"Go with that guy..."

I share this story with new miners during 24 and 40 hour MSHA training sessions...when I first hired on in October of 1977, our safety training was very, make that extremely, basic. President Carter signed the Mine Act of 1977 into law on the 9th of November of that year. It didn't go into effect until early '78. My new hire class was half a dozen very young, very inexperienced souls that had little to no idea of what we were getting into. We were given the company safety handbook, told to look through it when we got the chance. A demonstration of how the W-65 Self-Rescuer worked, along with some war stories from the safety dept. staff, followed by the issuing of lockers and baskets in the dry. We were given a voucher for a pair of rubber mine boots from the local department store and then received our crew and shift assignments. That folks, was pretty much the extent of it...when I showed up at the shift bosses window for my first shift underground (night's of course) and to get my brass, the guidance from my supervisor was "go with that guy" ...

Down one shaft, across a level on railcars, down another shaft, walked back through a maze of drifts and crosscuts into a hot, humid, dusty environment the likes of which I had never imagined...had something gone awry in that first week or so underground, I would not have had a clue of how to react except to - go with that guy!

Moving the slusher circa 1979

I have visited with miners that got their start in the business at or around that same period in time...whether from Idaho or New Mexico, Arizona or Montana, South Dakota or New York, they all have similar stories, Thankfully we have come a long way as an industry since then. The good old days were not all that good!