These people walk towards mining disasters.

My road trip across every county of England has reached Nottinghamshire. I was into the former industrial heart of the East Midlands now, and while the coal mines may all have closed down, their legacy lives on. In the town of Mansfield Woodhouse there’s a company called MRS Training and Rescue, but that M-R-S speaks of a much older history, going back more than a century, to the Mines Rescue Service. And hidden underneath the unassuming brick building are the galleries, a basement that can simulate all sorts of mining disasters. A few minutes after arriving, I was already suiting up because despite having no experience and very few relevant skills, I was going to join a training exercise. The escape plan has been implemented. So, we have one person missing. The briefing said that there’d been an explosion and collapse at an old mine, one where there’s remediation work going on, high levels of carbon monoxide, and a lot of unknowns, including the location of one missing person, Nathan. The blast may have resulted in further damage to the conditions that’s down there. And as we already know, you know, the roof is in a bad state of repair in places. So, you will have to be very careful. This exercise was filmed as if it were real. We weren’t stopping and starting to get retakes. There wasn’t a director saying, “Can we do this again?” It was me and my camera, and we were going for it. After the initial briefing, it was time to check our equipment. -Charge your set with ice, okay? -Right. -Okay, so, front off. -Once you pop it back in, make sure the drain on your back cover is uppermost to let the water come out. Now you want the smooth side outwards towards you. -So, like this? -That’s it. Straight in there. Straight in there. That ice is to keep the air I’m breathing cool. We’re using closed-circuit breathing apparatus called a BG4. It’s not like SCUBA gear where you’re just breathing from a tank, there is some oxygen being added, but mostly the exhaled air is going through a scrubber and a cooler to take the carbon dioxide out and make it safe to breathe again. Also, that’s Liam there, he was basically my guardian angel that day, not part of the exercise but making sure that the amateur here doesn’t get hurt. Make sure it’s all secure. Check. -Check. -That’s good. -Alright, yeah? -All happy? -Yeah. Are we...? -No rush, no pressure, you’re doing well. I was mostly looking at what the experienced people were doing with their breathing apparatus, their BA, and I was doing the same. I’m sure they knew all the checklist by heart, but they were still going through that checklist, together, one item at a time, because one of the things I learned here was: you don’t take anything for granted. Spin your set round. Now go to your hoses again. Make sure all three anti-crush rings are in position, are present and correct. Start to extend your hoses, checking there’s nothing missing, misplaced, broken or damaged. There’s no splits. Some of the checks might seem a little odd out of context… -Check your signalling device works. -Yep. (whistles blowing) …but if you’re trapped in the pitch black, noise all around you, you do not want to find out that the seemingly minor thing that you now need to work is actually broken. I did get quite a lot of help there, including with all the complicated things like reading the air pressure on the BA. So that is to check that there’s no leaks in the system. Yep, to make sure there’s no leaks in the system and this part now is to check that the whistle function actually works as well. -So, you’ll see in a second, it gets to about 55, you’ll see it starts flashing and also whistling as well, all making that noise. And that’s if there’s not enough pressure left, yep. -Exactly. -Wow, that’s loud. (monitor beeping) The prep took about ten minutes. Even in a real emergency, they would not be rushing those checks. -Everybody alright? That’s it. Lovely. You’re on oxygen now, you’re on the closed circuit system. Okay. A SCUBA tank would last you half an hour, maybe an hour? It’ll depend on how much oxygen you’re using, and mine rescue is going to be using a lot. The rebreather set gets you anything up to four hours. It weighs 16kg, about 35 pounds, and it was… surprisingly comfortable, because it has to be. So, breathing gear on. Medical bag and supplies with one of the team, although they’re all qualified first aiders anyway. Down into the basement mine. Captain for the exercise is Derek, who’s got a lot of experience with this. When you do get a call, and it does happen, and it’s usually at the minute you do not expect it, you’ve got the police, Coal Authority, or somebody else, Mining Remediation Authority as they are now, bringing us into a situation, it could be anywhere in this country. There’s over 270,000 abandoned mine entries in the UK alone. So, we can be, and we are, anywhere in the country. Later on, Derek showed me the inside of one of the emergency vans. MRS has contracts with industry around the country, not just mines, but anywhere there’s confined spaces, and if the alarm goes off, the team that’s on call will drop everything, get to the van, and go out to save lives. The former Mines Rescue Service might be a private company these days, but one of their jobs is still emergency response. 