Box Flat Mine Disaster

Box Flat – Hurt and Pain 34 years on

There is no doubt that more than 34 years on, the Ipswich Box Flat Coal Mining disaster is still one of the defining moments in the history of coal mine rescue in Australia. While time onubilates many of visions of past events, for some, events like Box Flat seems like yesterday. John Ninness of Australasian Mine Safety Review spoke with three people who have been haunted by the memories of the Box Flat disaster, and yet they have triumphed in preserving the memories of the seventeen fathers and sons who perished in this horrible event.

For more than thirty years, those effected by the pain and suffering of Box Flat have sought to have rekindle the communities memory of the disaster through their personal recollections of the event with the press and new found friends and families. More than this though, over the last couple of years, they have triumphed with the creation of a fitting memorial and a permanent display in Ipswichs’ art gallery.  

I don’t think we can ever truly appreciate the impact of a disaster like Box Flat on communities and individuals but, when you take the time to sit and hear the experiences of those that have been effected first hand, you can’t help being grateful for the advances in rescue methods, mine safety technology and mine safety management practices over the last thirty or so years. 

Lance Waldron now 68 spends more time with his greyhounds and his family than he does thinking about Box Flat, but the scars across his stomach where he was peppered by fragments of coal and rock from the blast are still a reminder of that fateful night in July. Lance, a junior member of the Booval brigade was due to go underground with the rescue team, but for some fateful reason, never did and found himself on the surface when the major explosion occurred. Lance said “(the blast)  it threw me through the air like a feather. I felt myself sliding down this brick wall. I got up a bit winded and thought bloody hell.” He said “I could hear the screams of one of the men…when I found him he had half a brick hanging out of his head. I said to one of my mates who is going to pull this out you or me.” He said “I can still remember it like yesterday.”  

Allan Berlin was an underground Deputy and member of the rescue team. He had been underground three times during the night and returned to the surface for a short break. Allan recalls “Lenny Rogers, the team Captain said to me don’t go down again, there’s fresh men here. You’ve done your share. Lenny said I’m going down.” Allan said “I can still see the wagon go underground, next minute the concrete started shaking and then there was the rumbling and explosion. They found me buried under a loader. I still can’t remember how I got there” 

Allan said that Lenny Rogers the Team Captain always said to him…”if there’s a problem I’ll get you out mate, don’t worry about that. The next day they bulldozed the portal…I couldn’t do the same for him.

”Betty Rogers lost her husband, Lenny in the event. Her children lost their father. He was Mine Surveyor and was Captain of the rescue team that went underground. She vividly recalled “we all heard the explosion that night…the whole of Ipswich. “ Betty, recalling the pain of that moment said “that it was a tragic event that should never have happened. Their were details that simply didn’t come out in the investigation that should have.”  

As the four of us sat down around Betty Roger’s perfectly presented table with some of the finest cakes and sandwiches I have ever seen in my life, it became clear to me of the pain and hurt that evolves from a mine disaster like this…doesn’t just disappear despite time.  

During the conversation over a couple of hours, I could feel the sorrow and pain….albeit in my personal way. Mind you, we all welled up with tears on more then one occasion during the story telling. What is astonishing about this incident was that there was no counseling, no follow up with family of the victims………the industry has now come a long way in this regard!

 Betty, Allan and Lance said that the first time they really got together to talk about the whole event was a few years ago…most probably around thirty years after the incident. Betty said “ when we first got together we all sat round and cried for a long time. The painful memories had remained although we had got on with our lives.”Just adjacent to the Swanbank Power Station a memorial to the fallen 17 miners and rescue teams eventually has been erected in the last few years. A state of the art multimedia display on mines rescue and Box Flat has also been established in the Ipswich Art Gallery thanks to the efforts of people like Betty, Lance and Allan. The display captures their story in some detail.

These displays are a constant representation of the cost of coal in lives…..but more importantly they are a stark reminder for future rescuers. Mines rescue can be a dangerous activity. Future training, development and use of more advanced technology is now critical to ensuring a Box Flat rescue cannot ever occur again in Australia.

From Betty’s perspective events like this should be shared with the world mining community and never forgotten. Not only for the sake of paying respect to those passed on, but to ensure that we can’t make the same mistakes again.

Box Flat – 34 Years of Fighting for Recognition

 The scars of the Box Flat explosion still remain in the hearts of those family and friends affected by the disaster. Clarie Wolski, a Mines Rescue Captain suffered horrific injuries on the surface at Box Flat but died following almost two years of medical complications that resulted in suffering and pain. While Supreme Court rulings, found that his family should be compensated as a result of the disaster, a fight still continues to formally recognize him as a victim of the disaster. In this special submission his son, Rob Wolski tells the story of a man sometimes forgotten.

