
Chapter 13 The Big Day 124
Chapter 14 Spreading the Message 130
Part 4 The Anniversaries
Chapter 15 Twenty-Year Anniversary 141
Chapter 16 Twenty-Five Years Later 150
Timeline 159
Acknowledgements 161
Photo Credits 162