31 years underground, I’ve worn close circuit breathing apparatus. The one before you wore today, Draeger BG4, for 28 years. So, yeah, 28 years. I came down here as a seven year old kid with my dad. My dad was a miner, a mines rescue guy. And I just followed my dad into mining. And 31 years later I became, you know, underground worker, coal face supervisor, a production overman, it’s quite a high end job. But I was sort of, I came into the world of part time rescue brigades in the mid-90s. So yeah, seems like a lifetime, but it’s been a blast. We’re going to split the narrative now. After the exercise was done, Derek and I headed down into the galleries again with the lights on to talk about what I’d been through, so you’re going to see the whole exercise from two very different perspectives now: the exercise itself, chaotic, dark, confusing, more or less what I saw. And then, walking through what seems, with the lights on, to be just regular basement, and I promise you, in that smoke-filled darkness, it did not feel like that. We lined up at the FAB, the Fresh Air Base, me at the back. Derek checked for heat sources behind the door, and in we went. Now, if I had up-to-date working at height training, we might have descended down a tight vertical access shaft or even from scaffolding at height down into that shaft. But as it was, we started by taking the easy route in. So, once we go past this point what we’ve got, we’ve got the smoke. -That’s a bit different, isn’t it? -It certainly is, yeah. So we came along here as a team. -Where we travelled, we came up here. -Did we? Yeah, you came up here, mate. See if we can get through there, mate, check for the casualty. (unclear) No casualty, route is impassable. -It’s impassable? -Impassable. Come back to me, mate, well done, well done. Good stuff. The smoke and darkness meant I couldn’t see far, and the cramped space meant that most of my vision was blocked by the other team members. Headlamps are the only source of light down there, and they were just piercing beams through the haze. Also, you can’t see my face. In movies and TV shows, if someone’s wearing a mask or a space helmet or something like that, they will be perfectly lit. They’ll put lights in the suit so, the audience can see their face. If you do that in real life, whoever’s wearing the mask just sees their own face reflected back at them. Hopefully you’ll be able to work out from context which one of those people is me. Keep an eye out for Nathan! Nathan, can you hear me? (knocking) Nathan! I was at the back there, but there was a round metal door with a handwheel on it just under a metre across with a cable tunnel behind. The team was trying to open it, but they couldn’t, it was jammed shut, which for my sake was probably for the best. ’Cos we’d initially, we’d have perhaps utilised that. -Yeah. -But because they closed it, you know the BG4 system we have on our back? -We would really call that… we would call that reduced dimensions. -That’s one way of putting it. Yeah, so to go through that, you’d actually... and there’s a process, we have to train every year for that. We take the set off as a team, put it in front of you, and we put you through that, and then there’s a way of actually manually handling that back on. To be fair, we decided away from that. -Thanks, that’s appreciated. Because it would have been too much. This exercise was on easy mode because of me. But with a mask on, a 16-kilo backpack, and chaos all around, it didn’t feel like it. They could have made this far worse, and for the mine rescue trainees, they do. So we might even look at anchor points. We might run ropes through here and pull people through. So we’re testing competence all the time. And if we’re being a little bit naughty, we can also fill this full of water. So, put the smoke in and water, get you wet, uncomfortable, moaning, groaning. We’ve looked after you today. I did think about it! But I thought no, I don’t want to be that cruel. So, this can be filled with water as well. Since that pipe was closed off, we had to take another route. It looks like the access into the actual chamber, there’s something on the door, it’s impassable. We’re going to have to go through the bottom cable tunnel. All team members fit and well, alright? That last call, “All team members fit and well”, that’s important. Derek would ask each of us, are we fit and well, and what’s the oxygen level in our breathing apparatus, and he’d write it down so, he can monitor it over time. Every 15 minutes maximum, I was getting a gauge reading ’cos what I don’t want you to do, anyone to do, is have an issue with a set. So, if I’ve seen a massive plummet in your set, I’d start thinking you’re the priority, we’re the priority, start going back to FAB. ’Cos it can happen, you can have a set failure, you can have somebody leaking, this sort of stuff. Because you don’t want to have more casualties to get out. Exactly. The team’s a priority. This is why they don’t rush the checks. They might save five minutes on getting in, but they don’t want to be five kilometres into a mine shaft and then have to go back, or worse, have a second emergency because of broken or forgotten kit. -Tom, what have you got, mate? -183, captain. -Fit and well? -Fit and well. Good lad. What we’re gonna have to do here guys, this is impassable, that’s where we are here. Can’t get in. We’re gonna go through the cable tunnel. Alright? Watch out, there’s some reduced dimensions through this, it’s a little bit tight. Stop me if you come across Nathan, alright? (whistle blows) So we’ve came along here and then you’ve got what we call a top and bottom roadway. Alright, Nathan? Nathan! So, this is the top roadway. As you see it grades off in the top and you really do have to get flat. It’s really hard to get through that with any BA on, with any breathing apparatus. -’Cos you’ve got a massive backpack