At breakfast time, Thursday morning, just at the change of shift, the geophone expert reported voices.
The message was sped aloft:
"The men are still alive! We have heard them talking!"
The news seemed too good to be credited. Seven days the three men had been entombed, seven days without food, water or light, seven days in foul air, probably impregnated with noxious vapors.[1]
[1] A very similar accident, wherein a landslide accompanied the fall of the coal bank, occurred at Blue Rock, Ohio, in 1856. There, also, four entombed men were rescued after an imprisonment of eight days. (F. R-W)
Suddenly, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the signal came from below to the pit-head to cease hauling.
What had happened?
There could be but one explanation. The cars must have stopped.
There had been another fall in the mine, blocking off the gallery.
The rescuers were caught!