Clarence Edwin Wolski (Dad) was the last Mines Rescue Captain who surfaced alive from the Box Flat coal mine in the very early hours of a bitterly cold winter’s morning in Ipswich on 31 July 1972. Dad and his team of thirteen men came up alive, but the sheer force of the explosion on the surface where my Dad was standing resulted in Dad sustaining severe pelvic injuries. He died on the 20th February 1974.

Dad’s pelvis was severely broken in 23 places and completely severed. In addition, the top of his femur was shattered.  Dad underwent repeated major reconstructive surgery.  He spent six agonizing months in hospital on his back in very heavy traction. He couldn’t walk, and Doctors reports to the family indicated that it was unlikely that he would ever walk again. (A bit tough when he was only 40 and had five sons to raise aged from 5 to 16 years of age).

Dad managed to return home after six months in hospital with the aid of a special jacket designed to pull his pelvis back together.  His wife Ann was 35 at the time.  She was a Registered Nurse and lovingly nursed him back to health.  He defied doctor’s beliefs that he’d never walk again, however his family watched his personal struggle in putting one foot before the other for fourteen months.  Each step he took we felt his agony. 

Tragically, Dad died of a heart attack which was caused by a blood clot. The blood clot had formed due to the massive trauma he had sustained at Box Flat 20 months earlier. He would be one of the only coal miners in the world to die so long after a coal mine explosion.

Dad was a fully qualified mine manager and qualified mine surveyor.  He was the most senior captain of the Booval Mines Rescue Brigade.  Dad started working in coal mines at the age of only 13.  He finished school at night and then his professional qualifications for a mining career.  Dad’s Booval Mines Rescue team had won numerous mines rescue competitions.  Dad acted as the Mines Rescue Superintendent when the Superintendent was on holidays.  I can remember spending countless weekends as a small boy with dad at the Mines Rescue Station.  He spent 19 years as a volunteer training men and servicing rescue equipment in readiness for a mines disaster.  Dad’s whole life was coal mining.   He had trained with, and trained many of the men that had lost their lives at Box Flat.   They were more than work mates. 

They were mates. They would play squash on weekends and play cards together at night at our home where the laughter of big burly miners would echo well into the early hours of the morning.    Mates looked after mates. The camaraderie between underground miners especially when they are mates is second to none.  They would always stick together and always look out for each other because their lives depended on it.

Dad was the former underground manager of Box Flat but had resigned 12 months prior to the blast to take up a more senior management position at Westphalen Collieries.  Dad was recalled on the fateful night as a volunteer from the Booval Mines Rescue Station to help put out the fire within Mine Shaft No 5 at Box Flat.

The death of Dad still haunts his wife Ann (Mum) and his five sons John, Kevin, Alan, Ian and myself to this day.  Not just because Mum lost a husband and the children lost their dad, but also because of the way he died and the ensuing bitter legal battle that followed over an eight year period.   

Dad never got to see his children as adults, never got to meet any of his grandchildren and his children grew up without a father.   The older I get the more impact this seems to have on my life especially at all the critical points in life like finishing school, getting your first job, graduating from university, getting engaged, buying your first house and so on.   

Father’s day, which happens to be today, the day I am writing this article has always been a sad day for me.  Sometimes I have a tear in my eye when I see a little boy giving his dad a hug.

Losing a loved one is always difficult.  Losing a loved one under such horrific circumstances over an extended period of time and then facing the rest of your life with those memories makes it all the harder to deal with.

We all experienced grief as deep and dark as the Box Flat coal mine itself. 

The attached photo is of dad in front of a continuous miner at Box Flat in shaft no 5.  The same shaft that claimed the miners lives and became the final resting place for 14 of the miners.  Dad is on the right wearing a watch and sitting on the continuous miner.  The middle finger on the same hand of his watch is missing because a roofing bolt gave way in Box Flat the 1960's. He was almost killed then by a huge slab of coal falling on him.  His finger was amputated and he received multiple breaks down both legs and one of legs was severely broken with the bone sticking straight out.  Dad could not work for 12 months during that time. 

Sadly to this day there remains an unclosed chapter to Box Flat.   In 1997 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of one the worst mining disasters in the history of Australia, a monument was erected to honor the men that lost their lives as a result of the Box Flat explosion.  Seventeen of the eighteen men’s names that were killed were placed on the monument. 

Our family has lobbied the local council for the past nine years to have our husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather’s name placed on the same monument along with the seventeen other victims of Box Flat. We have had no success in having dad’s name placed along with the names of his mates on the same monument.  Mates always stick together in life and in memory no matter what, especially in the coal mining fraternity.  I believe that it is appropriate that he be recognized as a victim of the disaster. 

As a person who has lost his Dad in a mine disaster, I believe it is important that people in both the international mining community and wider non-mining community are aware that the pain of losing a loved one from a horrific event such as a mining disaster, doesn’t end with the passing of the person.

 Thirty four years on I still don’t have final closure. To some it may seem trivial. For our family, full recognition of our Dad as a victim of the disaster is critical to this closure. Maybe that day will come soon.