on. -Massive, 16 kilogram system on your back. It’s quite, you know, heavy and complex. So, we went for the safer option. We went through what we call We’re going through the bottom cable tunnel now. Everybody’s fit and well. No sign of Nathan yet, though. The tunnel felt long, much longer than it actually was. I’d like to think I’m not unfit, but it’s an alien environment, it’s dark, it’s hot, it’s hazy, it’s disorienting, and I’ve got 16 kilos on my back. I was in the middle of the group there, Derek leading the way, with Mark at the back. They don’t use radios within the group. That’s what they’ve got the little hand whistles for. There’s quite a few passive supports, so, I’d say, wooden props, there. -So we had to make sure they were safe and sound before we went through. So, as I’m communicating back to Mark... ...five, which means five whistles, ‘raise awareness’, four means ‘advance’. -If I came across an obstruction, I’d give Mark a three and he’d lead you out. (whistle blowing) So, that’s why we kept advancing because that’s where the five and the four came from. And the whistle signals are really clear when there’s everything else going on. -Very important. I’ll be a minute or two more inside that tunnel, which means which means we can take a brief diversion. I’m going to do something that very few people on YouTube have done before: actually visit NordVPN in person. I’ve been using NordVPN for years, and I’m very happy with them. They let your computer, phone, and tablet pretend that they’re in any one of more than 100 countries by bouncing your connection through one of their many, many servers. And this is NordVPN’s headquarters, and... ...this is Marius, who is NordVPN’s Chief Technology Officer! Hi! When I’m using NordVPN, can you see what I’m doing online? We don’t log anything, and we have independent tests to prove it. Maybe you don’t want your internet provider to track every site you visit. 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Derek then checked the charging wall, the rockface, to make sure that any explosives being used were earthed and safe. But I had no idea about that because there was so much going on! -You wouldn’t hear anything. -No. -Because all this is going off here. You’ve got this bad boy here throwing smoke at you. That’s automatic. -That’s the smoke machine, yeah! So, somebody’s been around there with a remote going squeeze-squeeze-squeeze. Also Liam had another handheld device where he can top it up, but again it’s just a case of tweaking it for you so you can see what’s happening. And that looks like an orange strobe up there. -Is that for fire simulation? -Yeah, it simulates fire, noise stress, flashing lights to this cone. -Yeah that went off… -Nightmare. Did that go off for any particular reason or just to make it more stressful? When we were doing the, “Right, this is safe”, somebody went around there, “I’ll do it now”, and give you more stress! (alarm beeping) (muffled discussion) Alright. As we came through here, because it was arcing out on this light here, this light system, that’s indicating... -Oh yeah, I saw the flashing. Yeah. So really what that’s indicating, they’ve got a potential live electrical feed which has come in contact with a methane that’s been released through the fall of ground, and that’s caused the explosion blast, but unfortunately the power was still on, I’m thinking, because of the flashing strobing light. So, until I said, “Back to FAB, please confirm that the power is isolated,” if he hadn’t have isolated power, we would have gone out and team 2 would have come back, but because he successfully said, “Power is now off.” I can confirm the power is off, Keith. Then you can assess it then, let’s go again. Then we start going under these arches. Now, these steel arches are what we would call rings. Rings and cover tins. -I’ve got no memory of this whatsoever. -No, you wouldn’t have seen it! So, again, although it’s an old type of support, very effective support. So, yeah, because what you’re doing when you come through here, you’re looking for any supports that have been knocked out through a blast. I’m assessing that and feeding it back to FAB. So, if you look at the roof here, there’s proof, if there ever was proof, that we used to set live fires in here. So you can see all the carbon in the roof. -Oh! -So that’s all live fire. This is ultimately proper smoke in BA. -Wow. And back in the day when I came through the ranks, this would be set on fire, I can assure you. And so obviously through risk assessment and everything else that went with it, we sort of make things a little bit safer now. They used to set the basement on fire! And they can still simulate it with strobes and thicker smoke. I did say something that, in hindsight, was a bit foolish, that you’d have the smell of smoke… but you wouldn’t. With it being a positive pressure system as well though, Tom… -Oh, it’s going to leak out. -Any leaks will go out, but what it’s doing, you’re going to start haemorrhaging your oxygen supply. That’s why I’m checking you every 15 minutes, ’cos if you start plummeting, we’ve got 55 bar to get back. -It’s not that air is getting in, it’s that oxygen is getting out. Right. -Exactly. So what it’ll do, it’ll blow any contaminants away, well, that’s a real important bit of getting a decent seal. -Yeah? “Closed circuit breather” means closed circuit. Now, the folks planning the exercise today knew that no matter how much they threw at the team, and at me, the final video was probably going to be about the same length. So, they did skip past a couple of obstacles that