22 Coal People Magazine www.coalpeople.com22

TheMan

on theSafetyPoster

By James Stevens

Paul Hummel

aul Hummel’s name might not be well-known outside coal mining, but the poster carrying his image, hard hat on head, right arm raised, finger pointing in warning directly at the camera, has been seen by thousands of Pennsylvanians and others as part of the “Stay Out, Stay Alive” safety program.

If you think Hummel looks like a man who means what he says, you’re right. The first thing noticeable about Hummel, chief of the Anthracite & Industrial Minerals Mine Safety Division for Pennsylvania, is his intensity of belief when

P

2222 23SEPTEMBER 2006 Safety Issue

it comes to mine safety practices.

“I remember when I first heard about the campaign for saving lives that we now call ‘Stay Out, Stay Alive,’ Hummel said. “I was at a meeting in Tamaqua in 1998 with the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, Davitt McAteer, when the idea came up. It’s now a national campaign, and I’m proud of the part people from Pennsylvania have played in getting the ball rolling. I know we have a great effort going on in this state, and I’ve visited hundreds of schools – along with many other speakers – to spread the word among teenagers to stay away from abandoned mines, buildings, strippings, quarries, and other hazardous places. Last year, we had no deaths from people being in places they shouldn’t have been.”

Tom Rathbun, information specialist for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, confirms the zero death rate. “There were no fatalities last year from people straying onto abandoned mining properties. Evidently the combination of work by property owners, local law enforcement, and general efforts by the public, supported by our ‘Stay Out, Stay Alive’ campaign is working.”

Chief Hummel has deep roots in the mining industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Family records show the Hummel clan arriving in the anthracite fields from Philadelphia in 1743. Like most of the settlers of German origin, they were farmers, plowing the fields of lush soil in the Hegins Valley and other fertile areas. When the discovery of vast deposits of anthracite coal nearby was made in the 19th century, the Hummels added coal mining to their regular farming schedule. Paul Hummel’s grandfathers became full-time miners, working in mines around Locust Gap, a small town near Mt. Carmel, PA.

Paul became involved in the mining life as a teenager when he and his friends earned spending money cutting timbers for the mines. “Cutting

timber put some cash in my pocket as I attended Ashland High School. I graduated in 1966, just in time for the Vietnam War. I remember being in Centralia with two of my buddies, talking about what we were going to do after high school, when one guy said he was joining the Marines and talked us into going with him. Well, guess what? The guy who started it was turned down by the Marines for some medical reason, but the other kid and I went right in. Just after graduation, I was at Parris Island. A very short time later, I was in Vietnam with the 1st Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, a rifle-carrying grunt.”

Hummel’s tour in Vietnam was interrupted when his father died and he was granted a 30-day com-passionate leave.

“I went back to Nam a second time and found myself doing long range patrols with Force Recon units behind the usual enemy lines, going into Laos and other secret sites. We called the long patrols ‘Barracudas,’ for some reason.”

During his tours, Hummel was wounded twice, once by a sniper gunshot to his leg, and once by fragments from a grenade in an ambush, and received two Purple Hearts. He also had the dubious distinction of being one of three known survivors of a snake bite from a bamboo viper, commonly referred to as a “two step,” since the belief was that after a bite you could only take two steps before dying. Hummel credits his youth and excellent physical condition to his survival.

Upon his return to Pennsylvania and his hometown, Hummel became involved in selling beer and other small enterprises before deciding to follow his family tradition of working as a miner. He began his apprenticeship in an independent mine as a laborer.

“I was surprised to find out that I really loved being a miner,” Hummel said. “There is a real sense of accomplishment when you watch

a truck heading down the mountain full of coal you dug out with your partners. It helps the economy and puts money into local businesses, but most of all, I felt that I was doing a man’s job.”

After a total of five years as an apprentice and then as a certified miner, Paul was urged to take the foreman’s test, which he did, becoming a foreman at an independent mine for five more years. At the completion of 10 years of on the job mining experience, Hummel was approached by a mine inspector who encouraged him to take the test to become a state mine inspector.

“He told me it was a great job, and that I could help save miners’ lives. I bit the bullet, and went to Mt. Carmel to take the written test. It was tough. Well, I passed it, and joined the Department of Environmental Resources, as it was called then, in 1979 as a mine inspector. I had the Sixth Anthracite District, which took in lower Schuylkill county and parts of Dauphn county for a total of 46 independent mines. I loved it because I felt I had an impact. The miners knew I had 10 years of underground experience and respected my comments as I respected theirs. They knew I was there to see them working safely.”

“The only part I didn’t like was when an accident happened and someone died. I remember my first death, a young man killed in a dynamite explosion at Tremont in 1980. I had to retrieve his body and investigate the accident. It was human error, as are almost all mining accidents. Someone takes a shortcut, and it’s all over.”

Hummel’s worst experience at an accident scene happened in 1984 at Sharp Mountain near Pottsville, PA. A Chevy Blazer with three young married couples plunged into a massive cropfall hole while out joyriding.

“The hole was about 15 feet across and the shaft was 319 feet deep,

continue

24 Coal People Magazine www.coalpeople.com24

going down diagonally (see photo at right). The poor people never had a chance,” Hummel recalled. “Three days after the kids went missing, someone spotted the truck down the shaft. We went down to the Blazer, which got stuck at 84 feet, hooked on cables, and we hoisted the Blazer out, with one body inside. The roof had been ripped off by the fall. Then we began looking for the others. We pumped out a lot of water from the shaft, and I noticed something white in the water. It was a woman’s hand, and her long blond hair was floating next to her body. It’s an image I see to this day. You know, we’re trained on how to enter dangerous areas, and the fear is replaced by training, but some things hit you hard anyway.”

As to the future of mine safety, Hummel is optimistic, based on new technology and shared experiences. “The detectors we need have been much improved. We have the attention of Congress about the need for help in the mines, and things are happening, like better air

Hummel continued packs, safety stations underground, GPS devises where it’s possible to use them. And things like the Stay Out Stay Alive program. We have to remember that every mine safety law is written in someone’s blood. Someone died because of a problem we can solve.”

Will we ever see a return to the mining “boom days” of the 50s?

“I remember those days well, and there was good and bad. Good to have the employment and the money, but bad in terms of lack of training and lack of concern about the environment. Safety wasn’t much of a concern then, and a lot of good men died. Now we know we have to train miners, and miners need to listen to their teachers. I tell the miners I teach, you can make your work environment as safe as you

want. You control your own destiny.”

Looking back on his career and thinking about retirement, Hummel commented, “ I really don’t have any dislikes about this job, other than having to pull some kid’s body out of a hole. I believe I’ve helped people survive, and maybe even saved some lives through my work. The day will come when I do retire, and my goal is to turn over my duties to good, competent people.”