Story by DEB ERDLEY Tribune-Review

T wo decades after the last Quecreek miner was pulled to safety, four men with deep roots in Pennsylvania coal country have carried forward the lessons learned during those anguish-filled days in July 2002 when the eyes of the world were on Somerset County.

For those men — John Urosek, 65, of Connellsville; Joe Sbafonni, 70, formerly of Fairchance; Joe Main, 73, a Green County native; and Robert Lesnick, 70, of McClellandtown — the miracle at Quecreek has never been far from their thoughts.

Urosek and Sbafonni emerged as critical players in a dream team of experts assembled on the fly to save the nine miners trapped at Quecreek.

In 2002, Urosek was a mining engineer and ventilation specialist with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and Sbafonni was head of the bituminous coal division of the state Bureau of Mine Safety.

They raced against the clock, knowing that if the rising floodwaters in the mine did not claim the miners, a dwindling air supply might very well suffocate them.

From July 24 to 28, 2002, there was no time for egos, the men said.

It was all about combining decades of knowledge and mining instinct to formulate a plan to save the men trapped 240 feet below ground.

Their decision to send warm, compressed air down a sealed six-inch shaft, drilled into the high point where men were huddled, provided warmth and clean air for the soaked miners and created an air bubble that kept the waters back while the team raced to drill a shaft large enough to accommodate a rescue capsule.

Today, the work of that team is an integral part of mine safety literature used throughout the nation, Urosek said.

• How rescuers saved the trapped Quecreek miners

“I think the biggest thing from a mine rescue standpoint is it taught us never to give up. And it taught us how important teamwork is,” said Urosek, now retired from the federal government but active as a mine safety consultant.

Eight years later, technology pioneered by the Quecreek team was used to rescue 33 men trapped in a Chilean mine for 69 days. On Oct. 10, 2010, using the same method of boring a shaft, then lifting the miners one by one in a metal capsule, the miners were raised above ground by a giant crane.

But the lessons gleaned from Quecreek didn’t stop there.

Although Main and Lesnick were not part of the rescue team at the Quecreek accident site, they were crucial players in what occurred in the years that followed.

State and federal probes of the accident showed although it was common knowledge that there were abandoned mines near Quecreek, its operators never obtained certified maps of the nearby Saxman Mine, which closed in 1963.

It was that mine that the Quecreek miners accidentally drilled into, unleashing millions of gallons of icy water and blocking their exit.

Investigators said those maps could have prevented the ordeal that nearly cost the miners their lives and led to the $2 million bill taxpayers underwrote for the rescue.

The investigations spurred updates in the state’s mine laws and a campaign to locate, digitize and archive old maps across the state where more than 5,000 abandoned deep mines exist, some dating back 200 years.

In 2009, tapping the recommendations stemming from the Quecreek investigations, Pennsylvania adopted a new Bituminous Mine Safety Law and established a mine safety board.

Sbafonni, who began his career as a miner when he was 18, said those changes empowered state regulators to adopt safety regulations without going back to the Legislature.

“It gave us a lot more teeth, too. We could hold operators a lot more accountable,” said Sbafonni, retired and working as a mining consultant.

That’s exactly what Lesnick and Main had in mind.

Although Quecreek was not a union mine, Main, who was head of mine safety for the United Mine Workers of America in 2002, was among those who pushed hardest for answers at the Quecreek investigations, then fought again to make sure that some change came from those probes.

Main quickly became a mine safety specialist and was named Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health in the Obama administration. He said every tragedy and every near-miss holds a lesson that makes miners safer in the future.

Retired today and living near Rogersville in rural Greene County, Main looks back on those efforts with pride.

“All the energy that went into the investigations post-Quecreek changed the mining industry. It brought about better industry practices,” said Main, started working in mines at 18. “Although it will never be perfect, it showed just how important it is to track mined out areas.”

Just as important, Lesnick said, is ensuring industry players know they will pay a penalty for not taking those steps.

Lesnick, whose grandfathers and father were miners, was chief judge of the federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in 2002. He has since retired.

He was shocked in 2008 when he was asked to consider an appeal of the $4,000 federal fine assessed against the coal company for failing to chart the location of the Saxman mine.

He said the fines were too low in light of the coal company’s decision to mine without accurate maps. He called that decision a “ticking time bomb” that played “Russian roulette” with miners’ lives.

In a ruling that rocked the industry, he found PBS Coals, the mine’s parent company, guilty of gross negligence and increased the fine to $55,000. The case would drag on until 2011, when Lesnick upheld the fine on yet another appeal.

It was the highest fine allowable by law at the time. It was the only time such a fine had ever been imposed on the industry and the first time a mine safety judge had deemed a fine too low and increased it.

That triggered discussions that ultimately led regulators to increase the cap on fines for gross negligence to $266,275.

Lesnick worries regulators have become hesitant to enforce safe mining practices.

It’s the kind of concern that dogs Lesnick, Main, Urosek and Sbafonni, who remain deeply committed to ensuring that the type of missteps that led to the Quecreek accident are never repeated.

To understand their commitment, it’s important to understand the culture of coal country, said attorney Tony Oppegard, a Somerset County native who represents miners and their families.

“There’s an old expression they all know,” Oppegard said, “that all safety laws are written with the blood of miners.”

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter @deberdley_trib.

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• ‘Burst of joy’: Good feelings still reverberate 20 years after first word that Quecreek miners were alive

• A lasting change: Mine safety emerged as top priority after Queecreek accident

• A timeline of events surrounding the Quecreek mine rescue and beyond