Blue Mountain Explosion

By Don V. Hylton

When the mine foreman of Blue Mountain coal mine, Mark Morgan, was approached by authorities investigating a terrorist plot to cause an underground explosion, he could not believe what he was hearing. Why would someone want to kill miners in an Appalachian coal mine? And even more perplexing to Mark was the difficult planning that would be required for this horrific act. Who would do this, how and why?

Thrust into the probe of this unlikely conspiracy, Mark will be forced to question friendships and loyalty of miners. Mark had taken family relationships for granted, until his investigation reveals how the fragile bond between men and women, and love of their children can change everything. Before the mystery can be solved, Mark must acknowledge how his actions contributed to the deadly plot that could potentially murder dozens of miners underground.

The year is 2013, a date that will not be forgotten because of the exploits of Mark Morgan, and the story of Blue Mountain Explosion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098368739

Book preview

ONE

A diverse group was present—psychiatrist, newspaper reporter, mining company vice president, National Security Agency operative and others to hear facts about the mine explosion underground. Facts only I could provide this summer day in twenty-thirteen.

My account is not going to be easy to convey because at the core of it is a stark realization; I relied on the dead to save the living. Even so, my responsibility for these events compels me to explain how this happened.

My reference, unusual but true, about relying on the dead was more of a supernatural allusion than an historical orientation about fatalities related to coal mining mistakes committed over the last hundred years.

The situation is perhaps more suited to a quote by Cicero, The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

Odd, remembering quotes when I become stressed out.

My concern is after my explanation is given, what will people think of me? Would they think I was crazy? I have always worried about family, friends, coworkers—everyone’s perception of me. Some consider it a personality flaw. It’s just me being me.

Regret it or not, everyone must know how this happened regardless of how improbable. It is essential the incidents be recounted leading to the explosion beginning nine days ago with Charlie Wagner‘s death, although with everything that has transpired I am not really sure if his undoing was the starting point. I just know it feels like the beginning to me.

Surface security informed me the hand-held radio sending an endless transmission belonged to Charlie Wagner. Every underground miner at Blue Mountain coal mine was assigned a radio ID correlating with the miner using the radio. Security maintained the list of every radio owner’s identification number and sent me to Charlie’s assigned work area.

Occasionally, the send button on the personal radio became unknowingly pressed against the miner’s gear or hip depending on how the radio was worn. The result caused constant interference by the sounds originating from the radio’s location.

I have been overheard more than once unaware my radio was transmitting. It could be quite embarrassing, the words you speak to another not realizing it wasn’t privately spoken.

The point is no one in the mine heard Charlie on his radio. Mine personnel did hear the roar of the conveyor belt running in the background where Charlie was working. I was there to find out why.

After exiting the diesel track bus, I strode by the conveyor belt toward where Charlie should be and thought about the work required maintaining beltlines. This was the biggest underground coal mining complex in southwest Virginia, if not all of Virginia. With more than twenty miles of conveyor belts, keeping them operating properly was no easy task.

Typically, with all of my other responsibilities as the mine foreman, the conveyor belt rover would have been notified to come here and discover why that blasted radio was stuck and Charlie wasn’t responding to anyone’s calls.

It was one of those gut feelings that drew me here—something more than the radio was the problem. Charlie could be hurt, or something could cause a conveyor belt failure preventing thousands of tons of coal from being mined.

Belt failures happen and it reminded me of a discussion, no not a discussion, a gripe session many years ago where my wife, Antoinette, patiently listened to my complaints about all of the problems encountered on conveyors. We were unaware our young daughter, Kathy, was listening and I ranted more than necessary. Conveyor belts are beasts that I am tired of fighting, I declared with a sigh of frustration and weariness.

Later that evening as Kathy was being tucked into bed, she asked me to tell her a story about how her daddy had won the fight with the mean beast called a veyor belt.

Antoinette looked at me and smiled. Go ahead dear, but don’t make it too scary. You always make your stories too scary. Keep it short, it is past her bedtime, she said as she exited our daughter’s bedroom.

