Quecreek Mine Rescue, July 2002: Nine Miners Saved After 77 Hours

The Quecreek Mine rescue ended at 2:45 a.m. on July 28, 2002, when the last of nine coal miners trapped by floodwater was lifted to the surface in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The men had been stranded about 240 feet underground for roughly 77 hours after their crew broke into an abandoned, water-filled mine on the night of July 24. All nine survived, and so did the nine co-workers who escaped the rushing water that night.

What Happened at Quecreek on July 24, 2002

The Quecreek No. 1 Mine, run by Black Wolf Coal Company, had started producing coal in March 2001. On the evening of Wednesday, July 24, 2002, eighteen men were working underground in two crews.

Just before 9 p.m., the continuous mining machine operated by the crew in the section known as 1 Left cut through a wall of coal into the old Saxman mine, also recorded as Harrison No. 2. That mine had been abandoned decades earlier and had filled with water. Water poured into Quecreek’s tunnels; witnesses later described tens of millions of gallons.

One of the trapped men, Dennis Hall, used the mine phone to warn the second crew working nearby. Those nine miners fought their way out through rising water, and the company notified federal regulators at 9:40 p.m. that water was rushing into the mine and nine men were unaccounted for.

A Rescue Built on Guesswork, Air and Pumps

Rescuers did not know whether the trapped crew was alive or where they had gone. Engineers from Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection worked out where the men would most likely retreat to escape the water, then used survey points and GPS to mark a drilling spot on the farmland above.

The timeline that followed:

Date and time	Event
July 24, about 9 p.m.	The crew in 1 Left breaks into the flooded Saxman mine
July 24, 9:40 p.m.	Mine officials notify the Mine Safety and Health Administration
July 25, 2:50 a.m.	A rig begins drilling a 6-inch air hole
July 25, about 5 a.m.	The air hole reaches the miners; rescuers hear tapping on the drill pipe
July 26, early morning	The drill bit on the first rescue shaft breaks at 105 feet
July 27, 10:16 p.m.	The rescue shaft breaks through; a phone line confirms all nine are alive
July 28, about 1 a.m.	The first miner is lifted out in a rescue capsule
July 28, 2:45 a.m.	The last miner reaches the surface

The air hole did more than supply oxygen. Rescuers pumped compressed air into the chamber, creating a pressurized pocket that helped hold back the water, an approach proposed by federal mine ventilation expert John Urosek. At the same time, crews brought in large pumps, some donated by companies from neighboring states, to drain water out of the mine.

The rescue shaft was the hardest part. A drill bit weighing about 1,500 pounds broke at a depth of 105 feet in the first hole early on July 26. Crews started a second shaft two feet away and fabricated a tool to fish the broken bit out, and the first shaft was eventually the one that reached the men. Because the miners had been breathing pressurized air, the U.S. Navy sent portable decompression chambers in case the men developed the bends on the way up.

The Nine Men and Their Families

The trapped crew was led by foreman Randy Fogle. With him were Mark Popernack, Tom Foy, Blaine Mayhugh, John Phillippi, John Unger, Ron Hileman, Robert Pugh and Dennis Hall. Underground, they moved to higher ground as the water rose and endured cold, wet air for more than three days. When rescuers made voice contact at about 11 p.m. on July 27, officials said the men were in relatively good spirits and asked for snuff and food.

Above ground, families waited at a fire hall in nearby Sipesville while Governor Mark Schweiker briefed them before speaking to the press, a rule his staff later credited with keeping families informed first. The mine sits about 13 miles from Shanksville, where United Flight 93 had crashed during the September 11 attacks less than a year earlier.

Rescuers sent food and blankets down the shaft, then lowered MSHA’s rescue capsule, which the agency had maintained for about 30 years since an Idaho mine fire. The men rode it up one at a time.

Why the Map Was Wrong

Investigators from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Deep Mine Safety examined how a working mine could cut into a flooded one. Their answer was a map.

The map Black Wolf used for the old mine was undated and uncertified and did not show its complete, final workings. As a result, the abandoned tunnels were plotted in the wrong place on Quecreek’s own maps. MSHA’s report identified the root cause as the lack of a certified final map of the Harrison No. 2 mine in the state’s map repository. Black Wolf Coal Company, Musser Engineering and PBS Coals each received a citation for relying on the inaccurate map.

What Changed After the Rescue

At a Senate hearing in Johnstown on October 21, 2002, the miners and their families raised two questions: why the old mine’s water had not been better accounted for, and why a horizontal drill meant to probe ahead for hidden water was not on site. Pennsylvania officials testified that companies would have to supply accurate information about nearby workings or lose permission to mine, and called for old mine maps to be scanned and archived so they could be found quickly.

The rescue site became a memorial, and the nine miners’ story was retold in books and a 2002 television film. To see how the rescue fell in that summer, open the full 2002 calendar, or use the days-between-dates calculator to measure the days from the accident to the final rescue.