Coroner told of desperate bid to dig out miners

Geoffrey Winstanley struggled to contain his emotion as he yesterday spoke about the attempt to rescue Gerry Gibson and Philip Sheldon at Kellingley Colliery on September 27, 2011.

Mr Sheldon was freed by his fellow miners and was able to walk from the pit with minor injuries. But Mr Gibson, 49, from Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire, died from asphyxiation when he was buried by the rock fall, the inquest in Selby heard.

Mr Winstanley, who was working in a team of four with Mr Gibson, Mr Sheldon and Graham Brown at the coal face 2,625ft (800m) underground, said: “There was a big bang and I turned round. I couldn’t see anything because of the dust and the debris.

“I shouted ‘Are you clear?’ and Graham shouted ‘No, Phil’s trapped’.”

He ran down the chamber towards them and saw Mr Sheldon half-buried in the debris.

“He was trapped by his waist and there was a strap across him,” he said. “We were digging him out with our hands but couldn’t get to him because of the mess.

“I said to Phil ‘Where’s Gerry?’. He said ‘He was stood by the side of me’. “I looked to the side of him and there was just a big pile of rubble, no physical signs of Gerry at all.

“Once we realised Gerry was missing, we all dived over and started digging. We didn’t know how deep it was, we were just using our hands.”

Mr Winstanley said he and his colleagues eventually managed to uncover Mr Gibson’s face and head but there were no signs of life.

He told the inquest he made a decision to continue to free Mr Sheldon before uncovering Mr Gibson, who was originally from Shotts, North Lanarkshire, and accompanying him back to the surface.

Mr Sheldon wept as he listened to the evidence and later told the inquest about the attempts to save them.

“They were all digging with their bare hands,” he said. “They didn’t have any care for their own safety.”

The inquest into Mr Gibson’s death heard there had been another roof collapse at the mine, which is situated on the border between West and North Yorkshire, just five days earlier.

Mr Winstanley and Mr Sheldon both said they were aware of it but had not received a specific safety talk about the incident and were not aware of an exclusion zone within the mine.

Extra roof supports were used in the pit after the first collapse but these were not being used on September 27, 2011.

A post-mortem examination found Mr Gibson died from mechanical asphyxia caused by the collapse. He would have been rendered unconscious immediately and death would have happened very quickly.

Mr Gibson’s wife of 25 years, Brenda, attended the hearing with her son Sean and other members of her husband’s family.

The hearing continues.