How does a dad begin to make up a story to his young daughter and include all the complexities of fifty-four inch wide conveyor belts running around drive rollers driven by dual four hundred horsepower electric motors?

Would Kathy recognize the difference of a tail pulley inside a tailpiece frame on one end of the beltline and a discharge pulley on the head end used for transporting thousands of tons of coal?

There are intelligent accountants that can recite and apply intricate sections of the tax code, but lack basic mechanical and electrical comprehension of an underground conveyor system. How could I make my young daughter understand?

Should the story begin at the tailpiece where the coal is first unloaded onto the conveyor belt after being mined and follow the coal’s journey?

Should I mention the belt is supported by rigid structure consisting of metal idlers suspended from the mine roof by chains?

Would Kathy understand the coal travels from one beltline to the next from tail to head until the coal reaches its final destination many miles away to be shipped up a mine shaft more than fourteen hundred feet to the surface at a pace of one skip every sixty-three seconds, twenty-two tons-per-skip?

Conveyor belts, my story began for Kathy, are wild creatures and very dangerous for miners deep in the earth. The bigger ones have tails wider than a car and have a deep, raspy hum when awake.

If you want a child to imagine something, make it a scary monster.

A conveyor belt’s bones are made of metal and rolling idlers that forms a long pulsating spine allowing their black skin to course from one set of bones to the next. Their skin quickly scuttles from their tail to their head across their metal bones and then returns on the underside of the beast until it goes all the way back to the tail.

My daughter should appreciate scary monsters can injure you without a second’s notice.

After a brief moment, I continued, They have no legs or arms and resemble a long, straight, wide, angry sea serpent that wants you to get close so their strong, moving black skin can grab you and wrap around you until you are crushed in its bones.

I ran my fingers up Kathy’s back to her shoulders and tickled her under her arm. She giggled. Then, I squeezed her gently to imitate the giant monster in my story.

Next, I decided to make my creature more dangerous.

Never stand in front of the head of a conveyor belt when it is awake. Their heads are like a dragon’s head, but instead of breathing fire, they spew tons of coal over their snout that would bury and crush a person in an instant. I threw the blanket over Kathy and made the noise I imagined a dragon would make.

Kathy quickly removed the blanket, maybe a little frightened.

I had to reassure her. It was time to let my girl know that miners were the masters of scary monsters known as conveyor belts.

"Coal miners control the beasts by tying their bones to the mine roof with chains. We also anchor their tails to the mine floor so they can’t get loose and wrap their skin around in knots.

Today one of the creatures managed to break free. All of us miners fought and fought the brute until we pulled its skin straight and re-anchored its tail. It was a long difficult battle but we finally conquered the thing. And no one was hurt, except the conveyor belt broke some bones that we had to replace.

Mommy, Kathy screamed.

Hush, girl. What’s wrong? Are you frightened? I thought we were having fun.

Antoinette entered the room. I told you not to terrify the child, Mark, Antoinette chided me.

Kathy reached to hug both of us. Someday when I am big like you and mommy, I’m gonna catch all the ‘veyor belts and throw them in the ocean so that you will never have to fight another one, Kathy promised me.

My daughter was twenty now and I doubted she remembers my story or her promise.

I walked through the conveyor belt entry to the edge of the intersection illuminated by flood lights. The East-One conveyor belt discharge that emptied onto the Two-North beltline was straight in front of me.

The conveyor belt hummed as it traveled across the rigid structure and rolling idlers. The tail pulley to the Two-North beltline was to the right where Charlie would be performing routine tasks.

Charlie’s cap light and helmet, mine belt and radio were suspended on a rope hanger attached to a roof bolt plate in the mine roof. Something was wrong. Why had Charlie removed his mining equipment?

Two more steps and I noticed he had also removed the guard from the belt’s rotating pulley inside the Two-North tailpiece.

