LOOKING AT DEATH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 815, 17 March 1910, Page 3

LOOKING AT DEATH.

- - A MINER’S AWFUL EXPERIENCE.

A terrible accident, in nature happily rare even in the grim annals of mining, occurred at the Mavers Main No. 1, near Mexbro’ in January. About 6 o'clock a Swinton collier named Robert Barnard, living at 127 Queen Street, after finishing his work in the ordinaly course of events, proceeded to the pit bottom to be drawn out. The cage was all in readiness, but just as Barua'd was stepping into the “chair” the cage began to ascend. The sudden jerk bad the effect of throwing him backward, and unfortunately he was caught by the rapidly rising cage and whirled into the darkness of the shaft, hanging by one leg head downwards. The men assembled at the bottom of the shaft were speechless with horror, but the enginernan was quickly signalled and the machinery brought to a standstill with the man hanging some yards from the bottom, and altogether about 70 yards from the nearest gallery. For a time the men were too shocked to think. Unfortunately the cage could neither be moved backward nor forward, the position of the man’s back acting as a wedge. For three hours Barnard was hanging in this awful predicament. His rescue called tor iron nerve. It was not without great difficult} - that he was reached, and then the guide rope had to be cut and the man to suffer further agonising torture by having his left leg wrenched clear. By this time he had completely collapsed, despite the efforts of the men at the bottom, who kept up a running conversation. When rescued, he was at once conveyed to the local hospital, where in the afternoon he succumbed to his injuries. This accident recalls the wonderful escape at the same mine of a man named Aguew, who fell out of the cage when it was descending, but when it reached the bottom he was found clinging to the chains on the roof.