Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 11, 1993 TAG: 9309110162
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE and BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RIPPLEMEAD LENGTH: Long
It was the realization that the dead men they were tunneling toward were volunteer rescue squad members who had assisted them on dozens of previous rescue attempts.
"A rescue of this type is difficult anytime, but it's even harder when it's one of your own," said Giles County Rescue Squad Capt. Steve Davis. "I can't say enough about the way everyone sucked it up and did their job in a professional manner."
Rescue crews worked at the APG Lime Corp. Kimballton Plant through the night and recovered the bodies of Brian Keith Ratcliffe, 28, of Pearisburg and Timothy Wayne Francis, 41, of Peterstown, W.Va., Friday morning.
Federal and state officials suspended their investigation early Friday and were scheduled to resume work at 8 a.m. today, according to Mike Abbott, spokesman for the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.
The cause of the rock fall, however, was not expected to be released until early next week, he said.
A preliminary report issued Friday by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration added some details to the company's description of the accident.
Ratcliffe and Francis were "drilling a face underground on the 14 level east side" of the extensive mine, when a "large section of roof fell, crushing the cab of the jumbo drill, killing both victims instantly," the report stated.
There were 11 other people in the mine at the time of the 3:50 p.m. accident, but there were no other injuries.
The miners who work the plant's first shift from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. were asked to work overtime to finish drilling the face so second-shift workers could begin blasting there later, said Don Cumbee, general accounting manager for the Kimballton plant.
Ratcliffe had worked at the mine since 1987 and had been a member of the Giles County Rescue Squad for five years. Francis worked at the company for 17 years and had been a member of the Peterstown Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad since 1970.
Flags at both rescue squad buildings flew at half-staff Friday as the two communities tried to come to terms with what they viewed as the tragic, senseless deaths of two outstanding men.
"Everyone is just angry, hurt and upset," said Dana Higgs, a close friend of Ratcliffe and his wife, Sharon. "Brian was a perfect husband and a perfect friend."
Tom Francis, captain of the Peterstown Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department, said his second cousin, Tim Francis, was one of most dedicated volunteers in the community of 1,500 just across the state line.
He said the 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound Francis, "who could have gone bear hunting with a switch," was a gentle man who enjoyed photography, attending West Virginia University football games and watching Winston Cup racing.
A survey of state and federal mine inspection and safety records showed no recent violations related to roof control at the Kimballton mine, which has been in operation since the 1940s.
"As I understand it, this is the first fatality they've had at that mine," Abbott said.
The state's Division of Mineral Mining, based in Lynchburg, conducts quarterly inspections of noncoal mines from the health and reclamation standpoints, Abbott said. Mineral mines include limestone quarries, sand and gravel operations and the five noncoal mines in the state: three limestone, one gypsum and one gemstone operation.
The last regular state inspection of the Kimballton plant was June 23, but a state inspector returned to the Giles County site in July to provide "operator assistance training," Abbott said. There were no violations noted in the June inspection, but on May 4, a state inspector found five relatively minor violations at the Kimballton mine, none related to the status of the mine's roof.
Abbott also checked state records back to 1987 and found a total of 17 injuries at the mine, including 15 that required medical treatment, one that caused a loss of time from work, and one categorized as serious, Abbott said. Details were unavailable.
The last fatality in a noncoal mine in Virginia happened in 1989 at a gypsum mine in Smyth County, he said.
Federal records checked back to 1978 showed no violations relating to roof support at the Kimballton mine, said MSHA spokeswoman Kathy Snyder. The most recent federal inspection was made between Aug. 9 and 19.
The Kimballton mine is in a geological formation known as the Five Oaks limestone member. Retired Virginia Tech geology professor W.D. Lowry said that section of Giles County is one of the "very few places in the eastern U.S. with as thick or as pure limestone."
Former Geological Sciences Department head Byron N. Cooper, who died in 1971, studied the area in depth during the early 1940s, and published his work in 1944 in the Virginia Geological Survey.
Company officials said Thursday the accident occurred in a tunnel nearly a quarter-mile below the surface, some four miles inside the vast mine.
Cooper's 1944 report noted that the roof of the mine, on which work had only recently started, consisted of a lesser grade of limestone known as the Lincolnshire member.
"It makes an excellent roof rock, being relatively free of open joints," Cooper wrote.
Joints, in geological terms, are unseparated fractures in a rock mass. Company officials said the bus-sized rock that crushed the men fell from the roof between a bedding plane and a joint. A bedding plane is a surface separating stratified rock layers.
by CNB