Load Sixteen Tons And What Do You Get?

Photo by Roe Ethridge
 

I had 22 years in the coal mines, all underground. I started down there when I was about 22. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world when I was young. In fact, up until the time I was injured I’d been planning on working in the coal mines until I was at least 55.

The first two years in there, I worked the day shift. That goes from 6:30 in the morning till 3:30 in the afternoon. Then, after two years, I went to the second shift. That goes from 2:30 until 11:30 at night. I stayed on that for the rest of my time in the mines. For 19 years I was a continuous miner. That’s the first guy that goes in, cuts the coal up, and extracts it. I worked at the same mines the whole time I was in there.

We never went union until ’93, but I believe that every coal miner in the United States ought to be union. I worked with people who are in their mid-40s now, who had in over 20 years when the mine shut down. They’d never worked anywhere else and now their pensions are gone because of the company going bankrupt. If they get anything at all, it might be like $12 or $17 dollars a month. See, the same mine changes hands many times. The mine I worked at was owned by Massey, Shell Oil, Ziegler, and Horizon during my time there. When Horizon went bankrupt, all the guys who had been paying into the pension fund there lost it. I got to go back to my union pension, which was better for me anyway. The companies in this country absolutely don’t care about their workers. It’s not only the coal industry. It’s nationwide. Everyone’s getting away from unionization, shipping jobs away to Mexico and everything. All you’re working for is what you get paid that week.

February 15, 1994 was the last day I worked in the coal mines. I got my back broke. I also had five ribs broke and my sternum cracked. The roof came in and I was under a rock that they estimated weighed more than a ton. Luckily, I was between the tracks. You know they got railroad tracks down there to haul things in and out? Had I not been down between the rails, I would have been killed. I would have been totally crushed. That rock was something like eight feet long, four feet wide, and seven or eight inches thick. I went unconscious when it hit me, but I came to before they got it off. I remember my face was mashed up between the tracks and I was struggling trying to breathe. I was panicking. I knowed I was a goner because I could hear them talking and if they didn’t get it off of my chest, I was getting the last breath of air I was ever gonna get. We was on a “weekend warrior” shift. If you worked 32 hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you got 40 hours pay. So on Friday, we had a lot of extra men on a double crew. There were 13 of us running coal that day. We were on the way to the section we were working, and there was some rock and stuff that fell on the track. The boss got off and was gonna get that loose rock off the track. He checked the top and started getting the rock out of the way. I saw that he’d sounded the top, done everything he was supposed to do to make sure it was safe, so I got down off the train to help him.

They took me straight to Appalachian Regional Hospital, but then they transferred me to another hospital’s trauma unit. Today, I still have trouble related to those injuries. I have to go to the doctor every month for my back. I have to take pain medication, muscle relaxers, and arthritis medicine.

Right now, my respiratory problems are worse than my back injuries. I have constant shortness of breath. I can’t walk or exert myself without getting out of breath. I believe that it’s black lung, and all I really want is a fair shake. There are some doctors out there that the company always sends you to for exams. First you go to the Department of Labor and sign up to go to a doctor of your choice. If that doctor says there’s anything wrong with you, the company has 30 days to appeal the diagnosis. Then they send you to one of these doctors that don’t even believe that black lung exists. There are people on that doctor list that has never said a man has had black lung. It’s like a 99.99.99 percent chance that they’re gonna say there’s nothing wrong with you because you worked in the coal mines. These doctors are in the companies’ pockets. They know who is paying the bills. One of these exams runs about $2,000. They know what the company sends them, and if they start saying that people have black lung the companies aren’t going to keep on sending them these people for exams.

I filed for federal black-lung benefits in ’96 or ’97. I went to Dr. Rasmussen, the doctor who first identified black lung. He gave me total disability on my lungs. In ’68, he decided there was something killing coal miners and they couldn’t breathe and everything. He’s the first one that ever actually said that there was a cause for people having breathing problems. I got awarded federal black-lung status from the Department of Labor as a result of that visit. The company had 30 days to appeal and in about ten days I got a letter. They wanted me to go to a doctor out in Harlan. He was one of these doctors that doesn’t believe that anybody has black lung. He said there wasn’t anything wrong with me. He said that I couldn’t breathe because I had smoked cigarettes and I was obese. According to him, I definitely don’t have black lung. When they appealed this case, that put me before a judge. He overturned the Department of Labor’s decision. He said that Dr. Rasmussen was not a credible source. This judge absolutely don’t believe anybody’s got black lung. I know a guy who had maybe 35 or 40 years in the coal mines. He can’t be away from his house for more than four hours at a time because he has to do treatments on a breathing apparatus. This judge says he doesn’t have black lung either. He’s about 73 years old now and he’s been trying to get benefits for years. This judge also said he ruled against me due to my “appearance and demeanor.” I’m not sure what he means by that. Then he turned around and said the same thing, “appearance and demeanor,” about this 73-year-old man I know.

The company denied that I ever even worked for them. Just like I didn’t exist. Their lawyer claimed that I never did. We had a little discussion, and they said they would give me 12 years. Like they were bargaining me down from all the years I’d really worked. My lawyer wanted to agree to that because you only need to have ten years to qualify for benefits if you have the disease. She said, “We’ll agree,” and I said, “No. I am not agreeing to that.” We checked the math, and I had worked exactly 21 and three quarters of a year. I would have lost ten years out of my history on there. The judge had to go and get my Social Security records, and we were finally able to prove how much time I’d put in down there in the mines.

I quit the railroad and went to work for the coal mines. Since then, I’ve thought time and time again that I wish I’d never went in the coal mines. I don’t ever want my son going in the mines. There was an old man who told me when I was about 26 or 27 years old, “You need to get out the coal mines. When you stay there 15 or 20 years, you’re never going to be able to feel good again.” He was 100 percent right.

CHARLES TIPTON