He stood staring between the top and bottom of the beltline into the massive tail pulley where the conveyor belt looped and began its journey back to the Two-North discharge four thousand feet away.

I walked within three steps of Charlie where he was standing dangerously near the unguarded conveyor tail roller and yelled over the chatter of the conveyor belt, Charlie, step back before you slip and fall into the belt. Why is that guard removed from the tail pulley while it is in operation?

He glanced around at me allowing his features to be illuminated by my cap light and the flood lights hanging overhead. The hopeless expression on his face before he jumped feet-first between the top and bottom loop of the conveyor belt would haunt my memory forever, if he was crushed to death.

This isn’t happening. I didn’t want this memory, or guilt. I had to save Charlie!

I lunged and grabbed his arm with my left hand as his feet and legs contacted the bottom of the running conveyor belt moving in the direction of the tail pulley.

Charlie was a slight man, less than six feet tall, weighing no more than one hundred and sixty pounds. I’m one-ninety and six feet-one inch, but with the conveyor belt running nearly seven hundred feet-per-minute and tugging on his lower body, holding him would be next to impossible. His lower body was inside the metal frame of the turn-back and he was a few inches from being pulled into the tail roller with me along for the death ride.

Releasing him wasn’t an option.

Charlie screamed, Let me die, Mark! Let go of me.

The closest belt shut-off switch was attached to a mine prop too far away for me to reach. If I released my grasp, four steps and the conveyor could be shut off. In those brief moments, Charlie would be crushed to death in the tail pulley. Using my free hand, I quickly yanked my hammer from the belt around my waist and flung the hammer at the switch in desperation. During the throw, my leverage was lost and I tumbled into the conveyor belt following Charlie.

Somehow something guided the hammer and it slammed into the conveyor switch and broke it as darkness overcame me.

TWO

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others

—Jonathan Swift

Have you ever noticed how the smell of disinfectant sends a signal to your brain everything is clean? This was my first thought after regaining consciousness about the sanitized odor of a hospital room in Bluefield Regional Medical Center.

Silence was my bed mate except for the ringing in my ears. My head was throbbing and my left arm was in a sling. It took a moment or two to become focused. Then I saw her.

My wife, Antoinette, was standing over me. My intimate name for her was Nettie. I was the only person that used her nickname, and only when we were alone.

Are you going to stay awake this time? You woke up briefly twice yesterday when they brought you from the mine. Tears escaped down her cheeks as she spoke. Her voice, emotional, concerned, exhausted – made me want to stand and hold her, comfort her. Too much pain, I wasn’t holding anyone.

Aching all over, I glanced into her dark brown eyes and understood the worry and pain my condition was causing her. The glimpse into her eyes hurt me, but not physically. Fearing my voice would betray my own emotions, I whispered, My throat is sore and dry.

Nettie handed me her water and watched me sip it slowly. Even though burdened by the guilt of putting her through this, I managed to say, You look tired. How long have you been here?

She pointed to a makeshift bed where she had pushed two chairs together. You’ve been unconscious, more or less, since yesterday morning.

Listen, Nettie, it will be OK. I don’t remember yesterday or the ambulance ride across Tazewell County into Mercer County to the hospital, but I will remember this moment with you. I’m going back to sleep but only if you agree to go home and get some rest.

Dad told me there were times in a man’s life when a lie was necessary, and I agreed with him in this moment. Nettie needed to go home and get some rest, but I lied about going back to sleep. There was something that needed to be done. Think, try to remember—not go back to sleep. Agreed? I asked her.

She hesitantly agreed. We spent a few more minutes together before she left. She told me our daughter, Kathy, was trying to get a plane ticket home. We decided to tell Kathy she needed to remain at college. Nettie told me she had received many calls and texts after reports of my injuries made the news.

She held my hand gently and kissed my cheek as she said, I love you with all of my heart.

My dark-haired woman’s slender frame disappeared through the door. She told me when we met that Antoinette was a French name. Maybe she was named Antoinette because her parents knew France, a place of beauty and charm, was symbolic of the woman she would become. Damn, I was lucky to have her in my life.