they might put in for a full four-hour-long exercise. We usually block this roadway off with ventilation tubes, really small ones. So, you might have been going through that today. And we can build walls and put what we call an explosion proof stopping on. So again, we might be doing that in a mine, so, today we sort of kept it simple… -Yeah, thank you! …as regards to checking passive support. So, when I say passive support, I mean something such as a wood prop. Those wood props were holding up the roof, or at least they were simulating holding up the roof. Big long stick of wood, and then a pair of wedges at the top hammered in from the sides to add pressure and keep everything, hopefully, safe. We’ve got a prop out here! Get me a couple of guys to send me a prop! We’ll reroute here. So, what we had to do is get a team to check roof conditions. Address any falling ground and obviously set this passive support to enable us to go through. Step back. That’s it. Set it there, that’s lovely. Get some weight on it. (hammering) Look after the team, I’m going to have a look in here. -Right-o, mate. But once we get in here, we start to hear the casualty, Nathan, moaning and groaning. (Nathan groaning) Right. Casualty located, other side of the hopper arrangement. Great, we found Nathan. We just needed to get through a collapsed hopper with some rockfall. But again, they could have made this more difficult. We’ll fill that hopper full of stone. So, it’s as realistic as you can get as regards to burying somebody which you wouldn’t want to do. -Whoooo... So, what you can start doing is dropping debris into you. So, again it’s putting people at risk as much as you can, but safely. -So risk assessment. As I clambered through there... -Yes. ...which felt unpleasant as it was, you might have been dropping more rocks on me. Come on a good week where this has been set up for hot and humidity, so, we didn’t want to bury you. -Yep, alright. We wanted to get you through there and make sure you’re safe. We all had full breathing gear on. Suddenly one of us might have been caught and buried under rockfall. And one of the things that was repeated over and over, like with the oxygen checks, is that our safety comes first. Even if we can hear the casualty, we check everything first, we go slowly. Because right now there is one casualty, and the situation’s going to get a hell of a lot worse if we have to be rescued as well. As we went, Derek was also checking things called telltales: they’re bolted into the mine while everything’s stable, and if the roof or anything else moves, that’ll expose different parts of the telltales and act as a warning that things might not be steady as they seem. Green would be good, that would tell me we’ve got no movement above the roof bolted height, but because all the green section’s gone, it’s telling me the roof is unsafe. And in some of the mines we may visit, again, training competence, I’m familiar with that, people coming through it aren’t. So, we’ve brought this into the training. We made it through the hopper arrangement, and we got to Nathan. We needed to do two things, secure Nathan and secure the roof. If everybody had come through and would have just worked on Nathan, we’re at high risk. Nathan has got a broken leg. His atmosphere, his breathing is okay. So we can leave him there for now. We can address this. I couldn’t help with Nathan, because I’m not a first aider, but I could help with the roof! So, while he was screaming and they’re giving him oxygen and splinting up a broken leg, I was helping put another prop up. -Prop up. -Got it. -That’s better. -Wedges. -Alright then. -I’ve got a sledgehammer down here. Yep. My accent had got a lot more Nottinghamshire by that point, because I spent a good bit of my childhood round there, I was picking up cues from everyone around, old patterns in my brain were coming back. That wasn’t a ‘sledge-hammer’ I was picking up, i’ were a sledge’ammer. (groaning) Also, full marks to Nathan’s acting. He was doing a very good job of playing the role of “man with broken leg who’s in severe pain”. His injury was treated, he had a lower leg fracture. Closed, so there’s no blood. -Yeah. Thank you. -Yeah. That was immobilised. -YouTube thanks you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did ask in advance whether YouTube monetisation would be okay with large amounts of fake blood, because they could have mocked up a compound fracture or something even nastier, and the team would have no idea until they got there. They got Nathan in what’s called the Patient Packaging System, kind of a flexible stretcher. I finished helping with the prop… I’ll let you know once we’re there, on our way out, mate. They were relaying all this information, still doing the gauge checks ’cos if anyone’s dropped off, Nathan’s left. Simple. And in the manner of all good stories, the return journey was a lot faster. The impassable blockages could be easily cleared from the other side because whoever put the exercise together understands how narrative works, and Nathan had a fairly smooth trip out. Luke, what do you have for oxygen left, mate? -164, fit and well. -Good lad, yeah. 164. George, what about… -154, fit and well. -Well done, mate. Good boy. -And then Tom Scott? -165, fit and well, captain. I used more oxygen than anyone apart from the two people who were lugging the casualty and doing the heavy work. Yeah, I’m the only one here not literally dripping in sweat, so… (laughter) Yeah. That tells me you’re clever. (laughter) Next time, a visit that goes into the uncanny valley and out the other side...