| Disasters - Names |
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Disasters - Names | ||
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| Date: | 26th January 1897 |
| Colliery: | Burnopfield |
| Cause: | Fall of ground |
| Lives Lost: | 1 |
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| Description | |
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No. 29. This accident. which occurred on the 26th January at Burnopfield Colliery, Durham, was of a more than usually pathetic character.
Robert Beattie and John Shaw, stonemen, were executing timbering repairs on a dip roadway. In the course of their operations they found it necessary to remove a prop which was partly supporting a cross baulk. Shaw suggested putting in a temporary prop, but deceased, who was in charge of the work, considered that procedure unnecessary, as he believed the prop was supporting very little weight. Unfortunately this reasoning proved unsound, and the poor fellow immediately suffered for his neglect of precautionary measures, as, on knocking out the prop, a collapse of the timber and roof instantly followed. He was, at first, only partially buried beneath the debris, and would have been extricated, as assistance was speedily forthcoming, but a second fall drove back the rescuers. Before he could be reached again, the water, which was coming down the drift in considerable volume, rose around him, and he was ultimately suffocated.
| Source: | 1897 Mines Inspectors Report (C 8819), Newcastle District (No. 3) by J. L. Hedley, H.M. Inspector of Mines, copy held in the Scottish Mining Museum, Newtongrange, Midlothian. |
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| Fatalities | |
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Beattie, Robert, aged 49, Stoneman, Deceased and his marrow were altering some timber in the Busty Bank seam when some of it knocked him down and fastened him, and before he could be released the water rose round him and he was suffocated [Inspection made & inquest attended] | |
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