Nettie must have sent the nurse to my room to check on me. I convinced him to stop the morphine in my IV and give me something non-narcotic regardless of the pain. Too many miners had fallen prey to the good intentions of pain meds. Not me.

You’ll regret it. Morphine is given when the pain threshold is surpassed and enduring the pain is more medically dangerous than relieving it with narcotics. You’re all bruised up, inside and out. It’s eleven o’clock and my guess is by midnight you’ll be begging for something, the male nurse said. He made an adjustment to my IV drip, but I had no way of knowing if he really changed anything.

A few moments later, two visitors entered my room. One of the men was Hank Green. Hank was a state mine inspector with the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME). We graduated together from Bluefield State College in the early eighties.

We both started on football scholarships, but the football program was booted before either of us had the chance to make a name for ourselves on the field. The college honored our scholarships so we both stayed to graduate in the mining program. We studied together, partied together and dated many of the same college girls, until I met Nettie.

Hank’s hair was lighter than my hair, almost blonde, except at our age both of us showed signs of gray. I was broader at the shoulders, but back in the day he was faster and more sure-handed than any other player on the team. He would have been a great receiver for Bluefield State’s football team had the program survived.

Years later, he developed into one of the most knowledgeable ventilation people in the field of underground mining. He was also a mine inspector and in some situations that put us on opposite sides of the proverbial fence. He didn’t have the authority to question me in the hospital about the mishap and I didn’t think he would have the audacity either. There could be negative consequences for coming here if he referred to anything about the episode underground and his superiors were informed, especially since ventilation inspectors seldom investigated this type of incident.

It was late, past visiting hours, and he had someone with him I did not recognize. I wasn’t privy yet to what others knew about Charlie and how my injuries landed me in the hospital. In my experience, inspectors usually tried to incriminate the company and management for every bad decision workers made. Somehow it had to be management’s responsibility and most times it was. Not this time.

State inspectors were generally more reasonable than federal inspectors, more about training and solving problems than placing blame is my thinking. Was I being visited by a friend or foe? At the time, I didn’t even know if Charlie was alive or dead.

Mark, I know it’s late. Can we talk? Hank said as he reached to shake hands.

I instinctively reached and winced in pain. No handshake forthcoming. How did you get in here this late, Hank? Before he could respond, I added, I refuse to be questioned about the accident. We can talk about anything else.

Mark, Hank began ignoring my comments, this is Phil Mitchell. He represents the National Security Agency, the NSA.

Phil gestured and said hello. His black hair was cropped short, military style and he stood at attention. He looked to be mid-thirties and wore a suit. My tendency was not to trust men in suits that visited injured coal miners at late hours of the night in a hospital, especially if they wore too much cologne.

Or was that Hank’s cologne overpowering the clean smell of the room?

Hank explained he had been contacted by Phil concerning certain information exposed during the Edward Snowden debacle. Evidently, there was a file that existed in all of those thousands of phone records indicating Blue Mountain might be a terrorist target.

It was painful, but I managed a laugh. Edward Snowden, really, linked to our coal mine? The government was more thorough with their surveillance than I gave them credit.

Phil explained, The NSA has been reviewing documents Snowden leaked in order to limit exposure to the government and the country’s citizens. He rubbed his hands together as though he was cold and added, And to make amends.

He spoke a little faster than seemed normal and his accent was more northern, maybe D.C. I realize it has been what seems like an eternity since Snowden defected to Russia, so chances of this being a real threat are slim. Recently, we uncovered recordings of an alarming conversation provided from Snowden’s files. It could have been nothing more than two disgruntled employees we picked up on, or possibly something more serious.

More serious? I asked.

"Snowden’s records may have indicated a link to a terrorist cell in the beginning stages of development somewhere in Appalachia.

"We are aware that you have coal buyers from China visit the mine periodically. The coal you ship