The 20th Anniversary of the Quecreek Mine Rescue

Tribune Review:  John Unger promised his wife that if something bad ever happened on his job in the coal mine, he’d find a way to survive.

For 29 years, he kept that promise, always returning to the rural, century-old Somerset County home where they raised a family and tended to their cattle.

But all that changed shortly before 9 p.m. on July 24, 2002, when Unger and eight other miners, relying on outdated maps, mistakenly bored through an abandoned section of a neighboring coal seam, unleashing 72 million gallons of frigid water that blocked their exit and trapping them 240 feet underground at the Quecreek Mine.

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