The Commonwealth Beat with Laura LeBeau - Episode 44 - 7/14/2024

The Commonwealth Beat with Laura LeBeau is a statewide Public Affairs program airing on all Seven Mountains Media Pennsylvania radio stations.    On this episode, we get a "behind the headlines" look into the miraculous rescue of "The Quecreek Nine."  They were the team of nine coal miners who accidentally penetrated an underground wall separating an abandoned, flooded mine adjacent to the active coal mine they were working in during the evening hours of July 24, 2002 in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.  Bill Arnold is the dairy farmer, under whose farm the Quecreek Mine existed.  For nearly four days, the world collectively held their breath as rescue workers furiously worked on Arnold's property to drill a rescue shaft big enough to serve as a passageway back to the surface for the trapped men.  Fraught with challenges from the outset, the men miraculously survived not only the initial flood of the mine shaft they were in, but lasted long enough to be rescued.  Hear this incredible story, along with details not widely known, even 22 years after the rescue.